I packed my hospital bag and Brian's and prepared the house for our brief absence, just in case I would be admitted. When I got my ultrasound, the technician revealed that my fluid had indeed gone down from the level it had been at just five days before. Armed with this information, I headed down the street to see my midwife. After discussing the situation with her, she recommended I go ahead and get induced. Since she still had patients to see at the office, I had time to drive back home and meet up with Brian, so we could take one car to the hospital instead of two.
I called Brian at work and he finalized his preparations for his absence from work, and he met me at home about an hour later. We got on the road and headed back toward the hospital, all the while remarking how easy it is to drive the fifty minutes there while NOT being in labor.
We arrived there by four o'clock, found a parking spot, and calmly carried our bags inside. I was in good spirits. Labor pains had not yet come upon me, and I was now so much closer to seeing my baby. I was nervous, of course, but relatively calm. We checked in at the emergency room, and I couldn't help but be glad again that I was not actually in labor, because the process took way too long for a woman in agony. I was glad I was not.
We were sent to our room, and I was given the ever-attractive hospital gown to wear. Instead of receiving the labor-inducing drug, Pitocin, I was first receiving Cervidil, which is a medication that ripens the cervix and prepares it for labor. It does not necessarily cause a woman to go into labor, but it can have that effect. That is exactly what my midwife wanted, and if that happened, I could avoid the Pitocin altogether.
So for the first time in my life, I was lying in a hospital bed, getting ready to settle in for the night. Again, I was in good spirits, primarily because I thought I had the whole night ahead of me. I wasn't expecting to go into labor yet, but I was wrong.
The contractions started out mild, so mild that I couldn't feel them. As I was hooked up to the external fetal monitor, it showed my contractions, but I was still unaware of them. However, as the night ticked by, the pain started to come, and while I wasn't watching the clock, Brian said it was about eleven o'clock when I began to really complain. After that, the many hours were a blur.
At one point, a nurse gave me something to slow down the contractions, because they were coming on too fast and I had very little time between them to recover. The pain continued to grow throughout the night, and I got to experience firsthand the travail that women have endured since the beginning of time. I knew labor would be hard, but I don't think I ever realized just how painful it would be. Whether my pain was worse due to being induced, I am not sure since I have nothing to compare it to, but yikes, it was ugly. I wailed and yelled like a champ, not caring who in the world was hearing it.
I had wanted a natural labor and birth, but I failed in one regard. I did ask for something, the name of which I cannot remember, to help me sleep. It wasn't exactly a pain medication, because it didn't take the pain away (I can indeed attest to it still being very much there), but rather it made me so tired that I was able to sleep. I had not gotten sleep the night before due to my concerns about labor combined with an overall lack of physical comfort while being 41 weeks pregnant, and I was exhausted. I simply needed to sleep. I was able to sleep for a short time, and Brian took the opportunity to grab some sleep, too, before the real work began.
As the pains got worse, there was no stopping them. The nurses had me try various positions, and none of them made life easier at those moments. Truly, somewhere in these hours of labor, I said to myself, "I hope Brian is content with one child, because I'm not going through this again."
I was almost completely unaware of time, but morning eventually came. A new nurse entered the room, and I realized I had met her the week before when I got my non-stress test. My body began to convulse in an uncontrollable shake from head to toe, and the nurse told me it was normal, due to the shock of the body going through something so difficult. I made a desperate plea for an epidural, and after she gave me a quick exam, declared that I was 9 1/2 centimeters dilated, and very professionally and encouragingly told me that I could do this. The room began to be a flurry of nurses getting things ready, and I tried to abandon the thoughts that this suffering would never again, and consider the work that lay ahead of pushing this child into the world.
My midwife arrived and we all got to work. Brian took his position at my left side, with the nurse that had just encouraged me on my right. My midwife estimated it would take an hour to push my baby out, but in reality it took about an hour and a half. I pushed with all the strength I had, many times wasting energy by pushing my legs or using facial muscles that I didn't need to use. It's hard to push in this sort of way! It seemed there were a few rounds of contractions where the baby was right there, but I struggled to produce him. The whole room was encouraging me. "Push!" just about everyone shouted. "It hurts!" I managed to yell back.
I managed one last incredible, intense push, and I felt my precious babe slip through my body. While I should have been exhausted, the excitement of this moment in time came upon me, and I was wrapped up in it. Brian took a peek and announced to the room (mostly to me, since I couldn't see), "It's a boy!" The baby was passed to me and placed on my chest, and I will never forget the wonder of that wide-eyed moment. My baby boy was looking straight at me, and I him. I couldn't help but feel as I looked at him that I had known him my whole life. Brian and I had finalized the name just two days before, and I looked at my son and said simply, "Caleb."
The nurses got to work wiping Caleb down and cleaning him up, all while he remained in my arms. Brian was encouraged by every female in the room to cut the umbilical cord, which he did. As my midwife got to work patching me up, I heard Brian exclaim, "I have a son!" Truly, both our hearts were full.
Though he missed Mother's Day, he was the best present I could have received, even if he was two days late. Now I have two boys to take care of and two to love. My cup runneth over.
