f.n.p.d. (facts not previously disclosed)
Greetings gentle readers!
Good grief it’s been too long. Try living in my world for a day (or have more than one child) and you’ll understand. It’s wonderful, it’s crazy, I never sleep….I’m so blessed and so stressed it’s amazing.
I have no clue how big my window for blogging is at the moment, so let’s just dive right in, shall we? Here are my F.N.P.D….(at least the main ones people have been asking about)
Disclaimer: please note that these are details I’ve been asked to supply! I am in no way saying my baby story is all that fascinating! Read it or skip it! Male readers may find this extremely boring and/or unworthy of minutes they will never get back. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
1) Originally slated for a repeat C-section August 14th (day after due date). Went to docs the 13th and said “I really don’t want to get surgery again tomorrow”. He said “So don’t” and said I could go til the 22nd and try to labor on my own (VBAC). I was happy!
2) Days and days went by. Contractions stopped and started. The 19th they were too painful to sleep through but not regular (5-10 mins apart). The 20th they were even more intense. I called. They said to come in. I went in. The nurse called my contractions ‘real lollapaloozas’ but said I wasn’t dilating very much yet. They sent me home. Still no sleep for the mayor…beyond quick few-minute naps between contractions. For real. By the 21st they were teeth-sucking, leather-chewing, making-me-sweat intensity, but only 7 minutes apart. I went in again. At 4:30 in the morning. (my doc came on at 7 a.m. and I was supposed to check in at 10 anyway for my delivery) They sent me home….despite my protests and requests to call my doc (whom I had seen earlier in the day and was well aware my labor had started) at 5:30 in the morning. With a pain shot..(morphine) that just made me even sleepier and yet I was STILL unable to sleep through the contractions. Neat.
3) I spent a miserable few hours trying to sleep in 5-minute spurts (hint: not very restful) and even FELL ASLEEP ON THE TOILET (yeah, I said it)….more than once…(did I mention it was morphine? and how is it, one wonders, that narcotics don’t harm the fetus?) and we went in at 10 a.m. scheduled (one way or another I was having a baby the 22nd!) and my doc says he’d been trying to call me all morning to come back in….(we had all ringers off) turns out he had called the hospital FIVE MINUTES after they sent me home to see if I was there yet (he figured I would be) and wasn’t pleased they had sent me on my way. My vindication was short-lived, since I couldn’t speak through the pain at this point, but it was there. Woo-hoo!
4) Maybe if I hadn’t had the 3 days of no sleep I would have tried to just be a trouper, but you bet your ass I asked for an epidural at that point. Nurse told me they wanted to wait until I was 3 centimeters dilated OR contractions regulated. Whatever. Come here and say that, I thought out loud. (ok, I didn’t) I just writhed around and almost wanted to laugh at Shane’s helplessness….he’d just keep saying ‘breathe through it’ and ‘you’re doing great, honey!’ b/c wtf else is he going to do??
5) Finally…joy of joys….I was 4 centimeters when she checked me and after a farcical situation of ‘have you seen Dr. B? I paged him and he doesn’t answer’ to about 3 different nurses (who all answered in the negative)….the miraculous Dr. B showed up to ease my pain…but not before the nurse consulted my chart to double check my docs orders about the epidural and GUESS OH GUESS WHAT, GENTLE READERS? He’d written that I could have the epi ‘whenever I asked for it.’ Freakin people. When I could finally breathe normally again, I told this Dr. B that I really feel they need to play Mighty Mouse music when he shows up. He laughed (in that indulgent, ‘oh-you-poor-unfunny-lady-in-labor sort of way).
6) Things moved sort of quickly from here. I pretty much immediately crashed out for awhile…blissful, pain-free sleep. I don’t know hwo long I dozed. When I woke, however, I was a bit…too numb. I couldn’t really take a deep breath and it was kind of freaking me out. The nurse checked me, announced my epidural was ‘a bit high’ and at my request paged Dr. B. He told her to turn it off for an hour and see how I felt. When pain started again to let him know.
Um.
Okay……so she turned it off and awhile later I could breathe a bit easier…then she checked me again and I was fully dilated and almost ready to push…I was so excited to deliver naturally but hello? what about the epidural….? and then suddenly there it was…all the pain and then some and I must say, gentle readers, having not ramped UP to this level of pain and going from being numb to a full-on 10 (you know that lovely pain scale they give you!)…was intense. I managed to nod when the nurse asked if she should call Dr. B.
7) Dr. B came and said it was too late to restart the epi but he would inject some meds into my IV that ‘should hold me’ until labor was over. Um….cool?
8 ) They held me. The nurse told me to expect to feel something when the head finally engaged but I didn’t. I just pushed hard for 40 minutes and then my doc was paged and I pushed for 10 more and next thing I know he’s saying “Mary, look down” (holy CRAP am I weepy just typing that! what a moment….) and there was her head….and then it all went very quickly….and I’m just so happy I was able to deliver normally and have that moment of her being placed on my chest…..at 6:50 p.m. on August 22nd….
9) though this is sort of a bittersweet memory for me since she didn’t give a nice, lusty cry like she should have…they whisked her off me to give her oxygen, then her lungs needed to be vacuumed out, then they brought her to me, and we both held her briefly, but then they declared she was having ‘trouble transitioning’ and had to take her to NICU. And not to worry too much. That it was very common. Blahsie blah. All I knew is that I was hysterical and they took my brand newbie away in an incubator and she wasn’t in my arms, nursing, where she belonged. To make matters worse, they told me I couldn’t go see her until I could walk on my own. I attempted to an hour later but couldn’t manage it yet.
10) Finally about 9:30 p.m. they brought her back to me and announced she was fine but they were still going to monitor her frequently. I said ‘you can monitor her til the cows come home, just give me my baby!’ (ok, I didn’t)
11) Since coming home, we’ve discovered that newbie has acid reflux (which we’re hopeful her new med will help with soon) and also still seems to have her days and nights mixed up. (our moms laugh since we were both the same way) Being up all day with Puddin Face and up all night with Pumpkin Butt doesn’t make for much sanity (or time for blogging). Puddin Face is an awesome big sister and adjusting way better than anticipated. (new pics up if you haven’t seen ’em yet…better ones ASAP)
12) I won’t even get into the hormones.
13) My recovery has been pretty smooth, and I can’t BELIEVE how much easier it is than recovering from a C-section. Good grief.
14) Somewhere along the way, I developed UGI (universal grandparent issues). This did not help general well-being. Must get t-shirts printed in bold letters: BACK OFF I’M THE MOMMY NOW
I love you, gentle readers. Thanks for stopping by, congrats if you’re still reading, my time is up, but I’m still here! (I have no time to proofread at the mo so please forgive any typos)
What’s everyone been up to?