Blue Moon Baby

The last month or so of my pregnancy I had pretty intense back pain that would get worse everyday. It seemed that I was always in some type of pain, but certain positions made it worse. The worst position would be sitting in the car or on the rocking chair. I don’t know why but this killed my back. When we went anywhere in the car Rick would drive and I’d have to recline my seat back. As I approached my due date the pain would worsen. It got to the point where my back was hurting all the time. The only relief I got was when I would take a bath, but the second I stood up to get out the pain was back. I would also get some relief if I sat on my birthing ball. I actually fell asleep once while sitting on it. For the last week of my pregnancy I’d wake Rick up several times in the middle of the night to have him rub my back, and I’d get up and walk around the house to try to ease the pain. I was more than ready to have this baby.

I was due on Monday, August 19. I had an appointment scheduled for Thursday, August 22, and if I hadn’t had the baby by then (which I was sure I wouldn’t) then we would be scheduling an induction. On Wednesday, August 21 Rick went to work in Nogales. I was feeling the back pain again all day and that night it was really bad so I decided to go to the hospital. I got to the hospital just before midnight. The last time I had been checked I was dilated to a 1 and was 25% effaced. When they checked me at the hospital I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. I was having contractions regularly but I wasn’t dilated enough for them to admit me. They told me I could go home or I could walk around for an hour and they’d check me again. I decided to walk around for an hour. I took that walk seriously. I was speed walking through the empty halls of the hospital, determined to get the ball rolling so I could have this baby. Rick got off work and met me at the hospital. He got there in time for them to check me, tell me I was still at a 2, and send me home. By then the back pain was worse, but there was nothing I could do except wait. I felt defeated, exhausted, and in pain. We drove home, but we drove home in 2 separate cars, and because I couldn’t recline my seat back I was in excruciating pain for the entire 45 minute drive.

I took a bath and then went to bed around 5am. At 8 I woke up feeling like an elephant was stepping on my tailbone. I got up and walked around to try to ease the pain. I didn’t think these were labor pains, I really thought that I had somehow broken my tailbone. The pain was constant, but I would have a contraction and the pain would worsen. I never felt pain in my abdomen when I had a contraction, only in my back, so I didn't think this was real labor. I woke up Rick and told him we were going back to the hospital because I needed some pain meds. I really didn’t think I was in labor, or that they would keep me at the hospital, but I could not stand the pain. While we were getting ready Rick stopped to give me a big hug. But then I threw up. Twice. We got everything packed up and headed back to the hospital. When we got there I looked at my nurse and said “Please don’t send me home, and I need something for the pain.” She checked me and I was still dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. She said before she gave me anything she wanted me to walk around for an hour and a half. We walked around the hospital, and I cried the entire time. I can only imagine how pathetic I looked to everyone, and I had a few nurses stop me and say “Oh honey, it will get better, I promise.”

We stopped at the Hospital café to get some lunch, and then continued to walk. I was walking so slow. This time I didn’t have the energy or determination. After only about 40 minutes of walking I wanted to go back to our triage room. It was while we were walking back that I realized I was still having horrible pain, but it wasn’t in my back anymore. Now it was in my lower abdomen, and radiated down my legs, and it was happening every few minutes. It wasn’t until then that I thought I might possibly be in active labor. We went back and with tears rolling down my face I asked if I could PLEASE have something for the pain. The nurse didn’t want to give me anything yet, but she did want to check me again. It had only been 40 minutes since she last checked me so I knew there wouldn’t have been any progress, but I didn’t want them to send me home again, especially since we live 45 minutes away from the hospital. She checked me and said “You’re at a 3, almost a 4. You’re not going home.” I was in shock that I had progressed so quickly. I said “I’m having a baby?” and she said “Yep, you’re gonna have this baby.” My tears of pain turned into tears of joy. She told me that it would be about 10 minutes before my room was ready, and that she would get me something for the pain before I got my epidural. I said “I only wanted pain meds because I thought you were going to send me home. If I can get my epidural soon then I won’t need anything else.”

Getting ready for the epidural.

After the epidural kicked in.

About 10 minutes later a nurse came to get me and she took me into the delivery room. They had nice big rooms and a couch for Rick to sleep on. I walked around the room until the anesthesiologist came to give me my epidural, which only took about 15 minutes. The epidural was weird, but not painful. It was just freaky to know that a giant needle was going into my back. I was more nervous about getting the epidural than about anything else, for some reason, but the anesthesiologist was really nice, told me everything he was doing as he was doing it, told me everything I should feel, and the epidural worked perfectly. I could still feel and move my legs but I couldn’t feel any of the contractions. It was about 4pm by this time. Right after my epidural the on call Doctor came in and broke my water. After that, Rick fell asleep, I tried to sleep but the epidural made me really shaky for about an hour and after it calmed down and I stopped shaking I was too excited/nervous to sleep. At 5pm the nurse came and checked me and I was at a 6 and was 90% effaced. After that she told me that she wasn’t going to check me unless she really needed to since they had broken my water and she didn’t want to increase my chance of getting an infection. So after that we just waited. I was able to get some sleep at this point. After a few hours I told Rick to go get something to eat and to bring all the stuff in from the car. He left for about an hour and when he came back he showed me a picture he had taken of the full moon. I had remembered a few days earlier hearing that it was going to be a full moon on the 21^st, but not only was it a full moon, it was a blue moon, which apparently means that there is a full moon twice in a month, and it only happens once every few years. It was cool to know he was going to be born on a blue moon.

Blue moon.

