I think I got some of the times a little bit wrong in previous posts. My midwife must have returned from her office around 2:00pm and then raised my pitocin dosage. After that, I labored for about an hour and a half before she broke my bag of waters.
I don't remember if I had a few contractions first or if it was the very next contraction after my waters were broken, but the next thing I remember is being on all fours on my hospital bed, rocking my hips, moaning, and being in a lot of pain. And it just kept getting worse. Once my waters were broken, I was in LABOR. Hard. It hurt. Clark weighed almost 3 lbs more than Elise did when she was born, and believe me, I could FEEL it. It felt like my pelvis might break in two.
As the pain got worse, I developed a way of coping by focusing my attention away from my pelvis during the contractions and trying to think just about my breathing and what was going on inside my head. That helped a little. Then I got all loopy and during my contractions I kept thinking, "I'm a deer in the forest. Hold your head up high! Watch for danger!" So I guess your totem animal is the deer, Clark. Pain does funny things to a person's brain.
I realized after about an hour of insanely painful contractions that if things got any worse (and they would because I wasn't even pushing the baby out yet) I wouldn't be able to deal with it. I'd pass out or go into shock or SOMETHING. So I talked to my midwife and Husband about getting an epidural. I was so so so sad about my decision to do it. I cried. I had to mourn the loss of my ideal labor. I did it without an epidural for Elise and I wanted to do it for Clark, too. But Clark was just too big for my little 5 foot tall body and I couldn't take the pain anymore. At the time, I felt like I was being weak. Now, I thank goodness that I did get an epidural because he was a BIG baby and it DID hurt more than with Elise and I wasn't being a wimp about it, either. He was born bigger than over 90% of babies-- it was a rough labor and it would have been rough for anybody.
Of course, the anesthesiologist wasn't waiting outside my door in order to give me an epidural if I wanted one, so it took some time for her to arrive. I had many contractions in the meanwhile before she arrived, each one worse than the last. By the time she finally arrived, I was about to go crazy. Then she started talking, warning me of the possible side effects, asking me family and personal medical history. Oh my god. I couldn't believe it was taking so long. I started yelling "It HURTS!" and "Someone help me!" whenever I'd contract. It was honestly the worse pain I've ever felt. By a mile. Worse than pushing Elise out.
Then, before they'd give me the epidural, my midwife said she wanted to do a quick exam to make sure I wasn't already at 10 centimeters. If I was, they wouldn't administer the epidural, they'd just tell me to push. I said something like, "Do whatever you have to do as quickly as possible." I pretty much wanted to kill everyone in the room at that point. I felt like no one was helping me, everyone was just letting me go on hurting.
I was 7 1/2 or 8 centimeters dilated, so they decided to let me have the epidural. By some stroke of magic, I didn't have any contractions while they were doing the epidural procedure. The contractions had been coming really fast before that, but my body seemed to know that relief was on the way. And it WAS relief. The epidural doesn't work right away, but each contraction gets a little bit less intense until it all just fades away and all you can really feel is the pressure of the baby in your pelvis.
I laid down around 4:30, right after the epidural was administered, and I fell fast asleep. My body was like, "Thank you. I think I'll just shut down now. That was way too intense." I slept for about an hour.
I woke up at about 5:30, as my midwife was walking back into my room, and she said that it was time to push. As I sat up, I remember saying, "It feels like I'm sitting on the baby's head." And my midwife or maybe one of the nurses said, "That's because you are." He was far down in the birth canal by that point.
My OBGYN arrived in the room, too. She wanted to be on standby in the room as I delivered Clark because he was so big. She was afraid that he'd get his shoulders stuck behind my pelvis and there would be an emergency, with his head out, his shoulders stuck, and his umbilical cord pinched off and not delivering oxygen to him. If that happened, she wanted to be able to step in and take over from the midwife.
I started pushing. And I could feel him coming out pretty fast. Fast, relatively speaking. With Elise I pushed for 2 hours. It was slow going. But with Clark, it felt like there was progress being made with each push.
Right at the end, just before he was all the way out, I heard the midwife say something. I thought she said, "He's flat." Just then, something started beeping. Some monitor somewhere. I lost my shit. I started yelling, "Is he okay? Is the baby okay?!?" And since no one else knew what I had mistakenly heard or realized that the beeping was going on, they just kept telling me, "Push! Push! He's fine! Push!" But I thought that maybe they were lying just to make me not be scared. I felt pretty panicked. I pushed as hard as I could.
Then all of a sudden he was out. They put him right up on my chest and I saw that he was okay. I had labored for 9 hours and pushed for 15 minutes. Despite his large size, I only needed 3 stitches, and the midwife and doctor even debated about whether or not they should put those in. Thanks, Elise, for having already tunneled your way out of my lady parts, because I'm pretty sure that if I'd have had Clark first, I'd be telling a different story.
I got to hold Clark for a really long time. Breastfeed him, even. He was born ready to eat, by the way. No problems breastfeeding at all. Perfect latch, ready for milk. With Elise, they set her on my chest for a second and then whisked her away because she wasn't breathing well. I got to hold Clark for quite a while. It was nice.
Amazing. What an incredible experience. Two babies now. Totally different pregnancy experiences, totally different birth experiences. And now that's all behind me and I get to love on them and kiss my babies' pretty little faces every day. Amazing.
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