Anyway, so on Saturday, September 10, Ryan and I went to the hospital timely at 6am. At about 7:30am, I was all cooped up in the delivery room, and they had start the pitocin, a hormone simulating oxytocin, which starts contractions. I had had contractions since week 34, on and off, nothing, which merely felt like a sometimes severe backache. The contractions started... and they continued on... and on... but none of them were severe. They were regular, but not enough to dialate me as much as they should. The hours went by and my dosage went up to the allowed maximum, 20. Still, no dialating.
By noon or 2pm the doctor came back and the decision was make to break the water, there was no going back (or going home) after this. (This was the point however, where the doctor had previously told me that I could "opt out" and try again later, but it almost felt like there was no choice. And this is the very reason why I would not induce again, but I will not go into this now).
ANYWAY, the water was broken, and I restarted the pitocin at its lowest level. And MAN - that's when I - for the first time in this pregnancy - experienced REAL pain. The contractions where, strong, so strong that I swore off any future babies etc etc. At around 3pm I demanded an epidural. The nurse had previously told me that they recommended an epidural at 4cm, but I did not really care anymore, I wanted an epidural or I would kill someone including myself. So the nurse anesthetic guy (not a doctor) came in. I think I actually was at a 4cm. He came in chipper and friendly, which annoyed me so much at the time. I did not care what his name was, I did not care about anything he said, I just wanted him to be quiet so that he could focus on his work and administer the epidural. And he did. And after that I was able to appreciate his friendliness, and he seemed to be a quite nice guy after all. It's crazy to see how my impression of him changed with this epidural. My brother, an OBGYN anesthesiologist, always tells me how much the preggo ladies appreciate him, and I can now honestly say that I share their sentiment. Ha.
Anyway, the epidural was amazing, and I was in a good mood and pain free after, basically just watching the contractions on the monitor and hoping that I would dialate. At 6pm or 7pm, I had NOT dialated, and had remained at 4cm or so instead, or maybe it was 6cm. The doctor had come in and told me that they would check me --- and still nothing. I was told that I would be checked again around 9pm. If I had not dialated to at least 9cm by then, we would talk about a C-Section. This was the conversation that did not sit well with me at all and I spent the next few hours in contemplating what we could do. The reason that I had done the induction was that I was a good candidate for it. I had stressed at the doctor's office how much I did NOT want a C-section. Had I made a mistake? I know people "survive" C-sections, but they are major surgeries, and I had not wanted purposefully put myself in a position to get one... let's leave it at that. SO, the next few hours Ryan and I talked about wanting to postpone this surgery till the next day, but then it was 9pm and I was being checked again. Luckily, I finally had dialated to 9.5cm, and I would start pushing around 10pm.
10pm rolled around, the doctor came in, and told me she would give me a little more time, and we would push. I think we started at around 10:15pm or 10:30pm. And so we did. pushing 3 times at the time a counteraction would come, for about 20 seconds each? I do not remember, all I remember is being exhausted like never before in my life. Ryan explained it this way: your uterus muscle has been contracting all day long - whether or not you feel it sans epidural, and so your body is exhausted from that. I could have fallen asleep during the contraction breaks, and was fighting sleep more than anything. So we pushed along. Someone mentioned that we could still make this baby be a non-9/11 baby, so now we were pushing even harder, and did not skip contractions. We switched positions, etc, I don't remember, everything seems like such a blur. The last ten minutes before midnight, I remember trying extra hard. Ryan and I contemplated bribing the doctor so that they could put 9/10 on the birth certificate, which proved to be impossible since I was hooked up on a monitor that was date-stamping the contractions and we would not have been able to do this.
The last few contractions and pushes I remember vividly. I had watched a lot of movies where someone was giving labor, and it was weird to be on the other side of it, to be the protagonist and the person being in labor. I remember that was weird. Everyone (nurse and doctor and Ryan) were cheering me on, telling me good job. Every time they told me "good job" I thought to myself 'why are you all saying this? Does this mean that I will push her out the next time I push?' but then I learned that I did not push her out with the next push, so the "good job" telling lost significance every time I heard it. Instead I kept asking Ryan, can you see her? Is she there? And I managed to get better feedback that way. Initially I had always said that I wanted for Ryan to stand beside me and NOT watch the labor, but I did not really think about this till after. During labor he was already holding my leg up. I knew that I was about to do my last pushes when Dr. Morris asked Ryan if he wanted to pull her out. She was using a suction cup for Liana's head to pull her out and Ryan was to take her out. Did he wear gloves? I don't think so and he does not remember. Then it happened quickly. Suddenly she was out, and she was purple and everyone was rubbing her with a towel. It felt like there were 20 people in the room. They placed her on my chest. It was weird. I felt overwhelmed. I was just looking at her, didn't quite know what to do, touching her a little but didn't want to hurt her, and tears flowed out of my eyes, and I think a rush of hormones hit me. The responsibilities of parenting had just hit me a few hours before and I almost did not know if I could handle it all. I guess I think about things a bit later than normal... Ryan said he had thought about all that before we even got pregnant lol.
Anyway, there she was with a full head of hair. Tiny Tiny Tiny. Cute blew eyes. A cute cry, not like regular babies where the cry is annoying. She sounded good. She was ours.
Here are the first few photos:
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