My son's birthday is coming up and I want to relive his "birth day"

I find it to be a semi-amusing story, and I'm wasting time because I don't want to clean the guinea pig's cage...so here goes.  I know it's long.  It's more for me to remember...if you don't want to read it, I guess I can't blame you.

I went to school and work on Friday, November 7, 2008.  I was just day's shy of 36 weeks pregnant.  Everything was going perfectly.  I had made arrangements with all teachers (but one stubborn arse) to take my finals early because I was due on Dec. 5, 2008, which was either during finals week or right before, don't exactly recall.

My son decided to shake things up, though.  On Saturday morning (11/8/08), I met with two LING 413 classmates (funny the details that stick and those that leave) at a coffee house in my husband's town (now my town, as well) to work out a plan of action for our group presentation on bilingualism. (I think that was the presentation topic...again, funny the details that disappear).  We met, we laughed, we planned...and I went to my husband's apartment.  He was working and I planned on surprising him by cooking for him.  I cooked (something out of a box, lol, very asian-y).  He wasn't home.  I turned off the burner and went to the bathroom.  There was blood when I wiped, which was alarming.  I called my husband.  He asked, do you think you need to go to the doctor, and I was like, "psh, no."  I was tired, and having no children at the time, had the luxury of laying down when tired.  (oh how i miss being able to do that!)

I laid down, and had the most intense back ache, but just for a few seconds.  Then it stopped.  I had sciatic nerve pain throughout the end of the pregnancy so thought maybe this was something similar/related.  Then it happened again.  I tossed and turned trying to get comfortable but it kept on happening!

At this point I called the doctor.  Told him about the blood, not sure about the back pain (detail, deleted from memory).  I remember him saying, "Come in to be monitored if you start having contractions with the blood."  I didn't comment, just thought, hmmm...contractions?  Could it be? 

I took labor classes, contractions took place in your uterus, in the front, like period cramps, right?  Right?  What were these back pains?  I started timing them using some awesome internet contraction timer site (yes, awesome, you push the space bar every time it stops and starts and it keeps track for you).  I remember feeling numb.  I remember my husband coming home from work, the food cold on the stove, a plate of it in front of me with me just idly moving my fork around, not really eating.  I was sitting on the bed with my plate of food, staring at the computer screen, going spacebar...pause...spacebar...pause...spacebar...pause.  He was like, "what are you doing?"  I was like "timing my contractions."  He was like "contractions! @#%&@!"  And I was like, "I think."  He's like, "how far apart?"  I was like "3 minutes."  He's looking more and more frazzled, I'm still numbly timing away...

"Aren't we supposed to go to the hospital at 5 minutes apart."

"Yeah...and the doctor said I should go and be monitored if I started having contractions."

"When did he say that"

"When I called him."

"Well why didn't you tell me!"

"You were at work."

What the heck was going on in my mind?  I'm 21 years old, in labor with my first child, and totally nonchalant. 

He finally convinces me to actually go to the hospital.  Neither of us ate the food I cooked.

We decide not to tell my parents.  Because surely it's a false alarm...I mean, they didn't feel like contractions...no need for them to come all the way to the hospital for nothing.

We drive to the hospital calmly, joking, laughing about how this isn't how we imagined it.

He drops me off at the hospital doors.  Instead of checking in I just wait for my husband to find a parking space and walk to meet me.  I calmly go to the front desk and tell him I need to go to labor and delivery and he looks at me like I'm insane.  I am not acting like a woman in labor is supposed to act.  I go back, the get me in an annoying gown, strap a monitor to me, and lo and behold, I'm in labor.  I'm also 4 cm dilated.

I'm in labor!?!?

I remember the contractions on the monitor were like, not small ones.  The L & D nurses were shocked because these were some big time contractions and I was barely feeling them.  They told me maybe I was going into labor early because I was dehydrated, so they gave me a giant cup of ice water, and put an IV in with some hydration liquid as well.  This did not stop contractions.  It did, however, cause me to have to go to the bathroom one million times.  (when hooked up to a monitor and an IV, this task requires helpers...great)

Their next brilliant plan was to give me shots to try and slow labor, and hopefully put it off until closer to my due date.  They gave me a shot...checked me...not working.  Gave me another one and told me to stay until morning, when they'd check me (for dilation) again and see if I was having a baby or not.   (Keep in mind, I went in around 6:30 p.m.  and they're asking me to spend the night "just in case"...I wasn't thrilled)

This is when I called my parents and was like "Hey, you know that hospital bag that I started to pack...kind of need it."

