February 10th
11:30 p.m.
Jake and I finally headed to bed. The next day was the day I was scheduled to be induced, and we were both ecstatic. I could only imagine how beautiful our little boy was going to be, and that excitement had stayed with me until my head hit the pillow. All of a sudden, the excitement was gone, and worry set it. I knew childbirth was going to hurt, but I didn't know how badly. I kept thinking of worse case scenarios, my body not wanting to actually give birth, and then I end up having a C-Section, which wasn't that big of a deal, because I really, REALLY want to meet our son, but I want to experience actually giving birth.
Jake could sense my worry and we talked for a little while before drifting off to sleep. He rubbed my back, held me close and reassured me that everything was going to be just fine. I knew everything was going to be fine, but our lives were going to change and never be the same after tomorrow. I wasn't scared of change...or was I? My fears felt petty and cheap. I knew my doubts were selfish. I put them out of my mind and tried to sleep.
February 11th
2:15 a.m.
I hate waking up in the middle of the night, when something BIG is happening the next day. I honestly debated getting out of bed then, but I knew I needed to get as much sleep as I could, seeing how I would probably not get a good night's rest for a long...LONG time.
4:47 a.m.
I woke up to the sound of rain. The window in our bedroom was cracked open slightly, and there was a slight drizzle outside. The rain calmed me. I felt very at ease, and was ready to see what the day had in store for me. My alarm was set to go off at 5:15 a.m. (our check-in time at the hospital was 7:00 a.m.), but I decided to get up anyways. I took a long, hot shower, and just tried to relax. I felt some cramping in my lower abdomen throughout the morning, which I just figured was Caige just moving around, reminding me again that hopefully, if things went smoothly, I was going to be able to meet our little bundle of joy.
The cramping was a little more intense at different times. Nothing significant, but it took my breath away a few times. Jake got up and made us an awesome breakfast, which we ate in our bathroom and just talked about our excitement.
6:30-7:00 a.m.
We got in the car with everything we needed (both of our hospital/overnight bags, car seat, clothes for Caige to wear home, things to occupy us while we were waiting for things to progress, etc.). The drive felt like it took forever, even though the hospital is only 20 minutes away. We drove slow and held hands until we got there. I didn't realize it, but my grip kept getting tighter and tighter on his hand as we got closer to our destination. This was it. We were officially going to become parents!
We walked in the front doors of the hospital, and checked in. They had us sit in a waiting room for a few minutes until my room was ready. We were escorted by our nurse to our room and settled in. I changed out of my clothes, into my hospital gown, and waited.
7:30 a.m.
The nursing staff strapped the fetal and contraction monitors to my belly (which were rather uncomfortable by the way!) and started typical triage procedures. Temperature, blood pressure, heart, lungs, etc. My mom showed up and was there as a second support to myself and Jake. I felt way more at ease with my mom there. And again...we waited.
8:00 a.m.
The beginning of my induction was going to start with a small pill being inserted into my cervix called 'Prostaglandin' to soften things up and hopefully start dilating on my own, which I hadn't been doing. At my check-up the day before, I was only dilated to a 2 1/2. The nurse checked to see where I was at, and to our surprise, I was dilated to a 3! And I had opted to not have my doctor stretch my cervix like she had already done two or three times. The nurse informed me that due to my uterus contracting too much on it's own, they would have to skip the pill, and call my doctor to see what she would suggest we do next.
My doctor arrived a few minutes later, checked me herself, and then told me she was going to break my water and then we would wait to see what happened. I felt the pressure of her hand, and then a big gush of warm fluid. It literally felt as if I had wet myself. And with every contraction I had, and every movement Caige made, more and more fluid found it's way out.
Slow and steady contractions began to occur, and pain really kicked in. I'm not one to say that I have a high pain tolerance, but I definitely will admit that I don't. But I wanted to experience as much as I could. I had decided that I was in fact, going to get the epidural when it became too unbearable, and I wanted the nursing staff to let me know when it was getting close to the point where paid medication could not be administered. They were great about monitoring that for me.
11:30 a.m.
Jake's mom had arrived about an hour or so before. The pain from the contractions had become so intense, and so painful, that I was about ready to throw in the towel. In my room, I had a jetted tub in the bathroom, and I called the nurse to let her know that I wanted to soak in it for a little while and try to relax. The nurse ran the water for me, and I changed into my bathing suit (I was a little shy being naked around mine and Jake's moms. It just didn't feel necessary). The warm water felt awesome on my back and legs. The jets hit in all the right spots, but once a contraction came on, the water seemed to make things worse. The heat from the water made my face hot, and each time I tried to breath through the contractions, I felt like I was going to be sick. (at this time, my contractions were hitting in the '10' range. Which the monitor only measured to '12'.) Jake had been doing so well with trying to comfort me and reminding me to relax and breathe during the contractions, but the pain was so bad I couldn't do it anymore. I know I had initially wanted to go through labor without any pain medication, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted...no, NEEDED the epidural. I got out of the tub and asked the nurse to get things ready for that.
12:00 p.m.
The anesthesiologist finally arrived with everything he needed to relieve my pain. Luckily I was still able to get it. The nurse had checked me prior, and I was dilated to 4 cm.
