2nd Time's A Charm

Hey! So, we had another baby! It's taken me awhile to write about this mostly due to sheer sleepiness and no time whatsoever. Seriously. I can't even return my parents' phone calls. However, in the wake of all the fallout regarding opening or revisiting conversations regarding mental health and depression, I'm going to try to put this all down.

In short: I was terrified for 9 months due to the PTSD and postpartum depression I suffered after the birth of our first. Terrified. Therefore, that and the absence of tequila made for a
VERY. LONG. PREGNANCY.

Last October when we decided to have another child, I was all, "YEAH! LET'S DO THIS!" and then two days after seeing the positive pregnancy test, was curled up in the fetal position. I was convinced I was going to die. Actually had to do some MAJOR working through emotionally and spiritually for 9 months about this. It may not make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but it's like...my body chose flight from the very beginning, and even when I was in the hospital I had a hard time getting my body and my brain and my soul convinced that it was go time. For 9 months, my brain told me awful stories over and over again, random events being taken and twisted. Awful stuff. I wanted to get back on my antidepressant but unfortunately that made me feel physically horrible and even more mentally unstable so I dropped that idea pretty quickly. I had to walk, eat fresh and nutritious food, and be real with my mama tribe - trust the community that I had to work to be a part of for 3 years.

Fortunately, I had a completely different social, emotional, and professional framework from which to approach this pregnancy. Love, support, open arms and ears from every which way. There was an outpouring of information and cheering-on from women who had VBAC'd before, and not just women in my generation. In fact, the aunts and friends with college-age children taught me so much about their VBAC experiences. It was beautiful. I still puked nearly every day until discovering the magic of Zantac in the third trimester, and being pregnant, planning a music therapy conference, working part-ish time while chasing a preschooler...it takes a lot out of a person. There are so many things that made it all tolerable - friends stealing my oldest so I could nap or just have time to think my thoughts, or supper sharing (You have corn chips and beans? I have chicken and cheese! Let's make nachos!), and not to mention friends with stashes of Zofran. There were gorgeous mother blessings, and in the week between 40- and 41- weeks, there were innumerable "random" kindnesses. Our elderly neighbors brought us cookies, people called or Emailed to check-in, and sweet ladies texted me not "have you had that baby yet?" but "thinking about you and holding you up in love" type texts. I cried at the abundance of support.

My wonderfully VBAC-cheerleading doctor was scheduled to deliver her own baby the same week I was due. This sent me into a bit of a frenzy of doubt and I considered changing doctors. I was talked off that ledge and eventually did need to be transferred to the care of another doctor, but after a lot of talking and crying and journaling and more counsel from wise women, ended up being fine with it. After all, the doctor's job is to generally catch the baby or intervene when necessary and that one person may or may not end up on call when your time comes, so there's really no point in holding on so tightly to the thought of one person making or breaking your experience. I trusted the facility where I would be birthing, trusted my birth team, so I slowly came around to trusting that everything was going to be okay. I had to decide that I would be the one deciding how my experience would go. Mentally I held VBAC-ing at a distance. I wasn't married to the idea, just because I didn't want to be disappointed. I set my expectations bar very, very low for this birth. My goal was to come home healthy, with a healthy baby, without feeling like a prisoner of war. Everything else I could take or leave.

My due date came and went. No baby. Of course. I was not at all expecting anything early to happen. Hopeful? Yes. Dubious? Totally. Since my first was born at 42.5 weeks I just hunkered, stayed away from my phone and Facebook and walked like I had never walked before. I did all the interventions I knew how to. Red Raspberry Leaf tea, Evening Primrose Oil up one side and down the other (you'll know what this means if you're in a crunchy birth community. If not, ask me about it.), sex, everything. My body just was not ready at 40 weeks. Around 40.5 (Monday) I had a nonstress test, and everything looked great but fluid levels were a little iffy, so the doc wanted me to come back on Wednesday to repeat the test. Tuesday I tried castor oil, and while it made me power puke, it did not start off contractions. I went back in on Wednesday morning, where we found out the fluid levels had dropped, and she had me go "straight to L&D." Do not go home, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Well.

