Phoebe's Birth... Woah- I'm A... Parent!

Well, I had to put this in here... at some point I knew I'd have to explain how awful my first birth experience was and here it is. I also came to the conclusion I'm a little too wacky to be popular and so I'm going to use my husband and my daughter's real names. Larry and Phoebe... my "Shining One". :-)

I had been having Braxton-Hicks for a week or so before she actually came and there was one "scare" the night I found out my grandmother died. My back and tummy started to feel pain and afterwards I felt like I had rowdy indigestion. But after I went to bed it stopped so- no Phoebe- not yet anyway. That was on May 7th- a Wednesday night. Mother's Day was the following Sunday- the 11th if I recall correctly. Yeah because Tuesday was the 13th- my 24th birthday. I ate Mexican casserole and had strawberry cake with pink icing. It was oh so very yummy. According to Larry's mom it was the Mexican food that caused my wter to burst the next morning at 5:30am. The unfortunate thing was that I didn't go to sleep until well after midnight. Add in the potty breaks and I had about 4 and a half hours of sleep. I woke up at 5am to the gotta go feeling that was slightly different than normal, but I got up- couldn't go so I went back to bed. Around 5:15am I was physically so uncomfortable that I got up again and tried yet another time to use the bathroom. NO success... but the trickle I felt made me think otherwise. I was slightly confused at that point as to whether or not it was a "number 1" or not because it just didn't feel the same. At 5:30am I knew for sure that my water broke- it wasn't a trickle any longer- didn't look like pee either. (sorry for the details) So I yell for Larry from our little bathroom. He comes waltzing in kinda half asleep and slightly alarmed to me sitting down saying, "I think my water just broke." It was 5:30 in the morning and we were discussing whether to call the midwife or not and finally decided that she would probably like to know about this turn of events. I wasn't "DUE" until the 3rd of June- almost three weeks away. The pregnancy had gone smoothly- practically perfect and here we were three weeks early. What kind of fluke was this?!
We called her and she asked me a few questions about the color, smell and look of the fluid and she confirmed that it was in fact amniotic fluid. I was going to see her that day anyway since my scheduled appointment was at 11:00am. We were supposed to do a certain test that made sure Phoebe wouldn't come out infected or something, but oops. So she told me to go about my business and that if anything else comes up to call her- time my contractions and blah blah blah. So I time them- they're all over the place with absolutely no pattern. Larry and I decide to go to the store to pack up on food items- I'd be in no shape to cook or clean for the next week so that's what our plan was. After the store- we got home and put away all the purchased items. I called the chiropractor because I wasn't going to be able to make it- I was having a baby today (or so I thought). Apparently after your water breaks there is a risk of infection and usually the baby is pretty bad off before you show any signs. So my midwife calls me and checks on my status... apparently none. She said- come on in to the office and I'll check your progress. Well we went and I was 1/2cm dilated and 75% effaced. She said the effacement was very important and dilation could increase rapidly. She gave me blue and black herbs and instructed me to take them at certain intervals in order to jump-start this labor process. She also had us purchase Castor Oil to remove the contents of my bowels. Nice. She checked Phoebe and our little wiggle worm was doing just that- wiggling all around. She said she had never seen a wigglier baby during labor before. So we return home excited- thinking we would see our baby girl tonight. Well- the contractions never got better. They remained everywhere with no pattern. The only thing about them that did increase was strength. They didn't put me on the floor but they felt uncomfortable. Phoebe was also turned slightly between anterior and posterior so we tried to get on the ball and make her get into the correct position- yeah the same ball we got the night before from Wal-Mart. By this point everyone was praying for us and at the prayer meeting they prayed some more. Later that night my midwife came over to our apartment and checked me again. I had been hurting a bit before this and so when she told me 1 cm dilated and 90% effaced it became painfully clear that we wouldn't be seeing Phoebe tonight. She told us that she would be back in the morning to check on me and to call if I felt the urge to push. So we settled down for the night. Larry in the bed and I on the big chair in our room- feet propped up. It was midnight and I was too uncomfortable to really sleep. So I guess I rested/ sat there relaxing as much as I could. I felt three to four contractions, five tops the entire night. SO when our midwife came to us at 5:30am (24 hours mind you) she checked me and reported that absolutely no progress had occurred. Around 7:00am she told us that even though there's no emergency now- there could be and it would come quickly. Better to head to the hospital now than RUSH over with a very sick baby inside. We called up the resident doctor and asked about the protocol- he said C-section 15 hours post-rupture. By that time we'd been 26 hours post-rupture. Larry became physically ill and I started to cry, my blood pressure went up, and Phoebe was just wigglin' around as much as she could which happened to be a glorious sign that she was indeed just fine. We discussed what would happen when we got there and prayed and prayed that everything would be just fine and that Phoebe would be born healthy. We looked at C-section as the only possibility. Being induced at this point was a 1% probability at that point. SO Larry and I get in the car- my contractions were hardly anything by then so I just sat back and figured the Lord has us in His hands and it didn't matter what I wanted at that point- what did matter was having a healthy baby. We get to the hospital around 9:30am and all the normal procedures occur. Paperwork paperwork paperwork... patience is a virtue. We get into the triage area, they ask us alot of questions, they tell me I'm borderline pre-eclamptic, we get a sonogram, we laugh and then they tell me stick an IV in and start the Pitocin. I'm like what? I'm thankful to say the least, but now I'd experience worse contractions... I wasn't exactly mentally prepped for that. They check Phoebe- still wigglin' and stiil somewhere in between posterior and anterior- they said that had slowed down my progression- I'm like what progression? After hours of people pressing on me, adjusting monitors and straps, going in a bed pan, begging for food, stupid blood pressure cuff going off, and focusing every ounce of will to get through each contraction... 3pm or so...they checked me 100% effaced and a total of 4cm dilated. I wa exhausted! They said they'd have to amp up the Pitocin and they'd hurt even more. Larry asked meto please take the epidural so I could rest so I would have the strength to push. I said I would with tears in my eyes and pain like I never felt before in my abdomen. Phoebe ith no clue as to what was going on was still in lala land and wiggling up a storm. Then the worst part of the entire ordeal- they told Larry to leave the room! I screamed, I cried, and they asked me to relax- how in the world am I gonna do that after my husband just left?! I wanted to make a scene, but between contractions and exhaustion I just didn't have the energy. So they stck me. Soon I'm numb from the waist down but still feeling the excruciating pressure from the contractions and Phoebe's head bearing down on my pelvis. They upped the medicine and I wa soon off to my own lala land. See you soon Phoebe. They checked me an hour later and 7cm. At 6pm they said I was ready. They prepped the room, prepped me, and asked my Larry to hold one leg and the midwife the other. I wa also holding my legs, but they were too heavy to go it alone. It took a while to get into position and then it took a while to get all the personell for me as well as for Phoebe in the room. Phoebe up until that point was doing great. As a precautionary measure they put an internal monitor on her head to keep an eye on her heart tones which had been perfect up until the peak of a contraction (the hardest point). Phoebe had also turned from her somewhere in between position to the posterior position and was ready to be delivered. So they started counting and I started pushing. 12 minutes later we welcomed Phoebe into our world. They allowed me to nurse exclusively- no formula no pacifiers- just mommy. I held her for two hours after birth which is a VERY RARE occasion. They stitched me up where I had torn and since I had lost a liter of blood they were thinking of doing a blood transfusion, but they didn't. The next five days would be filled with spinal headaches, milk coming in, engorgement, feeling like I had been run over by an eighteen wheeler everytime I woke up, and exhaustion... but I was blessed because both Phoebe and I survived our long journey. :-)