My first born .... a birth story...

Saturday 15th of June at 4:52PM 7lb. 3 oz. 

So…. It was my first baby and I wanted to get this thing right. She was due June 14, 2013, and I wanted her to come June 14, 2013. Ok… so I wanted her to come earlier than that… but if she couldn’t come early, she could at least come on the day she was ‘supposed’ to. After a long wait it was finally Friday, June 14th. D-day. I woke up feeling a bit excited and wondering why on earth my husband was deciding to go to work since this was obviously the day. However, he went anyways. I went through the day waiting for that particular twinge that told me “It is time”. Sometime after lunch I walked to give Jeshua a drink of lemonade, as I knew he would be cutting grass on the property where we stayed. I walked past the pool and chapel, a good quarter of a mile, and wondered why on earth I had taken my pregnant body so far in that heat. After I gave him his drink, I headed back up the hill and oh my what a hill it was. I stopped at the pool with a few other ladies and soaked my toes for a bit before I headed back inside out of the hideous heat. When I went to the restroom, I noticed feeling a bit wet so I did what any natural person would do in that case. I sniffed my underwear. When I noticed it didn’t have the traditional “pee” smell I grew very excited. I called my husband and told him what I suspected (that my water was possibly broken or breaking or leaking …  in any case something was surely happening). He stopped everything a little early and we went into the hospital. We waited in a room for quite a while before the nurse came and checked me and informed me that my water indeed had NOT broken, and she did not believe it was leaking either. So, I went the long trek back home ashamed and disappointed. I had turned into “that” mom who went to the hospital early. And D-day did not happen. The next morning, I awoke at 4a.m. with those traditional pains that everyone calls Braxton Hicks. I laid in bed for a little while trying to ignore them and get back to my sleep. If you ask anyone who truly knows me, they will tell you I am serious about my sleep.  However, these just didn’t go away, so I broke out the old “contraction timer” which I had been using ever since I felt one of those boogers about 8 weeks prior.  They were about 30 minutes apart. Then to my utter joy they began to grasp harder and last longer. Was this it?  At 6 a.m.  they were 15 minutes apart. I was no longer in joy with each contraction but had great anticipation of what awaited me. Would a cuddly baby be mine by lunchtime today? I woke Jeshua and told him perhaps we should head to the hospital. He was a bit skeptical after the false call of the day before and said, “if we go in today, we’re not coming back until you have the baby”. That irked me a tad… as if I was making up all those contractions! But I agreed and off we went. We went in the front entrance and were greeted by a nurse who said she had no wheelchair, and we’d have to walk to where we needed to go.  I hobbled slowly through the corridors as a nurse led Jeshua and I to the emergency room.  Finally, I got into a room, the nurse checked me and informed me that I was a full 4 centimeters; “welcome to labor and delivery”.  Since this was my first time, I was very excited.  However, 3 hours later (10 a.m.) my resolve got lower and lower. I really had wanted this to be an all-natural birth but this whole waiting thing with pain every 5-10 minutes was getting REALLY old REALLY fast.  Jeshua encouraged me to get up and walk but I was so incredibly tired I just wanted to go to sleep… and so …. Well… I did. It was a little hard at first but slowly I felt those pains easing into a well-deserved rest. Annnnnd then, around 1pm the nurse came in and said “honey, your contractions are going backwards… you need to get up and walk or you’re not going to have this baby today.” 