Since I had eaten a paltry breakfast due to the effects of the previous nights castor oil extravaganza, I instead went to get a turkey sandwich, got adjusted by my chiro, and then went to L&D. I might have a little bit of a problem with authority. I got hooked up and answered all the check-in questions while I waited for the Mr. to show up. He had stayed home to finish up packing and deliver our daughter to the friends watching her for the day. When he arrived, the doctor did as well and placed the foley bulb. She maybe got a little flustered and asked if I had gone home because everything was "behind schedule." She and I were clearly not a match made in heaven, but whatever. She checked to make sure that I was at least a little dilated, and I could feel her fingers on the baby's head.

A foley bulb and low dose pitocin induction is a great option for VBAC mamas. The foley manually dilates the cervix but is kind of awkward - there's the bulb inside and then this long tube and then a bag of saline dangling for counter pressure, and YES it is just about as awkward as you can imagine that whole scenario. Upon reaching 4 cm, the bulb falls out and then the rest of labor should be pretty straightforward. So the doc places the foley bulb and I start getting my fainting aura of slowly not being able to hear. My sweet nurse rushed to put a wet cloth on my forehead and get me some ice. Bless her.

I made it to 4 cm and the bulb fell out and there were high fives all around. And then the doc came in to break my water and realized, right hand checking for dilation and left hand wielding a crochet hook looking device like a wizard wand, that the baby had turned. Transverse. She put the hook down and asked to turn off the pitocin and asked for a sono machine. The Mr. texted my doula who came rushing in from a twin birth to see what was going on. Doc says "c section" and I say, "give me time." Actually, I totally freaked out and ugly cried, and THEN requested some time. During this time I had like, three doulas around me trying to figure out every which way to turn the baby. We were on the spinning babies website, doing inversions, and at one point even had ice and peppermint oil on his head to see if he would turn. Nothing. After about an hour and a half the doc came back in and the nugget was still in the same position, and babies don't come out transverse.

So, we settled in to wait our turn in the OR, chatting and telling jokes. When it was time I walked into the OR, had a long talk with the anesthesiologist so he could keep an eye on my blood pressure, and they hooked up my Spotify "Labor and Birth" playlist. I was nervous, so that means I chatted nonsensically with everyone in the room, and an OR tech kept asking me about my awesome songs that were, in his words, "the perfect playlist - and I'll tell you what. I've heard a lot of these playlists. Yours is the best." Mr. S. had the job of announcing the sex of the baby, and was told to stay at my side the whole time. The surgeons got to work on me and my sweet doula kept a cotton ball of lavender by my nose so I wouldn't have to smell the cauterizing. After a bit, and a whole bunch of digging around in my uterus to get the baby to turn head down (it didn't happen - he came out breech), they said, "Ready dad?" and Mr. S stood up and said, a little choked-up, "We had a boy!"

*we have to pause right here for a minute because I am tearing-up just remembering that moment.*

Everyone in the OR cheered and cried, and I ugly-cried. I was seriously floored, surprised beyond everything, and said something special along the lines of, "I was growing a penis this whole time and had no idea!" Early on I suspected it was a boy, and now looking back I had so much that I was hoping for in this birth but was afraid to hope for, so I talked myself out of things so that I wouldn't eventually be disappointed. Not that we would have been disappointed had we had a girl because SISTERS!, and we have a really great girl name, but I loved the idea of trying something new this time, learning new things.

Here's where things in the OR get really awesome. Little man was taken over to the table to be checked out and Mr. S stayed to hold my hand. Then they brought the babe over to me and laid him on my chest while I was stitched up. As a family we gazed at each other and laughed and touched faces and nuzzled. It was the most amazing thing. I never felt alone or scared, just overwhelming joy and love. Mr. S held baby while I was put on a gurney to be wheeled to recovery and when it was all over, the babe was back on my chest. He nursed like a champ in recovery and we got to face time late with sweet A to let her know she had a little brother.