As expected, they went into full on panic mode.  Came to the hospital in all their expectant grandparent glory, etc. etc.   I was living with them at the time, and they were having renovation work done on their house at the time.  This means, the baby's room was nonexistant (a dresser and a piano).  No crib, no changing table, etc.  The crib at my husband's apartment, was in pieces.  My dad and husband decided to go to the apartment and put that crib together, so just in case the baby came that night we'd have a place to sleep the following night.  In short, we were unprepared.

They left, promising they'd come back in the morning (I think they even skipped church...which they don't do).  I was not checked for dilation again until 9:15 or so the next morning.  The world's loooongest wait.  It was like "am I having a baby today or not???"  I remember crocheting in the middle of the night, lol.  The nurses thought I was so odd.  I didn't feel contractions, and I crocheted while in labor (and I was only 21 which made me crocheting seem even more unusual).

Anyway, at 9:15 I was checked and I was like, I don't even remember, I was "more" dilated.  I remember the doctor on call looking at me with his nasty cervix checking glove on his hand saying "You're having a baby today!" like it was the best thing ever.

That's when calm, crocheting Nikki left, and panicked Nikki took over.  There was no longer any possibility of turning back.  There were no more shots, no more big cups of water...the baby. was. coming. 

They moved me to a delivery room but kept me hooked to that stupid monitor the WHOLE TIME.  In those labor classes they taught us that different positions are so much more helpful in labor than laying down.  Basically, laying flat on your back is the worst possible position to be in, because gravity isn't helping you out.  So here I am, with all this knowledge.  Strapped down to a bed.  They asked if for religious reasons (I had refused pork the night before)I'd prefer a girl doctor/midwife and I said yes.  (I wasn't a Muslim yet but still...if they were offering I was taking!)

I didn't realize that this request would mean I would not go checked from 9:15 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon.  OMG.  The nurses checked on me, yes, but not for dilation/progression.  They gave me morphine sometime in the morning to help me relax/sleep between contractions (I was feeling them now).  They told me you couldn't take it after 7 cm and you could only take two doses.  So they gave me that one in the morning, and then I asked for it later and the nurse said "Oh honey, you can only have it twice and you've got a long way to go."  Meaning, we'll give it to you later.

She didn't check me...how'd she know how much longer I had to go????  Turns out, she didn't.  BUT, luckily she didn't give me the morphine because when the wonderful (God bless her) midwife came and checked me out I was 9 cm dilated.  9! 

That midwife was seriously the answer to prayers.  My doctor was a medicine/epidural pusher and I didn't want that stuff.  The midwife asked about my preferences, gave me saline acupuncture shots for my back pain (I had 24 hours of straight back labor) and told me I'd be pushing soon.

The saline shots worked.  Just so you all know.  If you ever have a baby's head repeatedly pressing against your spine...get some saline, a syringe, and shoot it into four pressure points on your back.

Anyway, I remember them saying it was time to push, and suddenly my 24 hour labor didn't seem long enough...I wasn't ready for this!

My mom was very misleading when discussing this with me before hand.  She said, pushing is the easy part, it's like relief.

What a load of crap.  If I could have 5 more hours of labor with no hour of pushing I'd seriously trade.  Pushing sucked.   I pushed and pushed and pushed.  She told me to grunt....I tried, and she told me it was too high.  Like, if my grunt isn't the right pitch the baby won't come out?  Anyway, I'll spare the details because some of you may have actually read this far.  My son was born, hooray!  I'd read so many books saying you needed to establish breastfeeding right away that when they handed him to me I tried to feed him even before they weighed him, measured him, bathed him...they thought I was crazy.

