"How far do you wanna be?"

To the wonderful readers out there who give my inner monologue an audience each week and to those who are joining us for the first time, I have one disclaimer before I can begin the story of Grace’s birthday.

Disclaimer: Because her birthday was such an eventful day, my post this week is a little on the lengthy side…ok, a lot on the lengthy side. I promise next week I’ll reign in my inner voice. But for this week, I let it run wild.

“How far do you wanna be?”

Our lives are the composite of our daily decisions. Who did you decide to marry, what did you decide to do for a living, did you decide to become a parent? When you decide you want to have a baby, all you can think about is getting to that final moment when the doctor places him/her in your arms. Even though nine months is really only a blink compared to a full life, it felt like it dragged on and on for Seth and me. My due date was August 24^th and once I hit 37 weeks we were constantly on full alert. Braxton Hicks teased me endlessly and I grew more uncomfortable everyday. Finally, at 3:45a.m. on August 27^th Braxton Hicks decided to take a leave of absence and sent the real thing. Our decision to have a baby was finally coming true.

The contractions were very mild at this point but I knew they were the real thing. I prayed over our baby and prayed for Seth, then I woke him up. He was groggy at first and then when he realized why I was waking him, he sprang to attention. The entire pregnancy he was always saying he wished there was more he could do. He felt burdened that I was the one doing all the physical work. His job of being my “labor coach” was finally beginning! His job description: be whatever I needed him to be.  And he was.

My contractions were less than five minutes apart at this point but they were only lasting about 30 seconds. I was able to still move around the house and pack some last minute things. We called the hospital and were told to wait and call back when my contractions were less than five minutes apart and lasting 60-90 seconds each for two hours. It was as if my body heard the nurse say this and immediately started stepping up the pain. Each contraction got longer and slightly more painful. The most comfortable place for me ended up being the fetal position at the head of the bed. I kept taking ‘cleansing breaths” through each contraction which is breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, and Seth kept recording everything. Two hours finally passed so Seth called the hospital to tell one of the nurses. I could hear the nurse on the other end tell Seth that we could come in if we wanted but there was no rush. She said most women like to labor at home as long as possible. Seth and I looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Now we had a decision to make. Stay at home longer or get to the hospital. The last thing I wanted to deal with was being sent back home because I wasn’t far enough dilated. So, we decided to stay at home a little while longer.

The next stage in my labor story is what I refer to as the “dark place”. I went from being able to have an intelligent conversation between contractions to almost completely unable to communicate at all. I was starting to have to grab onto the headboard and squeeze during each contraction. They were getting so strong and I kept thinking, “How much worse does it get from here?” After about an hour of being in the “dark place” I heard Seth talking to his best friend on the phone asking for prayer because we were in labor. Seth hung up and came to get an update on how I was feeling. He said that his friend gave us some advice since his middle child was almost born on the freeway because they labored at home too long. First he had asked Seth a series of questions, “Can Shan talk through her contractions?” Seth said, “No.” “Is she reaching out and clenching onto things?’ Seth's response, “Yes.” Then his friend said the advice that without receiving, we may have let ourselves get in an extremely dangerous situation. He said, “Buddy, I think you should go to the hospital now.” It was 8:20.

When Seth relayed the conversation to me I felt my heart latch onto the words, “you should go”. Seth had made sure the car was packed up so after a contraction finished I walked as fast as I could to the car. I had a mission and that was to get to the hospital bed. We made it to the labor and delivery check in desk after a series of contractions that had once again intensified. While I was signing the paperwork I had a contraction that was so bad I started spinning in a circle desperately looking for a chair to sit in. I came really close to just collapsing on the floor and falling into my favored fetal position!

Finally, we walked into our room and I saw the bed that I had been dreaming about. I got all set up with the monitors and then asked the nurse if it was normal to be feeling an involuntary pressing down sensation during the most recent contractions. It felt like my body was starting to push baby downwards on its own in big thumps. She said yes, it was normal. I was now at the point where I was savoring the few seconds between each contraction and dreading the next one. Then, the head nurse who I accurately will refer to as Nurse Nice Lady came in. As she was checking my cervix to see how far dilated I was, she paused and said with a smirk on her face, “How far do you wanna be?” I was so disoriented that I didn’t know what she was talking about. I think I might have said, “Huh??” She replied with, “You’re at 9cm my dear.” It was 9:20.

If we would have waited at home another hour, I would have been dilated to 9cm and Seth and I would have been clueless about it.  My body would have been experiencing the involuntary push and we would have had no idea what to do.