So yeah, totally different things learned the second time around. The recovery was STILL not a picnic, but my mind and body weren't fried as badly, and I wasn't scared of being a mom. In fact, I turned tearfully to Mr. S one day and said, "I think I've been depressed for four years. And now it's gone." Reminds me of a verse in Isaiah:

"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
43:15-16

Fits perfectly with what we named him - after a famous wilderness philanthropist.

And hey, here's my Labor and Birth Tunes playlist. He was born while "Out of the Woods" by Nickel Creek was playing, followed by "Magic" by Coldplay.

It's Time to Begin, Isn't It?

This post today is brought to you by tremendous amounts of ugly crying. 

I am sitting here, overwhelmed, because suddenly I want to write about ALL THE THINGS...there is so much. But I'll just start with today and call it good enough. 

I'm 16 weeks pregnant with our second kiddo, and last week had my first appointment with the doctor who will deliver this baby. Suffice to say I had a really tough time picking a provider. My first daughter's birth was completely wheels-off and crazy and I spent nearly three years cowering in PPD and off-the-charts anxiety. I didn't write a lot because I had a lot to sort through, relationship-wise, mama-wise, and I didn't want to do it publicly. I guess I'm writing to say: It Gets Better.

Birth trauma sucks, and I'm learning from dear friends that you don't even have to have a three day labor that ends in a cesarean birth to be traumatized. The loss of control, blood, modesty, and sometimes even just the startling fact of, "I'm used to things working out, and this might not work out..." is enough to send one's body into a super case of fight-or-flight. And not in a good way.

So...fast forward through rocking my newborn with tears streaming down my face, countless therapy sessions, anxiety attacks, nighttime (ie: INFINITELY WORSE) anxiety attacks, prayers on my face, friends not understanding, thinking I'm crazy, therapy, being terrified of having more babies, antidepressants, and...did I mention therapy? to two days after I found out I am pregnant again: me, curled up in the fetal position, telling the mister that I'm convinced I'm going to die.

Hello, fight-or-flight. Missed you.

Just kidding. Opposite day. More like:
WHAT THE HELL I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEALT WITH.

Surprise.

And you know what? This pregnancy was TOTALLY PLANNED. I went into this all "YEAH! best idea ever! it's going to be great!" thinking that I could just fake it 'til I made it. So, back into therapy I went, for several different areas of life. The journaling and processing started up again, and I began searching for a supportive birth team. I spilled the beans the day that plus sign showed up to my previous doula/current chiropractor. We cried, and then after a few weeks she gave me the names of several providers in the area, and suggested a meeting with the best doula we knew to help get my head straight. After that meeting I scheduled an appointment with the doctor who delivered A and then one with a doctor she recommended.

The one who delivered A was...fine. Charming. Great guy. I mostly went because I was curious how my feelings would be about him, and also because I wanted to get his perspective on VBACs. I'd heard he was one of THE guys in Dallas that champion them. I was disappointed to have him start immediately laying out risks and all the ways in which a VBAC could go wrong, including uterine rupture, which he mentioned at my 6 week postpartum checkup and then I made the mistake of googling it and ended up on the floor in my first panic attack that day. Don't get me wrong, I have climbed way out of the crunchy rabbit hole since my very, very humbling birth with A and I have pretty much ZERO expectations, and a healthy appreciation for modern medicine, so I need to hear that stuff. Throw in a transvaginal sonogram done by a dude and we'll just say I was...turned off.

Since I was a new patient with the new doctor I had to wait to be seen first to do labs (at around 13 weeks is when I did this), then meet with the RN to get a full history taken and THEN meet with the doc (this was last week). I had even managed to get my ex-midwife to give me a copy of my file (that in itself is its own blog post) and brought it. The RN and doc had lots of questions about my birth, wanted to know what my expectations were for this one, and led with the empowering and empathetic understanding I was looking for in doc #1. They said things like, "You will NOT be in labor for 3 days this time." and "You made it to 8cm with no pain meds? You've so got this." and "We're going to be realistic about where your birth is going, don't get me wrong, but we're also not going to put you on a clock and insist on a cesarean and pull the plug early on your efforts." The RN and the doc both effervesced about the nursing staff at the hospital, the doula I chose, and my chiropractor.