Turns out, I didn't actually get to breastfeed him for another 10 days or so.  He was having respiratory problems and they took him away from me.  That was very, very hard.  They're taking my son and I'm confused and thinking "I've got to establish good breastfeeding habits..." and suddenly they're saying words like, torn cervix, stitches, local anesthetic?...  and then suddenly everything comes into focus when I hear, "No, (my angel midwife from before is now out to torture me...no meds during delivery did not mean no meds post delivery....) I bet she's still numb (meaning natural numbing, not medicated, remember) from the birth.  You bet, huh?  So I grimace and flinch in pain as they stitch up my cervix wondering where my baby was taken and when I'll get to hold him again.

The family is told of the birth (my husband was with me the whole time, God bless him) and they all excitedly come to visit terrible looking me.  And find no baby.  It's honestly a bit heartbreaking to remember.  So many people would come, not just that day but on day's following, to meet our son and all they ever got to see was me.  Some of them got to see him through a NICU window, others saw no trace of him at all.  Me, my husband, my sister, her fiance, my husband's sister, my parents, and my grandma's all got to go in the NICU and hold him, alhumdullilah. The rest had to be content waiting.

So they move me to the room I'll stay in for a day or two, offer me some pain medicine, and do not even mention my son.  What is going on?!  I had a baby...right?  Finally around 11 (I had him at 6:12 p.m.) a nurse tells me I can see him if I want.  Of course I want! I go, and he's strapped to every machine imaginable.  He's sleeping.  I ask to hold him and the nurse says he's so tuckered out, that it was best that I didn't.  (watch my heart break again...) She said that it would have been better for me to come at feeding time.  Because I could change him and help feed him, etc. etc.  This is the first time I realize they've given him formula (angry!) and also the first time I realize I'm welcome in the NICU at all times, but especially during feeding times.  i don't know why no one told me sooner, but from that point on I went to as many of my son's feedings as I could.  I also borrowed a pump from the hospital and expressed my breastmilk for him. 

The NICU staff was flabbergasted by my devotion to pumping.  I woke myself up every three hours round the clock to pump.  By the time he was released from the NICU 12 days later there was a whole crate of my unused breastmilk in their refrigerator. They fed it to him, but I was making more than he was drinking.  I think I created an oversupply, which probably explains my frequent bouts with mastitis. 

So anyway, he's in the NICU.  I get released from the hospital.  They let me secretly stay one extra night (not turned in to insurance) to be close to him but then I have to leave.  I visit him for at least two feedings a day, rocking him to sleep after each meal. 

I'm at home without a baby.  All I've got is an annoying, painful breastpump to wake me up at night.  I also have school to get back to. 

I went to class that Wednesday, November 12, 2008.  Three days after my son was born.  It was probably a poor choice, but I'm a straight A student and was super stressed about missing the end of the semester.  It was really neat to go back to class where everyone knew you as pregnant on Friday, and then they see you on Wednesday and it's like, they do a double take.  (I lost everything I gained  before coming home from the hospital, honestly...since then I've lost 10 more pounds from this constant breastfeeding).  So I went to my classes, talked to my teachers, and got out of most everything.  (Hooray!)  I had to come back to take two finals, but my projects were cancelled.  My final research papers were still due in LING 413 and ENG 305, but the English one had an extension until the end of Christmas break.  It worked out wonderfully.  I quit attending classes and went back only when I felt I needed to hear the material and to take the finals.  With my son in the NICU, going to school was actually quite easy, because he had the best care possible 24/7.

Again, poor choice, though.  They say to not even go grocery shopping for 2 weeks...it is quite painful to walk/stand after having a baby so, yeah, um, yeah.

That's about the whole tale.  I guess.  Even if it's not, I'm tired so we'll pretend it is.  My son came home, and has been there ever since save for a few night's with the grandparents and a 5 day hospitalization due to an FPIES reaction.  He's in his bed now, where I hope he will stay until morning.  BUT, he's moved to my bed every night for the past month probably, so that's extremely wishful thinking.

November 9, 2010 will be his second birthday.  My husband was like, why are you so excited...it's not like you were having fun that day... (the actual birth day).  But he's a man, he doesn't get it.  Despite the pain, the stress, the chaos of the hospital...it was an extremely joyful day for me and I hope to never ever forget it.