As far as birth stories go, I would say that Remington’s is pretty average. It was long and tiring, but nothing crazy happened and he’s happy and healthy. This is really long, though, so bear with me. I think it’s pretty easy to read.
Wednesday night we head to bed thinking that I’d be induced Friday at noon. We both still had to work Thursday. I even had an IEP meeting at 2:30pm to go to. It wasn’t going to be a big deal. I still hadn’t had any contractions.
Then early Thursday morning, 2:30am to be exact, I’m lying in bed when I feel the need to use the restroom. This is no big deal since I’ve been having to get up around 3-5 times a night to use the bathroom. As I get up I feel like I’ve accidentally peed a bit. I think that this sucks that I can’t even hold it anymore. Then as I start walking towards the door of our bedroom, it gets worse as fluid runs down my legs. I’m thinking, oh great, I hope my water didn’t just break. Just the way it happened I had a feeling that’s what it was. I make it to the bathroom and the fluid just rushes out and soaks my pajamas before I make it to the toilet. Now I know my water just broke. I spend some time cleaning up and being annoyed as every so often, I leak a little more. Finally it calms down a bit and I go back to the bedroom. Landon had half woken up through this. He told me later that he wondered what I was doing and just had a feeling that my water had broke. I tell Landon that my water broke and we start getting ready to go to the hospital. We had most of our stuff ready, but not everything was together. We spend almost 30 minutes getting clothes, toiletries, and baby stuff around. Landon mentions that we just lost another two days. We lost 2 days the first time by scheduling an induction before our due date, and now he’s coming earlier than that. We head downstairs and Landon calls the hospital. They ask if it was just a little fluid or a big leak (big of course) and what color the fluid was (clear- which is good, if it’s different colored then it could be a sign of an infection or possibility of one). They also tell me to wear a feminine pad so that they can test the fluid when I get to the hospital (I figured this and was already ready to go). They tell us to come in and we start heading that way.
This whole time it’s dark (it’s only 2:30am) and pouring rain. At least it wasn’t cold out. I’m dressed in pajamas and I rush through the rain to the car. The hospital is only about 5 minutes max from our house. On the way to the hospital and as we’re standing at the ER check in desk I feel 2 very mild contractions. At the time, I didn’t really know what they were, but I just assumed they were contractions. It just felt like cramps. We get checked in and I get a bracelet for just being in the hospital. As we’re being checked in, Landon looks at his ring finger and mentions that he thinks he lost his wedding ring. I’m like uh oh, and then I look down at his other hand. The ring is there, because it’s his left hand. He was holding up his right hand which doesn’t ever have a wedding ring. It was a funny little moment there. We then get ready to walk up to labor and delivery. I notice on our way up, another couple coming in to the ER area too. I just assumed they were they for an ER thing. I found out later that they were in labor and delivery too with their first boy. They called within 5 minutes of when we did. Later, she got an epidural right before me. She then started pushing and gave birth around 12:30 while I was fully dialated.
So we walk up to labor and delivery, and they take us to the delivery room that we saw when we toured the place. I get hooked up to the blood pressure cuff, baby heart monitor, contraction monitor, and they start an IV (mostly for the antibiotics for Group B Strep). The whole time of labor and delivery, Remington’s heart did just fine. There were never any problems there at all. We both just kind of sit in the delivery room then and chill out. I start feeling contractions more, but it’s not too bad. It’s around 4am now. We both have to call in to work, but Landon waits until 6:30am and I wait until just before 8am. Landon called work for me, though. We also waited to call our parents because we knew we’d probably be there for awhile and didn’t want to wake them up too early. Between 6am and 6:30am we call our parents and text our siblings. Landon’s mom takes off work and starts heading to the hospital. Landon’s sister does the same thing. My parents go to work and wait to come to the hospital until we’re further along. I’m only dialated to 2 or so. The contractions start getting really painful now. The contractions felt like someone taking their hand and holding your sides from the back then grabbing you really hard while kind of pushing in your back. The whole time I felt contractions the pain was in my sides, hips, back, and then in my thighs when they got really strong. Landon watches the contraction monitor and tells me how strong each one is. At first when they were around 50 (something- I don’t know the type of measurement it is) it didn’t hurt unbearably bad. But, as I went along, it’d get to 30 and I’d feel like I couldn’t take it anymore. I was definitely ready for an epidural. I think they hurt so much at the end because they were completely going away, there wasn’t as much time in between, and I was getting tired. At 7:30am I get the epidural.
