Part 2 : Labor 10:50pm-7am

Ashley met us at the hospital, and Joy drove home to feed Mely, since she didn't know how long she'd be with me. We arrived on the 2^nd floor and checked in. I had already given them all our insurance information and everything weeks ahead of time but they still had to verify it was me as I was vomiting into a towel over their desk. “How far apart are her contractions?” the nurse asks. 3 minutes. OH! *vomit, vomit*.

10:52 pm The hospital was super busy that night with expectant mom's and they had to clean up a delivery room quickly before allowing me to go in. So they put us in this little dinky room with barely a bed and bathroom. I look at the nurse “Is this the room I have to deliver in?” She smiled and said, “no, they're just finishing up a room for you now.” She gave me a gown to put on and I changed with my sweetie's help, in the small bathroom. Still trying to be a good sport and not complain I gave Ashley a goofy a smile right before they told us our delivery room was ready. By this time, the back labor was so intense!! I don't ever want to feel like that again- it was the worst pain I could possibly imagine. I'm sure a gunshot wound or a beheading would have felt better at the moment!

I remember looking at my sweetie and telling him “I want an epidural!” Up until this time we had thrown back and forth the idea of getting an epidural. To my Sweetie it was a no-brainer! Why wouldn't I!? But we had decided together to see how long I could go, and I would get one if I thought I needed one. I knew it wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things and would only make my delivery more comfortable. I'd actually be able to enjoy the process somewhat instead of freaking out in pain ever 3 minutes or so. I'd be more alert and less exhausted by the time Phoebe joined us. The only “down side” was that I couldn't relax in the jacuzzi in the delivery room bathroom- but let me tell you- that was the last thing on my mind at the time (my water had already broken so I wouldn't have been able to anyway because of infection possibilities). I thought I would want to be able to walk around during delivery- not be confined to a hospital bed for hours, NOPE! At that point I just wanted this excruiating pain to stop and if that's what it took than bed was fine by me! I remember using the bathroom once with my sweetie's help and had a contraction and I screamed- it sounds weird but that scream somehow releived a bit of pent-up emotion and I felt fractionally better.

The nurses were asking me all sorts of questions, which was really the worst part about having a baby in the hospital. Hello! Having a baby here! You have all my information- why are you asking me these questions as I'm crying and vomiting in front of you??! Is this really necessary? My sweetie told them I wanted to get an epidural but they said that I had to wait about an hour before they could give me one. An hour!!! I want it now! They had to monitor the baby's heartbeat and my blood pressure before they could give it to me ( they had told us this in the birthing classes we took, but at the time it seemed ridiculous!) They gave me another sort of pain medication that barely made a difference. At this point, every time a contraction would come, I would cling on to my sweetie- I'm not sure what else was going on in the room at the time. I know Ashley was taking pictures of everything, and mom was probably pacing or doing her crossword puzzles and praying for us while containing her excitement on becoming a "Gramsy" again.

12:05ish Finally, the anetheseologist came in. They told me that only one person could stay with me during the inserting of the epidural, so Ashely snapped one last picture and her and mom left.

My sweetie stood in front of me while the doctor inserted the tiny needle/thread into my spine. The nurse and doctor told me “sit still” RIGHT! Because these body convulsions can be controlled so much! I just had to let them know when a contraction was coming so the doctor could pause until the contraction passed. The actual insertion didn't hurt too badly- it felt like a bee sting in my back. It took four tries to get the epidural in correctly. The first time it was hitting a nerve, second time it hit a blood vessel, the third time it was making my leg rapidly jerk (that was bizarre!!) , and the fourth time it worked. They said it would take 10-15 minutes for the epidural to take effect. It couldn't have come soon enough!

It was SO much better afterwards!!!!! It was the third best decision I ever made- after receiving Christ as my personal Saviour, and marrying my Sweetie of course.  I couldn't feel the extreme pain of the contractions at all. I could still tell when they were coming because I felt a little bit of pressure, but only if I concentrated on it- it was great!

