The Push

I'm exhausted, sore, and coming down from about a 7.5 on the crazy scale right now, but I really, really want to meet my goal of blogging 5 times a week now that little man is here. Since our ghetto hospital didn't have Internet I'm already behind schedule, so I'm going to ignore my beckoning bed and write.

Let's head back to Thurs...

At around 11:00 Matt and I headed to bed and I started having contractions pretty regularly. I tried so hard to get some sleep but to no avail. Around 2:00 the contractions started to get more painful and closer together, so I got up to walk around. Since my water broke with Emma and I didn't have any contractions until I was induced, I wasn't really sure how all of this was going to play out. By 3:30 I realized that it was probably about time to head to the hospital, so I went in to wake my crazy-in-the-middle-of-the-night sleeping husband, who, during college, people used to wake up abruptly in the middle of the night just for a good laugh. He was pretty confused by the whole idea of me being in labor, but I eventually convinced him it was time to go...not before he asked if I was going to shower, (um, no I've had plenty of leisurely time in the last several hours being awake to shower if I wanted, thank you) if he could shower, (really?) and if I wanted to swing by Starbuck's (he just wasn't getting it, poor guy). He eventually woke up enough to get us safely to the hospital (after asking if he was allowed to run some red lights) and the whole surreal experience began. I wasn't any more dilated at that point then I was earlier in the day at my check-up, but the doctor that had seen me earlier was on call and was pretty confident of my impending delivery, so there was no question about if I should be admitted or not. Of course, I asked for my epidural right away and got it two hours later. Boo. By that time I was having the shakes and feeling like I was going to throw up at every contraction. Thankfully, the pain was relieved enough for me to rest for the next several hours though. At about 11:15 I told the nurse that my contractions were starting to get pretty painful again so she said either it's time to up your dose or push. Sure enough I was at 9.5 centimeters, so it was time to meet my baby boy! Having someone tell you that it's time to push another human being out of your body has got to be one of the weirdest experiences in the world. Offering you a large mirror to watch it happen is even weirder; I had to decline. I pushed for about a half hour with Matt in soccer drill mode, holding my legs and counting to ten. Finally the doctor said, "Look! Here he is!" to which I closed my eyes to the bloody mess of a conehead child in front of me. As I was saying, "Eeeeww gross, " I reminded myself that it was my child and I probably shouldn't close my eyes. I held my little mole right away and actually remember everything with this one, unlike the painful blur of Emma's birth. It was a pretty great delivery if I do say so myself. Though tomorrow I'm writing about our next two days in the hospital. Now that's a different story. I'll going to have to have my gripe water and tequila on hand for that.