It was a moment that I ignored and feared for an entire 9 mths, maybe a moment I ignored and feared for my entire life. Or at least from the first time I saw a women having a baby on TV or in movies. Which, I will go ahead and tell you now is nothing like the real thing.
I was three days overdue, it was a Friday and I remember waking up that morning knowing that it was THE day. I had heard that you will know when its coming and there had been a few days where I woke up thinking that it was the day... but this particular morning I didn't just think it, I KNEW it. For some reason though, I decided to keep that to myself. Like it was me and my babies little secret.
I don't think I heard one story about childbirth that didn't scare me. Even though I had a sick curiousity to ask every women who had been there to describe for me in detail their experience. None of the stories I heard helped with the fear factor of the whole thing, but at least they helped with the curiosity piece. Sometimes not knowing can be scarier than knowing, so for me hearing these stories did somehow bring me a strange comfort. So anyway, here's mine:
8pm rolled around and I thought "maybe I was wrong, maybe today is not the day" and just about that time my husband walked into the room and asked "hey whats that on your foot?" -- now this is where the grossness starts, but really it doesn't stop for a while so prepare yourself. So I heard about what was on my foot from my good friend Molly who had a baby about a year ago, over dinner around week 6 of pregnancy. The dreaded Mucus Plug. Some women anxiously await this thing, some (like me) dread its arrival... but whichever boat your are in its a sign that you are about to go into labor any day. I had spend weeks wondering if it would hurt when it came out, would I know if it did... well did not even notice it had come out at all... my husband disovered it on my ankle. Nothing about labor is at all pretty... starting here.
So around 9pm I thought to myself "I am having contractions" - but said nothing. Nothing! Totally tried to ignore them. There me and Jon are, Friday night, watching BROTHERS and I say not a word that I am having contractions. Around 10pm he looks over at me and asks if I am ok because I have a weird look on my face. My reply is that I think I am having contractions and that I am going to go upstairs, lay on my side and try and make them go away. Imagine how baffled my poor husband was at this sentence. For weeks all I had been saying was how ready I was to get this labor thing over with and here I am saying I'm going to upstairs and try to stop it.
That may sound crazy to lots of people, but my thought process at the time was that I was too scared to have the baby, that I physically could not go through with the labor and if I focused hard enough I could make it go away. I decided, matter of factly, that I would just never actually have the baby since it was going to be too painful for me and I would just keep him safe and happy in my belly forever. I had been given words of wisdon early on that a woman's body is made for childbirth and to just remind myself of this when the time came. Ha, didn't help at all because I was convinced that every other woman in the worlds body was made for childbirth, but mine was somehow malfunctioned. My body could not handle it and that was that.
I was soon to discover I was a lot stronger than I thought and that I had been spending way too much time scaring myself about labor. Because as most things turn out to be, labor was not as scary as I had made it in my mind. Don't get me wrong, it is no picnic and it is painful.... but your mind goes to this place of pure serenity (at least mine did) when you finally realize that there is no turning back, this baby is coming and now you just have to get through it. Which is exactly the state of mind I found myself in when my water broke.
I heard a statistic that only 7% of women's water actually breaks, I wonder if its those 7% of us who think they can stop labor from happening. Who knows, but your water breaking is no joke. I thought that water breaking was just a big rush of fluid and then thats it. Nope, no way... it is a constant rush of fluid that for me lasted 18 hours. Strangely enough, when the contractions started really to kick in that rush of fluid felt good... like natures pain reliever. So if you are planning on trying labor drug free (more power to you sister) then you should find comfort in that. That being said, contractions progressively get much worse as you go on and in my experience - I didn't want to find out how much worse. I got the drugs... What do contractions feel like? Exactly how they sound, your insides contracting. Like painful, more painful that you have ever felt before, cramps. I thought when I heard they are like cramps that they wouldn't be that bad, I'm not going to sugar coat it ladies... its bad. Its painful to say the least. The nurse kept asking me when I wanted the epidural. I didn't know what to tell her, I didn't know if it was going to get worse. She kept asking what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10... take my advice now, if you are getting drugs, just say your pain level is higher than you think because if you wait until you are at a 8 or 9 to ask for the epidural you are going to have endure getting that while having intense contractions. Not fun, not fun at all... ask for it before you think you need it. And all I am going to say about the epidural is - yes it freakin hurts and YES it is worth and it and YES do it!!! That needle was nothin compared to the contractions and not to mention pushing. Just keep in mind once they give it to your the first time, you don't have to see the needle again at all, all they do is press a button when you need more. For some reason I thought each time it wore off I'd have to get the needle again, nope... so if you are like me just the one time to set you at ease.
So from there I started pushing around hour 17 and yes, hate to tell you... I did poop. Sorry to say, that is next to impossible not to do when you push, and I tell you what I have no shame. Don't fear it, prepare your husband (or whoever is in the room with you) for it, I basically told him that was going to happen the day after I told him I was pregnant so he could mentally prepare himself. You have to let your body do what it needs to do and not hold back anything. Or feel embarassed about it, you are making a human for goodness sake! Don't start worrying about pooping and being embarassed and letting that be something that creates fear in you. Accept it, embrace it, move on. After about an hour of pushing with no progress, I ended up being rushed to the OR for a C Section (babys heart rate when too high, my blood pressure was too high, etc) - three hours later after recovery... I met my baby.
He looked exactly like Jon. When I looked at Jon, the joy on his face was indescribible. Which only added to my joy. He was so little and just cuddled up under my neck and fell fast asleep. Tears started rolling down my face (mind you this may be a little jumbled timing wise as I was on serious pain killers at the time) -- and I just remember saying to Jon "I love him so much".... so much at that moment I didn't think I could ever have another child because there would be no way I would ever love any living thing as much as I love Dylan. Words do not do the emotions you have justice, so I won't even try. Just imagine a person you love most in this world, or several people, combine them all together and then times that by 1000 and that is how much you love your baby. I will say that I almost instantaneously forgot all about the labor, totally forgot about all the things that sucked about being pregnant and was never so happy to be in a hospital in my life. Far and away... the best day of my life. It will be for you too, thats one thing us mothers all have in common. 