While we were waiting for the big show to get started, I started to feel pain with each contraction, but only on my left side. The nurse kept having me lay in different positions but it wasn’t going away and I was getting nervous because I didn’t want to be one of those people who only had the epidural work on half of their body. After a few hours, and several awkward laying positions later, we got the problem fixed and I was no longer feeling the pain. They left us and would come check on us every once in a while. We sat and talked, watched some TV, and were trying to keep our friends and family updated.

At midnight I felt something intense happening with my body. It’s as if things started to shift downward creating a lot of pressure. I focused on it for a few minutes to see if it would go away but it didn’t. It was time to push. We called the nurse in and told her I needed to push. She came in and got me ready and then I started pushing. After about an hour of pushing Rick and I started talking about the baby in between pushes, and we talked about how the ultrasound technician had told us 2 months earlier that our baby didn’t have hair. The nurse interrupted us and said “Someone told you he doesn’t have hair? Every time I’ve checked you I’ve touched his head, trust me, he has hair.” For the next push she had Rick look down and had me reach down to feel his head. Rick just started laughing and I asked him what he saw and he said “He has my hair!” When I reached down I could definitely feel his hair. Now I was even more anxious to meet this kid.

I don’t remember much of what happened next other than every time I pushed the baby’s heart rate would drop, they put me on oxygen, and I was freaking exhausted. I had 2 nurses in there, and every time I had a contraction they would stop and look at the monitors, and they both looked worried. This scared me to death, but luckily it was short lived. This only happened through a few contractions and then his heart rate was fine the rest of the time. I told the nurses that they needed to count out loud when I pushed, because if they counted out loud I could focus 100% on pushing, but if they didn’t then I was more focused on counting to 10 in my head than I was on pushing. For some reason they weren’t counting out loud while I was pushing. Instead they were talking to each other, mostly about how tall I was. This was really frustrating, but also really funny. Mainly because that is such a weird thing to talk about, and also, I’m not tall. I’ve never in my life been told I was tall. But I guess they both thought I was really tall. I told Rick I needed him to count out loud during each push, even though he was already holding one leg up, feeding me ice chips between pushes, wiping my face and neck with a cool washcloth, and telling me how awesome, strong, and beautiful I was.

After about an hour and a half of pushing I started to reach my breaking point. I kept asking the nurse how much longer I needed to push, and she kept telling me 15 minutes. FYI, when a nurse tells you it will be 15 more minutes, she’s lying.  She told me that it was almost time to call the Doctor. I think she only said that to get a few more good pushes out of me, but whatever, it worked. They called the Doctor, and when she came in I got my second wind and I was pumped, I knew that if the Doctor was in there then that meant that the baby would be born soon. I pushed, and I pushed until I saw stars and thought I was going to pass out. In between pushes I was literally falling asleep because I was so spent.

I need to rewind for a second. While we were at the hospital they had a shift change at 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm. We went through 4 different nurses and 3 different on call Doctors, but I loved every person that worked with us. This hospital had a great staff, and when we were first admitted I went over my birth plan with the nurse, and whenever there was a shift change the new nurse would come in and introduce herself, then tell me exactly what my birth plan was. Everyone was in the know and no one did anything without talking to me about it first. I never felt like they were the ones in charge and I was just going with whatever they said. They worked around me, and really helped me to trust my body. The main things on my birth plan were that I wanted to labor as long as I could without an epidural (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha), I didn’t want an episiotomy, I didn’t want his cord clamped or cut until it was done pulsating, I wanted him placed on my chest immediately after he was born, and I didn’t want anyone to give him formula or a pacifier.

Having the Doctor coach me through pushing was really helpful, because she made it seem like each time I pushed that was going to be the last time and he was going to come out. After 15 minutes of her coaching me she stopped and told me that she understood why I didn’t want an episiotomy \ and normally she won’t do them unless she feels it’s necessary, but she was getting worried because his head kept almost coming out and then going back in and she was concerned about his shoulder getting stuck. She said that if we did an episiotomy he would be out in 1 push, and if not it would take probably 15 more minutes (remember how they lie when they say 15 minutes?) I told her to go ahead and do the episiotomy. She did and I closed my eyes and gave one big push and then I heard a cry. I opened my eyes and saw the most beautiful little boy cry for a few seconds and then look around curiously. My sweet little Logan was born! I turned and looked at Rick. He was crying and kept saying things like “Look at him, he’s so perfect” and “Look at what you did, you did that, you are amazing.” It was really incredible to get a front seat view of Rick falling in love with our little boy and thinking that I was a superhero for giving birth to him.

Rick cut the cord and then the Doctor placed him on my chest. He was immediately calm, and then he peed all over me. It was my initiation into parenthood. Rick took out his camera and was able to capture some amazing pictures of the first few moments of his life. After a while they took me to my recovery room and they took the baby to the nursery to have him cleaned, weighed, finger printed, etc. I told Rick to go with the baby and take pictures. They both came back about 2 hours later. He weighed 7lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long, and I swear to you I heard one of the nurses say he was "tall, just like his mom." He was born at 2:12am on August 22, the day I was supposed to have my appointment to schedule an induction.

Our time in the hospital was nice because I had people helping me any time I needed it. My parents came down the next day, but Logan had jaundice and had to be under the lights all day, which was complete torture for me and was sad because my parents didn’t really get to hold him. After a day under the lights his levels evened out and we were able to go home. Going home from the hospital was both scary and a relief at the same time. I didn’t have a nurse that could come help me at the push of a button or a lactation consultant to help us figure out breastfeeding at home. It was just us. My parents came down for a week, and I don’t think I could have survived that week without my mom.

He’s a month old already, and up next will be a blog about adjusting to parenthood, loving this little guy, and why Rick and I bawled our eyes out our very first night home.