Not much time to post today (or to finish Will's "birth story"), but I found this picture on my cell phone. I took it in Santa Fe, it is right outside of my great-uncle's house...
So here is a continuation of Will's Birth Story
There was also a blood pressure cuff that took my BP at regular intervals. The cxn's were still coming on strong, and stronger, and stronger. They put in a dry catheter (basically epidural w/ no medication) and then let me labor for awhile. When they checked me again I was 7-8 cm dilated. So- to recap- 3 cm around 7pm-ish, water breaks at 8:20pm, check on admission and 5 cm at 9:15ish, and 7-8 cm around 10 or so. _Very_ quick. So at this point I am firmly believing I was not going to be able to do this totally naturally. So I asked for the epidural. Now I had lots of mixed feelings about this decision b/c I knew, statistically, that my chances of a successful VBAC would decrease markedly w/ an epidural. I also knew that it would be harder to push w/ one b/c you can't feel what's going on. And I just wanted to make it as far/long as possible w/o an intervention for fear that I'd go through another experience like I did with Loula . But still, I hung in as long as I could before I took it. Once it was in though, it seemed to take a _long_ time before it kicked in. And when it did, it took effect pretty slowly. I think it was much quicker for Loula. At least I remember being in extreme pain one second, and feeling pretty good the next. This time, I was feeling the cxns for awhile, but they were slowly getting shorter and less intense. It was at some point during this process that one of the nurses told me that I had people waiting downstairs. It ended up being my mom, Aunt Carol, Bill and Laura. So I told Mark that once the epidural kicked in that my brother could come up. When they checked me again, soon afterwards (10:45ish), I was fully dilated. Actually, they checked me b/ I felt something coming down, and I kept telling them "there's something in there!" Mark thought that was pretty amusing, and said "yeah Amy, it's a baby". I had to be more specific: "No, I mean, something is in there and it's coming OUT". I'm sure that if I hadn't had the epidural I would've wanted to push. So my brother got there (I was feeling pretty ok by then) and gave him a few bullet points of what he'd probably see and what would happen. He seemed totally ok w/it, and said he'd just stay by my head. We talked for a bit (midwife Peggy said she wanted me to wait half an hour before I started to push) and then by 11:15pm I started to push for real. Talk about hard work. First of all, Peggy said I had to stay on my back b/c it would be easier for the baby to slip down under my pubic bone. I didn't quite believe her, but I figured she knew what she was talking about. At this point, Bill was at my head, supporting my head while I pushed, and giving me ice chips and cool, wet clothes in between cxns. Mark was at my waist (same side as Bill) holding my left leg and watching while I was pushing, and Peggy and Tara (nurse) were on my right side guiding my pushes and the baby's head. The told me that the baby was positioned properly for a vaginal delivery... which made me feel _much_ better about being able to do this.
Okay, tired again, time for bed... I'll continue again later!!!
By the way, what the HELL is up with needing fleece pj pants for a comfortable nights sleep???
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