2:30 or 3 am- Joy and Ashley went home to try to get some sleep. My sweetie got the pullout sofa ready to sleep on and mom stayed in the chair by my bed. With all the excitement I couldn't sleep. I tried. I closed my eyes and tried to rest but knowing that our little girl would be joining us in a matter of hours was just so mind-boggling. I laid there in the semi-darkness praying and listening to the whir of machinery and the beep of the monitor. I loved being able to hear our little girl's heart beat the whole time. Me to mom- “Are you asleep?” Mom- “no, are you?” me- “no, I can't sleep” mom- “me either”. We ended up talking for an hour so, interrupted once by a nurse checking on me. Finally, I was able to sleep for 45 minutes. My mom couldn't sleep but she was able to rest a bit. Every hour or so the nurse would come and flip me to my other side so the epidural would have an even effect. Once I stayed on my left a little too long and my left leg was totally numb! I mean, completely! “um, mom, can you help me...I think my leg fell off the bed.”What I could feel of it- it felt like an elephant's leg, and it felt like it was on someone else's body..I could touch it with my hand but didn't feel it on my leg. So bizarre!
I was so excited to see what would happen in a few hours!

Part 1: Phoebe's Due Date and Pre-Labor

This is my labor story in 3 or 4 parts. Some of it might be very detailed. If you are sensitive to certain medical terms, now is the time to stop reading. You've been warned! =)
Note: All the professional looking photos are taken by Ashley Michaelson- Shiloh Photography. 

www.shiloh-photography.com

 3/7/11- Due Date

3:30- We arrived with mom for our Dr.'s appointment. We were going to see Dr. Fahnlander; we had seen all the doctor's at the ObGyn and Associates except for Dr. Fahnlander- we wanted to be able to meet whoever was going to deliver our little baby. I had to have a non-stress test to make sure Phoebe was still cooking alright.

We got ushered into a little room with a large, super-comfy brown leather recliner. The nurse hooked up 2 monitors- one for our baby's heartbeat and one to monitor my contractions ( I couldn't feel any yet). The nurse came in about every 15 minutes or so to check on the progress. I drank a cup of ice water to make Phoebe move around some. About 30 minutes later we were done and back to the waiting room. Mom and I were chatting and looking at a magazine while my sweetie was observing a guy walk around asking everyone in the waiting room for a dollar for a soda. Really? Use the water fountain outside in the hallway- do you know what I could do with a dollar??

We got called in to the little check-out room (after initial, urine test, weight, and blood pressure). Dr. Fahnlander came and it was as if she had been our doctor since day one. She was super friendly and sweet! When she checked me, she said that I was 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced! We were so excited since this was the first progress we'd heard of so far. She asked if I wanted to “get my membranes stripped”. “I don't know, what's that?” “Pardon my fingers, it just gets the natural hormones that induce labor to release by swiping my fingers back and forth. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't” My sweetie started gaffawing since she said all this very conversationally while still “checking” me. This in turn of course made me laugh- which just felt weird. She said she wanted to see me on Thursday for another non-stress test to see if we wanted to induce on Friday or Monday. This made us really excited- thinking that we may meet our baby by the weekend! She asked if we had an ultrasound set up? no- well let's see if we can get you in today. AHHHH sweet!! we love ultrasounds! We love seeing our little baby! She came back and said we could get one but had to wait for the current patient to be done- so back to the waiting room we go!

4:45- I called Joy and Ashley to let them know the great news- about 5 minutes later we were called into the ultrasound room. The tech was a young gal who had a 15 year old step-daughter. A random song was on the radio and we commented on it and she said normally she listens to LIFE 107.1 but that it wasn't coming in. Once I got all gellid up and start we were able to see our baby's face!! The tech got 3D shots of her and were totally amazed at how well they came out. We could really see what our baby would look like! I asked her if we could verify that it was a girl – YUP!! STILL A GIRL!!! what a relief!! even after 2 positive girl gender ultrasounds there's always that chance they could be wrong. You always hear the “horror” stories about finding out that mistake a week before giving birth and having to scramble to get items for the opposite gender. When we came out of the ultrasound room we were setting up our next appointment- just in case I needed it and Dr. Fahnlander came over to us and asked to see the ultrasound pictures. She was raving about how cute Phoebe was and how much she loved her little “jowels”. She was even showing the pictures to the other gals in the office and they were all exclaiming how great she looked. I really appreciated this since I'm sure they see a lot of ultrasound pictures in one day. I didn't want to be one of those crazy mom's who shows off their ultrasound pics to everyone- although inside I did want to run down the hall and through the waiting room showing everyone!