So, under strict orders, I got up and walked. It was SO painful, and I hated every second of it. I am ashamed to admit, at one point I needed to throw up and all that I saw nearby was a sink…. (don’t know why there was a random sink in the hallway but oh well) and … yes. I did. I puked in that sink. I’m not sure what happened to that puke… perhaps Jeshua washed it down, perhaps not.  I was in too much pain to really care. After about 4 times of walking up and down the hallway, Jeshua told me I could have a reprieve and I gratefully sank back in that bed. I was not to have any more sweet, blessed rest. The nurse came back in to check me again. She asked me if my water had broken, and I said I didn’t think so. Ha! Now my water has never gushed out, but being as how I had never felt “water breaking”, I had no idea what to expect… I was perty near preparing myself for a flood. Also, I don’t know if this nurse just had fat fingers or what but each time she checked me it felt like she was sawing something out down there.  I was at 6 centimeters. It was past lunchtime. No cuddly baby. And she informed me, my water had indeed NOT broken. How disappointing. I remembered thinking “WHAT?!?! All this pain for 2 lousy centimeters?????”  About 30 seconds later I felt a little pop and I felt a sudden puddle underneath me. I was shocked and in incredible pain and barely squeaked out “That was it… it broke” She checked me again (I wanted to smack her at this point) and told me that when I started feeling like I needed to push to let them know.  At this point (around 2p.m.) …. I kind of went crazy. I had all sorts of things I wanted to say but I could only get out one word. “Jesus”.  I wanted to say, “Jesus please help me, I’m in pain and it hurts so bad and this needs to stop and get my baby out and end this PLEEEEEASE!” but… instead I yelled out “Jesus!   God!   Jesus Oh Jesus Jesus God Jesus!  God! “and this went on for a while. Afterwards Jeshua told me that he had to keep biting his tongue to keep from laughing because it really sounded like I was cursing. Jeshua also kept track of my contractions with the little machine by the side of the bed. He would let me know when a contraction started going down and said “Ohhhhhh!” as it got higher. As each contraction climbed, he also would rub my back. I yelled out “Lower! Harder!” as I felt the intensity of each contraction. Then suddenly Jeshua started getting text after text after text and then phone calls. I grew increasingly irritable with each one, because for some reason he decided to answer every text and phone call.  The last phone call was his mother and as he went on talking to her, I suddenly grew very angry and embarrassed. If I had wanted my mother-in-law to hear me having contractions, I would have invited her into the room. I proceeded to say through clenched teeth “GET. OFF. THE. PHONE. …. NOW!”  right before I went into another hard contraction. It of course felt necessary to crescendo as I said each word, so that by the time I said ‘NOW!’, I was screaming it.  Jeshua promptly turned off his phone. Suddenly sometime after 3 I had the push feeling. Only I found I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, I was focusing so much on each wave of contractions. They were more intense than I could have possibly imagined. But I knew I had to tell someone, or this baby would come unexpectedly and just plop on the ground. So, I mustered up everything I had and said to Jeshua “time. Now. Push.” Of course, he had no idea what I was saying. “What? You need to poop? Do you need to poop?  You want me to help you? You smell like you need to poop.”  Yes. My dear sweet husband said I smelled like I needed to poop. I glared at him and tried again.  He finally got the main idea and left to get a nurse. She came in and checked me AGAIN. This was getting very old. I forget what she said, I was in so much pain. The only thing I heard was, “try not to push.”  Ha.   Hahaha. Forget that.  I couldn’t NOT push. It was physically impossible. I even tried… and I pushed anyways. I heard a few more nurses talking. One saying how tired I looked and poor dear, another asking about the doctor and that’s when I heard the one thing that gave me my final resolve. “He’s not going to make it”. That sentence came loud and clear and when I heard that sentence, I felt freedom. If the doctor wasn’t coming, I was free to push whenever I stinking wanted. And I was going to push with this next contraction with all my might. And I did. I pushed as hard as I could to get this baby out of me. and that’s when I felt it.  It was just as they all had said. Ring of fire. And every time I think of this, one song jumps into my mind. “And it burns, burns, burns… the ring of fire”. It fits the feeling perfectly. In that moment time slowed down and I thought. “I’m going to die now. That was the last straw.”.  I didn’t scream didn’t feel nauseous … just… an intense fiery circle and an intense urge to just go to sleep. Jeshua’s head appeared above mine, and he said “look at me. Focus on me.”  So, I tried to, even though I wanted to close my eyes. I pushed about two more times and then she was out. Somewhere in between the head and shoulders the doctor did come in.   I faintly heard her cry. Heard Jeshua ask to cut the cord. I expected to hear angels singing and a glow to come over the room as they handed me my clean, cuddly baby. Instead, they handed me this squishy, wrinkly, child covered in some sort of white cheesy paste. She smelled sweet as they laid her on my chest. I barely heard Jeshua say, “you did great Stacy!” as I stared down at those little dark eyes that blinked open and closed and breathed in her sweet baby breath.  “So now I’m a mommy.”  And that was the beginning…