When the doc left the room, I exhaled, replaced my paper gown with my clothes, and slowly walked through the hallway to the checkout counter, admiring all the squishy babies on the wall. As I checked out, I felt a prickle behind my eyes that turned into full on bawling by the time I made it to my car. I sat and sobbed like a crazy person...like a full-on Biblical professional wailing woman. I started getting a little concerned it wasn't going to stop but I just kept scrolling through my playlists on Spotify, landing on whatever song struck me as appropriate. Imagine Dragons was first and then Bob Marley. I forget the rest.

It went on for about 20 minutes.

It's been a week, and I can say that whatever that was turned a tiny little light on in my soul. I can repeat, "I am safe," to myself at night when a nightmare wakes me up, and I believe it. I am actually hungry, I laugh more, and I feel like being around people again. I know this is probably coinciding with the second trimester boost, but whatever. That catharsis was way overdue and I know it did my heart some good. I honestly didn't know how sad and anxious I was until it all came pouring out.

Am I sleep deprived? Stressed? Unsure? Yes. I have a three year old and have NO IDEA what I'm doing. She sleeps like an alligator trying to take large prey under on a death roll, and I'm either starving or have to pee 24/7. But this little light...it's started shining through the cracks.

I'm dancing again, trusting, hoping again.

Phew. It gets better.

the mother 'hood

I did it. I left my dream job after a year and a half to stay at home with my little chickadee.

It was not. an easy. decision.

But looking back, in some ways it was. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I define myself and over and over I kept getting the same result:

1. Wife

2. Mother

3. Music Therapist

4. - 13478. Everything else

I don't want to get all Earth Mother on you, but seriously, giving birth, especially in the way that it all went down, rocked my world. I thought after I went back to work that I was handling it and then I started reading a book called Creative Interventions with Traumatized Children and could see a lot of symptoms of trauma in myself, which then as a self aware therapist made me go: 

huh. I wonder if I can go through all this and still be a good therapist. 

Not that my therapy was ever struggling. I'm really good at what I do. The music and the kiddos and the families were incredible. Invigorating. It was just that in the in-between times I found myself not really being the kind of Wife or Mother that I wanted to be because I was basically in crisis mode, trying to heal myself and my family and at the same time being a support for traumatized and grieving and hurting patients and families at the same time and on top of all that trying to find time to feed, bathe, clothe not only myself but my kid and then somehow find the brain cells to get dinner on the table, maybe hit a yoga class or run or journal in order for me to have some self care. 

In short: I was kind of off-kilter.

I was off kilter, and I had the incredible support of my husband (who should get an award for Dad of the Year in the diaper washing, dish washing, and keeping-his-wife's-shit-together categories) and my mother, who basically...no...actually lived with us for 6 months. I know what you're thinking. That's a whole other series of posts right there, but not in a bad way.

I was a step behind myself, my kid, and my hubs, and I hated that. On my best days I was still exhausted and raw and on my worst days I cried a lot, feeling guilty for "having it all" and being miserable. And then I remembered a line from Wicked:

That's why I couldn't be happier
No, I couldn't be happier
Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated
But I couldn't be happier
Simply couldn't be happier
(spoken) Well - not "simply":
(sung) 'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little - well - complicated
There's a kind of a sort of : cost
There's a couple of things get: lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed
And if that joy, that thrill
Doesn't thrill you like you think it will
Still -
With this perfect finale
The cheers and ballyhoo
Who
Wouldn't be happier?
So I couldn't be happier
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true
Well, isn't it?
Happy is what happens
When your dreams come true!

that's all for now...more about all this later.

