Obligatory Birth Story

Well, I might as well take advantage of these late nights to catch up on my posting!

I'm posting my birth story because I enjoyed reading other peoples' stories while I was still pregnant. I take that back: maybe I didn't enjoy reading everyone's stories (some of them downright terrified me) but it helped me to feel somewhat prepared. So, here goes nothing.

I went into labor on Friday, November 20th, around 10pm. That day had been pretty uneventful and I remember thinking in frustration that I was sure I was going to have to be induced; I hadn't had a single contraction (Braxton-Hicks or otherwise) all day long. Fast forward to 10:00...Matt was asleep in the recliner and I was watching TV on the couch. And all of a sudden there it was: my first real contraction. Ouch. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was a contraction; all of my worries about delivering on my kitchen floor because I would somehow not recognize that I was in labor promptly disappeared.

For the next few hours, we timed my contractions. Sometimes we'd get excited as they were only 5 minutes apart. I'd be just about ready to call the doctor when 12 minutes would pass without a contraction. Frustrating! Around 2am, just after an extremely intense contraction subsided, I decided that I'd had enough. No, my contractions weren't coming in the textbook "this is when you go to the hospital" manner, but I know my body and I knew they were not going away.

Matt ran around excitedly packing up the car while I called the after-hours line at my OB's office and waited for a call back. Who would be on the other line, I wondered? Dr. Cheesy? Dr. No Eye Contact? One of my favorites? At that point, I really didn't care.

Or so I thought.

I got a call back a few minutes later from a "Dr. Garrett", which struck me as odd because there is no Dr. Garrett in my OB's practice. Surely, this must be a mistake.

Alas, it was not. My OB's office partners with another office and they sometimes cover each other's patients. I knew this, of course. I was told this up front, way back when, at my first appointment. But I tuned it out, because, well, what were the chances that I'd go into labor when one of my five doctors were not on call?

(At this point, I was pretty much feeling like Katherine Heigl's character in "Knocked Up". No, Matt did not leave a profanity-laced message on my doctor's voicemail, much to my dismay).

Dr. Garrett did get a gold star, though, for telling me to go ahead and come to the hospital even though my contractions were still irregular. He felt that since I was GBS+, it made sense to go ahead and start monitoring me.

By the time we got checked in and I was hooked up to all of the fancy hospital equipment, my contractions were coming at 2-3 minute intervals. When they told me that they were officially admitting me instead of sending me back home with an Ambien (something that had been initially threatened), I almost cried I was so happy.

Family started to arrive as contractions started to progress. I made it to 5 cm dilated before requesting an epidural. I think Matt and my mom breathed a sigh of relief for their poor, battered hands when the anesthesiologist finally arrived.

Now, I am one of those people that feared the epidural. I'm not scared of needles and while the prospect of having a large needle inserted into my spine didn't thrill me, it also didn't terrify me. Nope, it wasn't the needle. What scared me was the fact that I'd have no control over my legs. Irrational, probably, but the knowledge that I wouldn't even be able to walk to the bathroom under my own power wasn't a pleasant thought for a control freak like me.

However, after 8 hours of labor, these worries took a backseat to my desire for some pain relief. At that point, I probably would've agreed to numb my whole body if it meant a temporary break from contractions.

And then my epidural failed. Well, half-failed. The right side of my body was so numb that it was completely useless to me. I couldn't even wiggle a single toe on my right foot. But my left leg was ready to run a marathon if I needed it to; there was virtually no numbness at all on my left side. Super. For the record, one-sided contractions still hurt like a bitch. Also? The epidural made me throw up. Thank goodness for Matt's speedy retrieval of the bed pan.

Fast forward many ice chips and relative visits later, and I was ready to bribe my nurse (who was awesome, by the way) to have the anesthesiologist come back and increase my meds. She decided to check my cervix one more time before making that call. And then I heard them, the most beautiful words in the English language: "Do you want to have a baby now?" It was time to push.

Surely pushing would only take 10 or 15 minutes, I reasoned, and then I'd be holding my adorable little bundle in my arms. Wrong. For some reason, my contractions, which had been coming at reliable intervals for the past several hours, decided to take a little vacation when I needed them most. After an hour and a half of pushing with half-ass contractions and very little progress, I was fully convinced that the doctor was a millisecond away from wheeling me into the OR for a C-section.

Thank goodness for my fabulous nurse who suggested we add a little Pitocin to my IV to get my lazy contractions started up again. And start up they did. So, with Matt holding one leg, my mom holding the other, and one of my favorite OB's (who had taken over Dr. Garrett's shift) in the catcher's position, I pushed with every last ounce of strength I had.

"He's almost out!", "There's his head!", "He's got blonde hair!"

All of these statements circulated in my head as I paused again to wait for another contraction.

And then I heard my OB's voice, "Whoa, I think he's just going to come on out right now, without another push from you."

And he did. I guess Camden decided that an hour and a half was far too long to be stuck in a birth canal. Perhaps he could sense his mother's exhaustion. Or maybe he was just anxious to meet his parents. Whatever the reason he decided to crawl out on his own, I was so thankful.

At 2:29pm, on November 21st 2009, I became a mother. Matt became a father. All of the struggles we faced over the past couple of years suddenly made so much sense when we looked at that tiny, perfect face. He was the reason. And he was so worth it.