5:30pm- We left super happy! We decided to go to Chik-Fil-A for supper to celebrate. I got my favorite combo meal with an ice cream instead of soda, and we brought Mom back to Joy and Gary's. I ran in to show them the ultrasound pics and then had to dash home to be back in time to meet Lawrence and Ashley for The Bachelor!

7pm- I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable and couldn't quite get into a good position- I walked around, stood, brought out the birthing ball, tried sitting on the couch- nothing worked. By uncomfortable I mean pretty crampy and feeling like I had to use the bathroom a lot. There was some bleeding but they said there may be some after a check up. I filled 3 panty liners pretty quickly with fluid and one trip to the bathroom yielded what I thought was my mucus plug. I called my sweetie over and then Ashley and they seemed to think that that's exactly what it was. Interesting....

8:30pm- Super uncomfortable! What I could only imagine were contractions were coming more frequently accompanied by the back ache that didn't go away! I started pacing more and called mom to ask her what we should do and to alert her of what was happening- just in case we went to the hospital. We were thinking we may go have it checked out and just have her come if it was the real thing- but we would keep her posted.

8:45- Ashley decided to go home and rest in case this was the real deal and would be up half the night.

8:50- Lost my entire supper in the kitchen sink as the Michaelson's were walking out the door.

9-1030- between this time my sweetie called the doctor and asked when we should start making our way to the hospital. The Doctor called back “how far apart are contractions?” “under 10 minutes apart” ( I was thinking at this point around 5 minutes or so, but since we hadn't been keeping track I didn't know for sure) “this is your first child, right?” “right” “ Go to the hospital when contractions are 5 minutes apart for 2 hours.”

So we started timing the contractions- every time one would start I would yell out to my sweetie and he would write down the time. I got in the shower – one, to help relieve some tension and two- if this was the real thing and I was in for the long haul, I wanted to be as fresh and clean as possible.

After a number of contractions we realized that they were coming every 3 minutes. The back pain was getting very intense. We decided to call my mom and see if Gary could bring her to the house so she would be here when we had to go to the hospital. Shortly after getting out of the shower, Mom and Joy arrived. I was so glad to see them ( in between contractions =). My “love language” is physical touch- I love holding hands with my sweetie, I love it when he has his arm around me, etc. but during contractions I didn't want him to touch me. We joked that that's how we knew I was in labor for sure. When Mom and Joy got to our house I hugged them both. I really hugged Joy hard- I remember feeling that I really wanted to cling on to her at that moment. 

While I was in the shower I had been asking my sweetie to throw random last minute things into our hospital bag. I got on comfy pants and a t-shirt and my slippers- he loaded the car and we started out the door. Mom drove with us and it was great to have her support. Every time a contraction would hit she'd write it down in the dark backseat as we bumped along. Even though the trip to the hospital is only a short 8-10 minutes, I knew it wouldn't be easy with the contractions. The “first” one hit before I could even get into the van. I was torn between wanting to get in the van to get the hospital quicker and not being able to move at all, and stranding outside while I rode the contraction out. I decided on the later. After it was over, I got in the van and we took off. The next contraction came about 3 minutes later- thankfully at a stop light and since it was about 10:55 not many people were on the road- My sweetie asked if I wanted him to stop or keep going and I asked that we stop.

Since 8:45 about every 5 contractions or so I had been throwing up, so I was sitting on a towel and had one in my hands that I could vomit into. We stopped twice more on the way to the hospital due to the immense pain, but eventually got there. Every time I moved positions I was so uncomfortable- I debated walking in but knew I should use the wheelchair that my sweetie had run gotten me. My sweetie carried our bags and my mom wheeled me to the elevator- only ramming into the elevator wall once on the way in. UGGGG! We were all pretty nervous and excited!!