6 week postpartum checkup: back in the saddle again

I went to my shiny new OB/GYN for my 6 week checkup/annual exam...these things being annual I am deciding whether or not having such a delightful experience this close to my birthday is a good idea. He checked out his handiwork (scar), we chatted about Adeline's labor and delivery, discussed birth control and future pregnancies. Maybe it was because I hadn't had breakfast yet...still getting the hang of timing with a new baby...right now it takes us about an hour and a half to two hours to go from sleeping to out the door. Think that sounds like a long time? I have to shower, get totally dressed and ready, check her diaper bag to make sure everything is together, wake her up, change, feed, change again, put on appropriate going out clothes and THEN we can leave. Phew! For someone who is historically TERRIBLE at forethought, it's quite an exercise. By the time we're all ready to go, I'm ready for a nap.

Like I was saying, maybe it was because I hadn't had breakfast yet, but after all the discussion and the pelvic exam and all that, I was kind of...I don't know...sad? weebed out at the prospect of future babies? make that scared out of my mind of all the complications? overwhelmed because I would like at least one more kid of our own, and would also like to adopt...all of it was too much. Plus I had to focus on my breathing to keep from passing out.  Then add to that the fact that I ran into my midwife yesterday at the gas station...is anyone surprised that I came home, ate lunch, fed the kid and then ended up a weepy mess on the floor by her crib? Sigh.

Recognizing that I needed to do some creative interventions on myself and go back and process Adeline's dramatic entry into the world, I headed off to Hobby Lobby to get some crafting supplies. Thanks to Claire leaving a book on earring making I grabbed some wire and beads and plan to make some jewelry, and then attack a drawing pad with some pastels and colored pencils and whatever else strikes my fancy.

Birth Story Part III: Thursday and then some.

Thursday

1:00am I was at 6cm

3:00am 7cm and the nurses suggested I take nubane, which is a narcotic to help me sleep. In retrospect this was the move that I regretted the most because I thought it would lessen the pain but it didn't, just made me conk out between contractions and hallucinate a bit. Like, I saw Kyle's grandpa who passed away a couple years ago, and a bunch of people sitting in chairs all around my room. Kyle says this is the best decision that was made because he was finally able to get some sleep.

6:30am - I was at 8cm but things were slowing down, and by the next time the OB checked in at 7:30, I was still at an 8.

9:00am - We decided to do an epidural. The thought is that sometimes it can relax your body enough to let you go the rest of the way naturally. It didn't hurt at all (at this point my concept of pain's world had been totally rocked) and was actually really awesome...except for the part where my blood pressure dropped to 50/30 and they had to give me epinephrine and oxygen. I slept for real for the first time in 4 days. Unfortunately no dilation was going on. There was discussion that the baby was behaving like a boy by the monitors so the next few hours were spent coming up with boy names just in case.

Kyle and I spent a good amount of time praying and talking with my doula about the possibility of a C-section and what that would entail so that by the time the doc showed up and said we should do this thing (at 12:30pm), we were all on board. My doula said that she guessed that Adeline would be laying face up when they cut me open. Kyle left to call family while they got me all situated with a catheter and prepped where they'd be cutting and the next time I saw him he was all in a space suit and shower cap. The time between them deciding to do the C-section and Addy being born was almost exactly an hour.

I was all proud of myself, because after laughing at with my sister about the moments after her C-section, I was determined to be lucid and remember everything that happened. 

Enter: Morphine. Sigh.

I remember everything about her birth. It is incredibly weird to be awake while you're being cut open and operated on. In the hospital they talk about "time outs" where everyone stops and takes a minute to make sure that the procedure they're doing is indeed the one that needs to be done. You know, so the surgeons don't cut off the wrong appendage. They talk about them all the time at work and when it was my turn for my time out, I kept thinking, "hey! I get my own time out! neat!" 

