At 37 weeks and 5 days it was a regular Wednesday, September 16th. I was at work at Firestone Agency and Dan was at home (filling in the hole he had to dig underneath of our house to fix our shower plumbing). I remember I had to gone to Publix on my lunchbreak at noon to get a salad for lunch, a salad because I was trying to watch my sodium intake. It actually tasted gross, it had cucumbers (which I hate) and I didn't use much dressing on it. If I had only known that would be my last meal for well over 24 hrs I think I would have gotten Wendys instead!- or something delicious and filling. Well, it was about 3:00pm when my legs started to bother me from sitting at my desk for too long. So I went into our bathroom at work and did a few quick stretches and a few squats to loosen up my muscles.
An hour later I happened to be on the phone with one of our agents when I felt this warm gush. Gushes are never good. I was like "um hold on!" and I put the man I was speaking to on hold. And I yelled to my co-worker Cathy, " A lot of water just came out!" She thought I spilled a drink or something and it took her a minute to realize that wasn't what I meant. Cathy had her water break a month early with her first child, so thank goodness she was there to answer my "what do I do now?" question. She walked me down to the ob/gyn office, which is downstairs from our office directly below us. The nurses were all excited, I bet they don't often see a women whose water is broken- as not many people work close enough to pop downstairs and see their doctor before going to the hospital. I thought they would have those test strips to check to see if the leakage is really amniotic fluid or urine. But they didn't.
So Dr. Patterson, my ob/gyn, told me to go to the hospital right away. I asked if I should drive myself, he said I "could" since I wasn't having any contractions yet that I knew of, but the nurses shook their heads "no" to me and looked at me like I was loco.
So Cathy offered to drive me (so thankful for that!) So we went back upstairs to tell our bosses why we were both leaving. By this point I looked like I had jumped into a swimming pool. The water was soaking my black capri pants (which hid it well though) down to my ankles. So Cathy drove me to the hospital 40 minutes away.
And on the way I called Dan probably about a dozen times leaving messages and texting him and such (because he was outside in the hole, remember?) I also called two pediatricians because we hadn't gotten the chance to interview and select one for the baby yet. Well only one of them was available to visit the hospital we were delivering at so that made the decision easy for us! They told me to just tell the hospital when we checked in that we selected Dr. G as our pediatrician.
I finally got a hold of Dan! And I told him to throw my suitcase in the truck and come meet me at the hospital! How exciting! Thank goodness I had everything packed up already! We hadn't installed the carseat yet, but Dan brought it with him too. I was so excited while Cathy was driving me! It was like in a movie! I was the star! I was sitting on two jackets and I was still soaking her whole seat and seatbelt and I kept apologizing because amniotic fluid in your car is kinda gross and I felt bad. It would stop and then gush out again. I definately thought I would have my baby in my arms in no time at all! I think I talked the entire time and chatted Cathy's ear off in my own nervousness.
Once at the hospital I started to checkin and Dan met me there a few minutes into it, I was still downstairs getting my wristbands and such. When we were all checked in we said thank you to Cathy and went up to our room #11. Oh -- and the nurses said I didn't need to take the test strip to confirm it was amniotic fluid they could tell my water broke just by how soaked I was. I was so relieved when they told me I could take a nice warm shower and cleanup a little before putting on the hospital gown. Then I had to lie down and get hooked up to the fetal monitors. By then it was about 5pm and I thought I might be having some tiny little contractions. Dan and I got all settled into our room and my mom came after getting off work to be with me.
I remember calling Alison and telling her I was going to have my baby in a few hours (ha!) The nurses wanted to start my IV at around 6 I think and this was a nightmare of a process that took almost two hours and four different people. I got stabbed in about six different places, before the anesthesiologist had to come and out the IV in my wrist because non of the nurses could sucessfully get it, I was freezing cold and they said my veins were just nonexistant. When I got my IV around 8pm I was free to walk around a bit. Me, Dan, and my mom did some laps around the maternity floor and I got to eat crushed ice (joy!)- no dinner for me. This is about the point when I was cursing my salad decision from earlier! With every lap we would pass by the baby nursery and see all the little newborns, seeing them was actually really calming and made me realize that soon I would have a newborn of my own. Well at 9pm the contractions started to become more painful for me and I decided right away that I was not going to even attempt natural childbirth anymore. It had been my original goal, but out the window it went. So my new goal was to get to 4cm and get an epidural as fast as possible.