I didn’t know really what to expect from the epidural. I’d heard stories about how the needle hurts really bad, because it’s so big and that it’s just super uncomfortable. When the anesthesiologist comes in, he has me lay on my right side and he preps my back. He puts a clear shield thing on and swabs the insertion area. He tells me that I’ll feel a poke and I prepare myself while laying there during a contraction. The contraction hurts so much it probably took my mind off the epidural some. Anyway, the needle didn’t hurt at all. The IV hurt 5 times as bad. The contraction goes away and I kind of feel the epidural being put into place in my back. He then starts taping the line up my back. He used a ton of tape. He connected it to the pump and showed me the little switch I could hit to get more drugs if the pain increased. He also told me, though, that it would only start the pump every 30 minutes so I couldn’t give myself too much. My legs start to feel tingly and numb. By the time Landon’s mom arrived at 8:00am I’m not feeling any pain at all. It was awesome. So, Landon’s mom is in the delivery room with us (which I didn’t realize she could do- but they let 2 visitors back there at a time and kick them out whenever they do anything) and I’m feeling great. I take a little time to update Facebook and email the special education teacher who was running the IEP I had that day to tell him I wouldn’t be at the meeting. Also at 8am, our doctor comes in and checks me. By this time I’m dialated to 4 and 100% effaced.
Around 9am or 10ish, the epidural starts to wear off on left side and I’m feeling the pain of contractions and just constant pain. I tell the nurse and she helps me turn to lay on my left side. This starts working fairly quickly and I feel better again. At this point I still can’t feel my legs. It was amusing that I couldn’t move my legs at all really. I could feel touch for the most part though. Every time the nurses would come it to check me or do something where I would have to move my hips I needed a ton of help to do so. I just couldn’t move. The whole time my right leg was much more numb than the left. I’m good for a while, then the epidural wore off on my right hip shortly before noon. I had to wait awhile before I was able to push the button again. I was then rolled to my right side to help too. Finally that worked and I was good again. By now the people next door had their baby. The doctor comes back at 12:30pm and I’m dialated to 9. They wait just a little bit (all the nurses were busy with the other people anyway), then they kick Landon’s mom and sister out totally and get me ready to start pushing. When a contraction would come (I couldn’t feel it very well, so the doctor and nurse felt me and watched the monitor) I would take in and blow out two breaths then take in one and push. For each contraction I would push three times and take in another breath after each count of 10. I ended up pushing for almost 3 hours. At first, it wasn’t bad because I couldn’t feel anything. It was annoying though because it was taking forever and nothing was changing. Finally towards the end, I’m more tried of pushing mentally than physically. I worried once that I might have to have a C section if it went on much longer. That was one thing I did NOT want to do. During all the pushing the doctor was infront of me, the nurse was on my right side holding one leg and Landon was on my left side holding my other leg. There were a couple times when I had to hit the epidural button to get the pain down again. The worst part of the pushing was towards the end when I could feel that his head was halfway out, but I’d have to stop pushing because the contraction was over. The labor/pushing took so long because the contractions just weren’t being strong enough or close together, even with a lot of pitocin. Finally when his head was almost out, the doctor decided to use the vacuum too. So, for the last contraction she suctioned and I pushed and Remington Talon was born at 3:41pm on Thursday, October 29th, 2009!
I did not want the doctor to put him on my chest until he was cleaned (that’s gross) so they start cleaning and let Landon cut the cord. They checked him over and made sure he was healthy. Landon took a bunch of pictures. They swaddled him and gave him to me. He was so cute. Neither me nor Landon cried at all. We’re just not emotional. While he was being cleaned and the doctor was stitching up a minor tear that I had, I’m just kinda chilling out and watching Landon take pictures. As the days have gone along though I mostly just think he’s really cute. I got to breastfeed him right away, and he took to it with no problem at all. After a little bit, they wheeled me down to the permanent room and let family visit. I felt great and Remington was awake and alert.
That was an amazing day and birth story. It was tiring, but so worth it. I’ll post more about the rest of the hospital stay later.
I'll also add more pictures later.