The worst part of the whole ordeal was the smell - they cauterize stuff all up in there, so, yeah. Smelling your own burning flesh and all? Worst part. I remember when they got to my uterus and the doctor said, "uterine!" like, "eureka! here we are!" and everyone in the room repeated it back to him. Kyle was sitting at my head and I remember he kept trying to talk to me and I just kept staring at him blankly because my mind was occupied with all the tugging that was going on in my lower half. 

My doc said that sure enough when they opened me up, Adeline was looking up at him like "Hey here I am! Let's get out of here!" and he even nicked her on her forehead with his scalpel by accident. When they pulled her out at 1:39pm she was purple and screaming and they said, "It's a little girl!" and the first thought in my head was "duh of course it is, we have a name for a girl!" and then Kyle and I both cried for about the millionth time that day. After that the anesthesiologist gave me something that knocked me out while they sewed me up. I remember being wheeled back into the labor room, where my doula brought Adeline over to me to get some breastfeeding and bonding going immediately. Here's where things start to get hazy. I remember seeing my family and being all, "you're HERE!" and then being wheeled into a recovery room while the nurse said, "I like you so I'm going to take care of you and give you the big room." She totally hooked us up.

The rest of that day and the next is a complete haze. I remember getting the itchies from the morphine which originally started out as a scratchy nose and then spread all over so they had to give me something to make it stop. I also remember Kyle eating. A lot. Someone brought him a Chipotle burrito, which he devoured, and then my sister wanted to know if he wanted a sandwich a couple hours later and he was all "DO I!?" I do remember that there were a ton of visitors Thursday and Friday, all of whom I have since apologized to for being less than lucid :) 

 the first food I'd had and not chucked in 5 days. I have never been so pumped about chicken broth.
 

We ended up in the hospital until Sunday. The recovery was really, really difficult. I wasn't allowed out of bed for the first 24 hours, and then when I did get up out of bed (with the help of a nurse and Kyle) I almost passed out twice, which was accompanied by auditory issues - it sounded like someone put noise canceling headphones on me and I yelled at people in the room to keep talking because I felt like I was losing my hearing. And then there's the whole abdominal surgery thing. Getting in and out of bed took an act of congress, but each time was easier. What sucked was having to plan every bathroom break like, 20 minutes before I thought I would need to go. But again, every single day was way better than the day before.

Breastfeeding proved to be a whole lot easier than I expected. I mean, it was difficult because I was instructed to get her to latch on for 20 minutes on each side every 2 hours to establish a good milk supply and make sure everything was working properly. That was especially rough the first few days while in the hospital - that 2 hours didn't start when she was done but when she started...so factor 40 minutes plus fiddling to make sure everyone's doing what they should be, a possible bathroom break and moving slow as molasses to boot and there's maybe an hour in there to get sleep before you do it all over again. At A's 2 week visit though, she had not only regained her birthweight but gained 1.5 pounds on top of that, so I guess we're doing okay :)

The nursing and lactation consultants at my hospital were absolute angels, and if I had to go through what I did to get to know them, then that's okay. There was even a nurse who wanted to become a music therapist and grilled me on how to do it. I also have a nagging feeling that I had to go through all that to be grateful for the professionals who are trained to deal with the truly necessary intervention situations, that my pride needed to be knocked down a notch. I went through the birth that God had written out for me, and a month later I can totally see why and see His hands all over every single step. The other cool thing was that the OB played trumpet in the Aggie band, so of course we all bonded over that :)

The other big things I learned?

I am much more of a fighter than I thought I was.

My husband is a rock star. Seriously. He is amazing in ways I didn't even know before this whole thing. Amazing. I went into this thinking I knew everything about him and was humbled to discover this whole other incredible side of him. Let's say amazing one more time, because he really is.

My body can do really amazing things and I've spent a long time underestimating and under-appreciating it.

I had to learn how to use my voice and stand up for myself once and for all.

When we got home I wandered around like a zombie, pretty sure I had a mild form of PTSD. I *very slowly* yanked the covers off the bed and washed the linens that were by the tub, trying to scrub down my memory of what had happened on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I cried a lot. 