At 9pm when the nurse checked me I was only at 2cm. I have no idea how anyone could do it without an epidural. I give my mom heck of a lot of credit! I did a lot more laps and Tara and Austin came to visit me in the hospital too. I tried rocking in the rocking the chair and playing nintendo, but nothing really took my mind off the contractions. By 11pm I was 4cm and it was almost midnight when I got my epidural (thank the Lord!) I was finally able to rest and close my eyes for a bit. The nurses came in and out all night long to check for different things. I was given pitocin at around 1am to speed things up.
At 5am in the morning I was dilated to 6cm. Wow! Such a long process. By 9am they finally prepared me to push. I pushed and pushed! My nurse kept saying "Get Mad and push as hard as you can!" This dumb spanish lady tried to actually come into the room while I was pushing, I could her at the door telling one of the nurses she was my aunt. I got so mad then!!! And I yelled, "no she's not, I'm not Spanish, get out!!!" Eventually the nurse decided the epidural was too strong and that I needed to feel more pain in order to push harder (oh joy!), so they let off of my epidural drip a little bit, and told us to wait an hour. That hour went by so slow and painful. I just sat there in the hospital bed and stared at the clock in front of me for the entire time! Then they let me push again, and I pushed really hard. The nurse said the baby should have come out! But he didn't! Our nurse said she could see the baby's hair and Dan got to look too.
But 11am still no baby, the nurse called Dr. Patterson who came in like 15 minutes, he said the baby was sideways and hadn't flipped over in time and was stuck, it was too late to try to turn him and that I would have to have a c-section. By this time my epidural drip must have completely run out or something and I was just like, get this baby out of me, I don't care, just get it done! So the nurses tell me they have to get the anesthesiologist back in to give me more meds and prep me for c-section. But he was with someone else, so I had to wait. I'm not sure how long, maybe twenty minutes or so, and it was the most painful twenty minutes of my life, I was screaming, the contractions were just constant. Such unbelieveable pain. My mom said she could hear me from the waiting room. I got wheeled into the OR at 11:25am, I got to kiss my mom on my way past the waiting area. My dad and sister were waiting there too. I was crying and scared-but excited at the same time.
After I said bye to my family I shut my eyes real tight. I didn't see anything in the OR until Evan was out and Dan was holding him next to my face to see. Evan was so beautiful!!! More beautiful than i could have ever imagined, so precious and tiny. I couldn't believe my eyes, that he was in there that whole time and I finally got to meet him face to face! 7lbs 12 oz at 11:37am on September 17th a Thursday! I know people talked to me during the c-section but I don't remember what they said. dan held my hand and the anethesilogist held my other hand and he talked the entire time. I remember the c-section hurting after Evan was out and being very uncomfortable at times. I know I must have asked "are you done yet?" at least three times to my doctor when they were closing me up because of how uncomfy it was.
Dan went with Evan off to the nursery. I didn't see him again until I was back in our room #11. I had my eyes closed but I heard the nurse talking about me to Dan and she was saying that I would be out of it and ask the same questions over and over and Dan asked her when can she hold the baby? and the nurse said as soon as she wakes up. So I flew open my eyes as best as I could and I was like, "I'm up, I'm ready!" And they let me breastfeed Evan and then Dan and I named him Evan Daniel. And soon everyone else was in the room oohhhing and ahhing over how cute he is! Our nurse tried to convince us that he looked like a 'Jack' but we said no, he is definitely our Evan. Everyone got a turn to hold Evan, even Auntie Ali who made it just in time all the way from St. Augustine. Evan got a bath form our nurse in our room, we all got to watch. Later in the day they moved us down to a recovery room. I never did get the cherry Sprite that I wanted so badly when I was parched and dehydrated in labor.
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