Caleb's Birth

I had several ultrasounds throughout my pregnancy and was told that my little bundle of joy was measuring off the charts big. When I still had four weeks to carry the bun in my oven, the ultrasound showed him measuring 8 to 10 pounds already with a big head so my doctor and I decided we would schedule a c-section to be safe. Me, I was totally okay with this idea because the idea of giving birth to a baby 10 pounds or larger with a big head vaginally did not exactly appeal to me. Heck giving birth vaginally at all did not exactly appeal to me. Originally we scheduled the c-section for April 21st which was a few days before his due date, April 25th. Because of crazy things going on in my life-the new place I was supposed to be moving to wasn't ready yet and a sinus infection-I talked to my doctor and we moved it back to May 3rd. We wanted to give kiddo a chance to choose his own arrival date and for me to be healthy. I was happily planning on a c-section weather it would be May 3rd or another day because of the size of the kiddo. Fate hate other ideas. On Thursday April 22nd I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with inconsistent contractions that were twenty to thirty minutes apart but uncomfortable enough and consistent enough to make it so I couldn't sleep. I called the hospital birthing center triage line and they said to wait and see if they got more intense and closer together. I was also spotting but my water did not break. Generally, I was just uncomfortable. The contractions kept up all day Thursday, all night Thursday and into Friday. On Friday morning I couldn't take it anymore, so off to the hospital we went (we being my sister Rachel and I). We got there around 10am and I assumed I would have a c-section by the end of the day. Of course, my doctor wasn't on call so I had to explain my situation to the doctor who was there. Well, I learned quickly that most doctors are dead set against elective c sections. They insisted I wait and see and eventually sent me home saying it was false labor. How contractions that painful can be classified as 'false' I have no idea. So, I went to lunch with my sister and to my regular doctor's appointment then home. Things continued to get more and more intense and sleep continued to be impossible. Saturday morning I started officially keeping track of my contractions and they were 3 to 5 minutes apart on average and getting more and more intense. I called the hospital triage again and they said to come in if the contractions continued to be consistent and intense. So, we headed out again to the hospital determined to get this baby out. Before we even got to the hospital I was exhausted due to the two days of not sleeping and I hadn't eaten anything except some yogurt Friday morning at 8. Rachel and I got to the hospital around 3pm and everyone recognized me. Of course, there was a different doctor on duty so I explained my whole story to him. They checked to see if I had dialated at all and nope, nothin had changed since I was there on Friday but the contractions were intense and frequent. Again, I assumed a c section was in my future-immediate future I hoped. No such luck. They decided I should wait it out and see if I dialated. I said, okay, lets give it two hours. They said, okay. FOUR hours later after waddling around the maternity ward and bugging the nursing staff a million times, the doctor finally came in and rejoiced that I was dialating. I cried. Literally. Sobbed. I was exhausted. I was in pain. My back was killing me. I had been dealing with contractions and no sleep for two days now. I wanted a c section and I wanted the whole thing done. I wanted to sleep. Thank God my nurse was amazing. As soon as they said I was dialating, she came in and asked me if I wanted a epidural and other pain meds. YES. YES. A MILLION TIMES YES. She said she would make it so. In order to make it so, they had to move me to a room. This took another two hours. I was not happy. It was 9pm by the time I got into the room where they started the epidural and pain meds...once it started I was happy. I could finally relax and sleep....not for too terribly long tho. The nurse had to keep coming in to check my dialation and my water and I slept as much as I could in between the prodding. Around 4am there was a party because I was dialated to four and my water had broken sometime during the night. I swear if one more person had said how happy they were that I could do the vaginal delivery I was going to go postal. The nurse predicted that kiddo would arrive by 7am and she turned down my epidural so that I could feel to push when the time came. Around 5am I was fully dialated and started pushing. My epidural had worn off enough so that I could feel the contractions intensely but I couldn't feel where to push or feel where the baby was. I kept pushing but feeling like I wasn't doing it right or making any progress. Incidentally, I think its insane to have a clock right in front of a laboring woman. There is no need for a woman in hard labor to see the seconds ticking by and to know exactly how long she has been pushing. By that time, I was exhausted again and on top of the pain of the contractions, my lower back hurt like hell. Thank God my sisters and my friend Angela were there with me. During contractions, I squeezed my sister Aj's hand so tightly I left imprints. As the hard labor continued, I got more and more cranky and kept telling everyone to SHHHHHHHHH! I simply wanted quiet so that I could focus on the pushing. When the doctor and intern finally came in for the final pushes and delivery of my boy, they were talking about their morning coffee. Again, I yelled SHHHHHHHHHH! My nurse informed the doctors that I wanted quiet. Thank God they listened because otherwise I was going to have to get nasty. There was lots of loud pushing and yelling from me and at least once I said I couldn't do it and to get the kid out of me. The pain in my lower back was intense and increasing and I just wanted the whole thing to be over. I wanted a friggen c section remember? At 6:46am my little man emerged with my last push. Again, everyone was telling me how happy they were that I delivered vaginally...and I was like, yeah it was great fun...I just wanted to hold my baby and have everyone else leave. Of course, that didn't happen for at least another hour. They had to stich me up, clean me up, and get the baby all checked out. He inhaled some of the muconium so they had to take him away. He didn't cry when he was born. They brought him over so I could see him before they took him to make sure he was okay then got to work on me. It was probably an hour before they brought him back. Everyone was asking me too what his name was...I didn't know yet....I had to get to know this beautiful little boy before he could be named.