We basically camped out in the living room for a week. I couldn't lay down comfortably or get in and out of bed, so we stacked up a bunch of pillows on the couch and I would just kind of slump over them sideways. Kyle slept on the chaise section of the sofa, and Addy slept on my right.

and sometimes we just slept like this.

Birth Story Part II: Wednesday

Okay where were we? Right.

Wednesday

1:00am - called the midwife so she could hear what kinda sounds I was making again. At this point I was having some really insanely painful back labor. My doula guessed that the baby was posterior (with her back/spine against mine) and face up. It sucked and was the most difficult, most painful part of the whole thing. She put me on my left side with my left leg straight and my right leg up and bent to the right (they call this a pretzel) in hopes the baby would flip. At some point, my midwife suggests that I need to "reframe" my pain experience, and then said that I should come BACK to the birth center, which is when I said that there was no way I was getting back in the car to go the birth center just to hear that I was still 2cm and have to come right back home and she could come to my house, thank you very much.

1:30am - midwife comes over, has to check me, at which point I said that I was having really awful pain and would like to not be on my back for very long. We waited for a contraction to pass and I laid down to get checked which of course is when I got slammed with another horrendous contraction. When it was all over, I stood at the end of the bed, which is when we got the news that -you guessed it- I was 2.5cm. This is the point that Kyle says I totally lost my shit. I wailed and cried and cried. I haven't freaked out like that I don't think ever in my life. Mostly because I didn't understand what was going on, and there was no way I could handle much more pain than what I had just endured and my brain was going 8 MORE CENTIMETERS?!!?! I knew I could handle lots of pain if it meant we were going to be doing it for just a little bit longer or there was some progression happening, but without either of those, I felt completely helpless. It was decided at this time that resting would be best for everyone to rest. I got in a warm tub, where I relaxed enough to snooze a bit, then sat on the bathroom floor with Kyle, where I started to fall asleep sitting up.

3:00am - Finally able to sleep by stacking up pillows and sitting on the bed, flopped over them. Laying down at this point was just not going to happen.

6:00am we all pow-wowed, decided that it would be best for everyone to rest, midwife leaves to check on her patients.

10:00am we were all up and I felt tons better, was actually eating and walking. My doula was still with us and we tried to get labor going again with nipple stimulation, power walking around the neighborhood, and such. Labor was sort of going, but very slowly, and not consistently.

1:00pm Midwife showed up at the house again and checked my blood pressure and we all discussed the possibility of me ending up at the hospital at 6ish Wednesday night since that's 24 since my water had broken.

3:00pm - After a couple hours of trying to get labor going again, we decided that if we wait 'til 6 to go the hospital then it'll be forever to get me checked in and hooked up to Pitocin, which would lead to another really long night, so we just packed it up and went to the hospital. I turned and looked at Kyle and said, "what have you eaten today?" he said that he had a banana and some pizza, and he was not looking very good.

5:00pm Kyle gets slammed with a migrane, so while my doula and I in our little women tribe hang out at the hospital with Pitocin and antibiotics coursing through me, blood pressure and contraction monitors hooked up and me dilating away, Kyle pukes and naps at home. I try not to worry.

9:00pm Kyle gets back to the hospital looking much better.

11:00pm FINALLY some progress! 5cm!

how it all went down: Monday & Tuesday

Before I start, I just want to say that when someone has been through a heavy experience, don't underestimate the power of these four words: "tell me what happened." I've sat down a million times over the last couple weeks wanting to write this down and not being able to, mostly because labor was obscenely long (56 hours?) and then I had a bunch of stuff to resolve in my own brain about how everything turned out. All that being said, I really enjoyed being in labor...call me crazy but I think there are few times in life when your brain is forced to take a back seat and all there is left is what your senses give you, and then you get to react accordingly. It was kind of like being at a really awesome concert.

So anyway.

