The Charlie Man Cometh

January 23, 2012 at 2:00 a.m. I woke up with slight cramps. Now if I were without child I would think, "Oh great, here comes a week of crying, exhaustion, headaches, and mood swings." Funny thing is, all of that still happened!

So my doctor kept telling me if you get pains for a minute or two straight and they start coming every five minutes then come in. So I woke up my husband so he could monitor the time, while I tried to sleep since I had to work the next day. Sleep was not coming. The pain was not unbearable or anything just ANNOYING. I called the doctor after about an hour of this and she said I could go in if I wanted to, but I could manage at home for awhile as well. My husband is always anti-hospital so he was trying to convince me to stay home. Since I was terrified of ruining my office chair (see my first post) and since I still had a few hours until I had to be at work I decided to head in just to be safe. For all I knew it could be false labor and I would be sent home, but I just wanted the verification.

At 6 a.m. we finally dragged ourselves into the hospital and were sent to OB Triage until the doctor decided to admit us. The doctor checked me out and I was still sitting at 3 cm like a few days prior. The monitor was hooked up to follow the contractions. I am not sure what the highest number is that it goes to, but when I got in they were hovering at around 30. Whatever the hell that means. The doctor had me walk for an hour to see if I would progress further. So I waddled around and decided I should call my office to take the day off just in case.

The hour helped because contractions went from a 30 to almost a 60. And I was 4 cm now. Now I waited to start the admission process.



While there we were surrounded by several different women. None that I could see faces of since curtains separated us. To my right there was a woman who was 7 months pregnant who fell and hit her head so they were monitoring her and baby since she had a slight concussion. She got up to use the restroom once and her husband did not help her up and she collapsed on the ground. Erich, would NEVER hear the end of that one, if that was me. To my left, a woman did not feel the baby kick for a day. So they were monitoring her. And across the room, this is the gem of triage, a teenager. Her parents brought her in and said, "If she is really in labor will you call us?" Then they left. She was in triage screaming bloody murder after that. They wheeled her out after 5 minutes in there and had the baby 15 minutes later. Sooooo I am pretty sure her family was full of morons. Needless to say, I was ready to get out of triage with all these happy stories all around me.

At about 11 a.m. I was admitted. I called my mom, WHO DIDN'T ANSWER! How can she not answer a call from her 9 months pregnant daughter? Well I called my dad, who sadly was laid off weeks prior, and he was at home grouting tile in the kitchen. I said, "Dad it's time." And he said, "OK it's time, let me call your mother." What they didn't tell me till hours later was that the stupid grout has a process to it and he was smack in the middle of it.  So they had to wait to get on their plane until that was finished. Now whenever I take Charlie home, I show him the grout so he knows what is more important. It's great grout. Best grout I've seen. Anyway, my mom was in a meeting, so she called me when she was finished and cancelled the rest of her meetings. They would be in Chicago at around 11 p.m. So 12 hours sounds reasonable for  delivery I thought.

Around 1 p.m. the doctor came to check on me and said I was still hovering at 4cm, and the contractions were still about 60 (again, this may not even be a real measurement, but it sure felt like it was). She then said, well we can give you pitocin, break your water, or send you home. The last option was never going to happen. I was in that room and I was not leaving without a baby! I did not want to take pitocin because it sounded weird to me, but the water breaking sounded pretty standard. So that's what we chose. And again, I would wager that a third of the 25 pounds I gained during pregnancy was amniotic fluid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKGTklU8wlA&feature=related This is how it felt, minus the gun of course. Then she said, now I will be in totally active labor. I scoffed at that, because so far the pain was annoying but manageable and I was almost half way there. Come on, I've got this.

WRONG.

Instantly it kicked up a notch. Still manageable but definitely worse. I told my husband to go get his lunch at that moment because it was only going to get worse. Reluctantly he left and I was left to figure out all the answers to Family Feud on my own. Maybe 10 minutes after he left I shifted to my side and it was another pool bursting moment. I needed the nurse to come help me, but wouldn't you know it, the damn button fell behind the bed. So I started calling out for the nurse. Apparently the hospital thought it would be nice to sound proof every labor and delivery room and there was no way they would hear me. No matter how loud I yelled. So I just sat in my own grossness and cried until my husband came back all smiles with his sandwich (bastard).

After we got that all straightened out it was full steam ahead. My contractions were now jumping to the near 100 range and they sucked. No other description I can use. They were sucky. Super sucky. By 6 p.m. I was in hell. My husband was enjoying the free wifi while I would just focus on the pain to return 2 minutes after it went away. Every time a contraction would come he would hold my hand, but that was his only job. Men have it so easy. I stopped looking at the monitor to see the strength because I think it made it feel so much worse. So Erich would just look over my shoulder and tell me when they were going down. At one point, I grabbed his hand while he was on the computer, he looked at the monitor and said, "Wow 120, but it's going down now." And then went back to playing online. I never wanted to punch an electronic device more in my entire life. Doctor came in to check and I was at 7cm.

Give me the drugs!!

Sweet sweet epidural. Thank you for allowing me to sleep. In my previous post I said how surreal it made everything feel and this is true, but one thing about it: my back continues to have pains exactly where they put it in from time to time. This is not the case for everyone I hear, but I also know I am not alone in this one. Interesting fact, I have scoliosis and I was terrified the epidural would go in the curve and puncture my spine and I would be leaking spinal fluid as much as my amniotic fluid. Doctors tend to know what they are doing so I needn't worry.

I pushed for 20 minutes and little Charlie came out. Little is what I like to call him because he was smaller than me, but he was 8 pounds! Doctors kept pushing my stomach beforehand estimating he was 6 pounds. They were a little off. True if someone said they thought I was 2 pounds lighter than I actually I am I would not correct them, but two pounds is a huge difference for little baby boys.

*Interesting tidbit: In labor & delivery there are TVs in your room. Since I had the epidural they told me I would need to push when I was contracting. I didn't really know when I was so they would watch the monitor and say, "Ok push." Then when I would break between and they told me to relax. So I just watched TV in between pushes. Seinfeld was on. It was the episode where Elaine is very picky about who she uses her sponge contraceptive on. Irony?

My hospital was one of those hospitals where the baby stays with you at all times. Which I love. When he first came out and they laid him on my chest they covered him up immediately so my husband and I were sitting there wondering what he was. I felt stupid that I had to ask if it was a boy or girl, like I don't know human anatomy or something. They said, "It's a boy!" and my husband cried. He says it's because Charlie carries his name as his middle name, but I think it was just relief to have a boy. So they took him to the corner after Erich cut the cord and I heard him cry. They would announce his height and weight to me as well. The weird thing is, for some reason while giving birth they turned off all of the lights and basically shined a spotlight on my cooter. So when they took him to the corner and put his own spotlight on I just laid there in the darkness unable to move. This totally added to the surreal effect for me. It was almost like what was happening was some sort of play I was watching. Some gross disgusting play. Maybe a really demented Gallagher performance. One more small push and the placenta came out. Another thing lots of people don't think about when they think of labor. My husband refused to look at Charlie coming out ("I can't unsee that." he said), but he did watch the placenta he said. He has a way with words and decribed it as a a dark red trash bag filled with liquid that they lay on a platter. He was never more sexy to me than in that moment.

All that fun stuff for one day and now a baby was here. And life was going to get very interesting.