The next series of contractions made the “dark place” I had experienced earlier feel like Disneyland. These new contractions felt like Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter was practicing the Cruciatus Curse on me. For those of you who are not HP fans, the Cruciatus Curse is also known as the torture curse. My stomach went rock hard all the way around and my back felt like someone had it in a vice and kept tightening it as far as it would go. The pressure to push was almost unbearable. For the first time since I started laboring, I could no longer take cleansing breaths. I was still in too much shock to be weeping so instead my voice came out with an involuntary, “ahhh ahhhh ahhhhhh” that was between talking and shouting.  After four or five rounds of pure torture, Nurse Nice Lady checked me again. To my relief she said, ‘I don’t feel anymore cervix. You’re ready to push!” It was 9:45.

Sometimes the decisions we make are so important that they mark the distinction between life and death, between safe and unsafe. Our decision to leave for the hospital was and will forever be one of the best decisions we ever made. I truly believe God used Seth’s friend to tell us exactly when we needed to leave for the hospital. Without his advice we may have stayed at home too long and put our baby’s safety (and mine) at risk.

The pushing part was actually one of the best parts of the whole labor experience. I’m not sure if that’s the same for every woman. The contractions still hurt but being able to push with it made it much more bearable. As soon as I started pushing Nurse Nice Lady turned to the other nurses and said, “Umm when did you say Dr. Calming Voice will be getting to the hospital? …And how far away is that hospital? …How long ago did she leave for here?” It seemed to me like what she really wanted to be saying was, “We’re going to need Dr. Calming Voice in here much sooner than we thought and it looks like she might not make it in time.” Even though I may have been reading the situation totally wrong, I turned it into motivation. If they thought I might need the doctor soon, I wanted that to be true. I wanted that doctor to come, catch my baby, end this pain, and introduce me to my little one.

After about 15 minutes of pushing Nurse Nice Lady asked Seth if he wanted to see his baby’s head. She said you could see about the size of a quarter. I asked her how much needed to be showing before the doctor would come in. She held up a circle with her hands about the size of a large sand dollar. I guess I really must be driven by concrete goals because I’ve never pushed so stinking hard in my life. Not to “toot my own horn” but I even kept pushing after they told me to take a break. Nurse Nice lady was saying, “Push push push push and breathe… oh, you’re still going? Ok! Push push push!” Then she said something to the other nurses that I had been hoping for, “Please call Dr. Calm Voice.”

The doctor came in and for the next 30 minutes I pushed and pushed. It was a little weird to actually be able to feel baby move a tiny bit at a time. It was getting close to 10:30 and the doctor said, “I’m noticing baby’s heart rate is starting to drop and it looks like baby is getting stuck. I’m going to give you some Novocain in case I need to make a little cut, is that ok?” The way I interpreted that statement was, “If we don’t get baby out soon and the heart rate keeps dropping then we will start talking about a c-section.” So, I told her to go for it.

Seth said it was kind of funny because as soon as the doctor made the cut, baby just shot out like a cannon. The doctor even fumbled just a little trying to catch her! At 10:36a.m. Grace joined our lives! If you read my post from last week then you know how surprised we were to have a little girl instead of the boy we were expecting. We both, however, couldn’t be happier.

Those of you who have been reading my posts from the beginning know that I had been hoping to have a drug-free labor. I was prepared to do what was necessary, but I wanted it to be natural if at all possible. In the hospital one of my friends from elementary school came to visit us. She is a nurse and she used to work in the post partum wing that I was staying in. She asked me about getting any drugs and this is how our conversation went.

Friend: You did it without getting an epidural!?

Me: Yeah!

Friend: So did you just get <insert fancy drug name here> ?

Me: No

Friend: Oh…so you just had the patch <insert another fancy name here> on your thigh?

Me: No

Friend: ..seriously? Just an IV then?

Me: Nope

Friend: What?? Are you for real?? Shan, that’s crazy!

It is a little crazy! Grace decided she wanted to come and I guess she is one determined little girl. There wasn’t time to hook me up to anything! Compared to most women’s labor experiences, I know I am extremely blessed that mine only took seven hours. However, there is that pesky little part of me that still wants to say, “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt!!!” It’s true though what every woman says after they give birth. You take one look at your baby and know wholeheartedly that you would do it all over again in a second.

I’m looking forward to sharing my first-time mom adventures with you in the upcoming weeks. One of the highlights of my new life was when I watched (and attempted to help) Seth during Gracie’s “exploding from both ends” fiasco. I’m not sure how much Seth would agree with me, but I thought it was pretty hilarious.  He got poop on his arm and spit up on his shoulder. There was probably some pee on him somewhere too. Classic!

Moms: How long were you in labor? Did you have a "dark place" like me? Or worse, were you also a victim to the Cruciatus Curse? 

Blessings,

Shantastic