Monday

 morning meant I was 42 weeks and 1 day and we decided to do some natural induction stuff, so I ended up drinking the castor oil smoothie, which ended up in some cramps but nothing really consistent. That was also the day of the midwife visit and the membrane stripping *shudder* and the discussion of baby positioning (less than favorable). I think I walked the mile home from my midwife's office that day. I was in touch with my doula, who spoke with my midwfe about what was going on position-wise, and she adjusted me accordingly (closed off my right hip in hopes the baby would scoot over to where it was supposed to). 

Tuesday

  about 3:30am is when we officially say that labor started. I had contractions every 15 minutes 

6:00am contractions were less regular. It was decided to do the castor oil/breast pump/walking again...on the walk I puked up all the castor oil smoothie (surprised? no?) and then by 

7:30am I had contractions between 7-15 minutes, and then by 

12:30pm I had contractions every 5-7 minutes. They were not very strong, and I was pretty much just in early labor.

2:00pm I was scheduled for another sonogram to make sure that the baby was STILL okay, still with lots of fluid and still with a good heart rate (of course she was). During that visit I was hooked up to a contraction monitor, and the technicians said, "ummmm....did you know you're having really regular contractions?" and "yeah...when are you going to the birth center?" 

4:30pm We had another scheduled visit with my midwfe, so we went over there and found out I was 2cm dilated, and she said to go home and rest. My mom drew me a bath and me and Kyle hung out, talking when suddenly...

6:30pm my water broke, which was really gross. I felt a pop and a squish and stood up in the tub, freaking out a little bit - mostly because I couldn't believe it actually happened, and also because if I had continued laying in the tub I would be laying in amniotic fluid, and it just grossed me out. For the record, SINCE the whole labor and birth thing, there's not a whole lot that grosses me out. Just sayin'. I texted my midwife and my doula, both agree that it doesn't so much change the game plan of resting and waiting for labor to pick up, and my doula said that when contractions get so bad that I can't sleep, call her. I tried to sleep for about 15 minutes and it was impossible. 

7:30pm doula came over about , when labor started to kick up. I labored around the house, walked a lot, sat in various chairs, held on to Kyle, danced around, made lots of noise.

9:30pm contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart, so my doula called my midwife so she could hear what I sounded like. Doula asked for 2 hours to labor around the house, expecting that I was about to hit transitional labor and would be about a 6 or 7.  Midwife gave us 1 hour.

10:30pm we head to the birth center (btw: being in a car while in labor SUCKS.) where we find out that I am STILL 2cm. The midwife's suggestion is to go home and help me relax.  On the way home, K, the doula, and I decide that instead of sleeping, to keep doing the labor thing if I felt good. That's about the time labor started getting a little intense.

the act of recovery

So by now you've probably heard that I ended up having to give pitocin a shot, along with an epidural and eventually a c-section. Pretty much exactly the opposite of what we were trying to do - all natural earthy crunchy and such, but definitely according to our plan. I sit here and look at Adeline's face and am thankful for the fact that we have the interventions that we do that make birth...well I guess in my case, and in lots of other cases, possible. 

I'm not disappointed in the way things turned out because above all, I wanted to stay away from unnecessary interventions. There was never a time that I felt "resigned" to a c-section. The whole time, Kyle and I were empowered, encouraged, and informed by my angelic nurses, OBGYN, and doula. Where was my midwife, you ask? Well, that's another tale for another time.

Six days out from the whole thing I am bewildered why there is such a thing as an "elective cesarean," that anyone would elect to put their body through major abdominal surgery, stay in bed for at least 24 hours, be whacked out on pain meds, and deal with all the pain and ickyness, if they had the choice of doing one or the other. This is in no way a judgement by any stretch of the imagination - I just know that I would rather do labor all over again and push a baby out than do the c-section recovery dance again.

People say that every birth is an enlightening journey and there were definitely things I had to learn about myself through the process that I couldn't have learned any other way. I'll get around to telling about the whole thing later, but for now I'm still kinda processing, being thankful for my sweet little family, especially Kyle. Seriously, there's no way I could've survived the last week and a half without him.