The nurse raised the bed and had me sit on the edge of the bed, with Jake sitting in front of me. I put my feet on his knees to balance, and the nurse had me put a pillow on my lap, and had my curl myself forward over it. The needle the anesthesiologist was using to insert the catheter into my spine to continuously release the epidural medication was a lot larger than I would have liked. I won't describe the size, but just the fact that he had to poke and prod me six or seven times in order to get the right placement, should give you a good idea of how unendurable life was for me at that moment. My contractions were spiking into the '12' range, so that in conjunction with being stabbed in the spine with a large needle multiple times, does not make for an enjoyable moment. I kept reminding myself to breathe, and tried so hard to fight back tears. I caught myself practically moaning from pain a few times, which I promised myself I was not going to do, but I realized at that point in time, it was uncontrollable. During the midst of this, I caught a glimpse of my mom and Jake's mom in the corner of the room, kneeling on the floor, both looking a little green. As they like to say, they were doing the "Tebow".
Shortly after the catheter was finally in place, snugly between my vertebrae, a tingling sensation came over the lower half of my body and I felt no pain. I felt pressure from the contractions and was able to move my legs (though they felt extremely heavy), but I didn't have any of the 'paralyzing' feelings that I had read about so many women experiencing from their epidurals. After that, I no longer felt the pain of my contractions, and was able to sit back, relax, and happily sip my apple juice.
12:30 p.m.
My dad finally arrived! And Jake's sister Bailey and her boyfriend Xanti, stepdad, Dave, and Jake's brother Cole and his girlfriend Summer stopped by to say hi and see how things were progressing! Luckily, I was in no pain. My dad wouldn't have handled that well at all! Everyone was kind of in and out of the room at this point getting food, walking the halls and just keeping themselves entertained as we waited.
3:00 p.m.
We were all pretty curious to see how much I had progressed in the last couple hours since the monitor showed my contractions were getting more and more intense, lasting for longer periods of time, and occurring fairly close together. I called the nurse in, she checked me and I was dilated to 9 1/2! Everyone was surprised, as was the nurse! She told me that if I felt more pressure, to call her back in because I could be ready to push soon!
A male nurse that was helping my nurses out, put in his 'two cents' and said that it could be an hour or so before that last 1/2 cm dilate, and another 2 hours of pushing before Caige would be here. Boy, were his statistics clearly not suitable for me. I was fully dilated about 3 minutes later.
3:30 p.m.
My main nurse, Allison, set up my bed for me to start pushing. My doctor had been paged, letting her know that I was ready to push, but that I wasn't close to crowning, so she was on standby. The only people who remained in the room during this time was my mom and dad, Jake and his mom. Allison had Jake stand on the left side of the bed, holding my left leg, and mom was on the right side, with my right leg. The plan was for me to push during my contractions, 3-10 second long pushing intervals, with Jake and my mom simultaneously pushing my knees into my chest. (The awesome thing about my epidural, was I still have the urge to push. I felt everything, except the pain!)
We did these pushing intervals for a good 5-10 minutes or so, and then she immediately told me to stop! Caige was coming a lot faster than we anyone would have guessed, and she needed to page Dr. Fealko to come up right away! The baby was coming, and he wasn't slowing down!
Dr. Fealko arrived 2 minutes later and our pushing commenced. She sat at the foot of the bed, ready to catch Caige and intervene at any moment if she needed to. I could feel him drop lower and lower into the birth canal, and the pressure increased very quickly. It didn't hurt, but I could only imagine the pain I would have felt if I wouldn't have gotten the epidural. Allison was busy behind Dr. Fealko, setting up a sterile station to clean Caige up on after he came out. She was bustling around, counting for me as I pushed, once in a while adding in a 4th, 8 second push in with the normal 3 we were doing.
At one point, Caige's heart rate started to drop, I stopped pushing so Dr. Fealko could monitor it for a minute, but we started right back up.
Next thing I know, while in between pushing intervals, Dr, Fealko smiles at me and says, "He sure does have a lot of hair! Do you want to feel him?" Apparently, he was visible! She told me that his hair could wrap around her finger, as she massaged me to help prevent any tearing from happening as he came out. I declined to reach down and feel him. My hands were locked tightly behind my knees and I was in the zone. I was so focused on my breathing, and pushing, that I couldn't lose focus.
3:57 p.m.
I started pushing again, this time with the 4th interval added, and Caige's head was out! I kept pushing as hard as I could, and Dr. Fealko grabbed his head and told me to look down. His little face was blue (from not being exposed to oxygen, and with one big push, she pulled him out. She quickly unwrapped the umbilical cord from his neck (which was the reason his heart rate had dropped slightly while I was pushing), and cleaned out his mouth and nose so he could take his first breaths. He started to cry. The most beautiful cry I had ever heard. I couldn't help myself, but I bawled. Everyone in the room cried (except hospital staff). Dr. Fealko placed him on my chest, and as she cleaned him she said "Happy Birthday!", and for some reason, her saying that made me cry even more. This gorgeous child, who I had the honor of carrying for 9 months, was mine. I looked at Jake, he had tears in his eyes. He kissed Caige's head, then leaned over and kissed my forehead. This was what we had been waiting for. I have an awesome man by my side, and now a beautiful son to care for, teach, and watch grow.
Caige Daniel Smith
February 11, 2012
3:57 p.m.
Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz
Length: 20 1/4 in
(all of these pictures were taken in the hospital)
I do have the video of his birth that I could post (it's a 15 minute video), and it doesn't show anything graphic or disgusting. If my wonderful readers would like, I'd be more than happy to post it.
