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Main Page Site Index Getting Pregnant Pregnancy Parenting Pregnancy and Parenting Journals Fertility Nutrition Pregnant Moms Morning Sickness Women's Health Child Health	Birth StoryBy Erin      Well, I had my first baby at the age of 35. It was a difficult pregnancy, because I had high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and a premature labor. I didn't really begin to relax and enjoy my pregnancy until my third trimester, when I knew that if the baby was born then, it stood a good chance of survival. All in all though, I LOVED being pregnant! I loved everything about it, except the difficulty I had sleeping the bigger I got! Outside of that, if I could have stayed pregnant forever, I would have in a second.      My DH and I took childbirth classes at our hospital. They were great! They taught us all about the breathing techniques and different types of pain killers and deliveries. Our instructor was really terrific. She was a L&D nurse, so she had a lot of info. The two things I remember most vividly her saying were, "Expect the unexpected" and "No matter how the doctors and nurses make you feel, remember that YOU are in the driver's seat."      Well, expect the unexpected was what happened to me. I was due on Christmas Day, but of course, didn't deliver on that day. That was, however, the last healthy day I had, because that night, I got hit with the worst flu I'd ever had in my LIFE! I had diarheoa, vomiting, fever and chills. For two days, I couldn't eat a thing. I vomited everything I tried to eat. All I could keep down were small sips of Gatorade. By the third day, my ob said I had to eat something, even if I had to force it down. He gave me a prescription to stop me from vomiting (why he waited so long to give that to me I'll never understand!) and that night, I ate a half a sandwich and a cup of soup. It stayed down.      The next morning, my husband had taken off work to take me into the doctor. I was due to be induced the next day and they wanted to see me to set things up. He got up at about 5:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom. Our appointment wasn't until around 9:00 a.m., so he went back to bed. I got up too to go to the bathroom and felt funny. I wasn't sure if it was the beginning of labor or more of the flu, so I decided to stay up a little while and see. I made a cup of tea and sat down. Within a half-hour, I began to feel like it might be labor. The next time I went to the bathroom, I noticed blood and thought, "Wow! This is the bloody show! I'm in labor!" It was not at all what I expected. From the sound of the words "bloody show", I expected it to be a lot more powerful or bloody than it actually was!      Anyway, I got up and started putting some things together for myself. We were told not to go to the hospital until the contractions got to be 3 min. apart, so I knew I had time. Also, the instructor told us to let the husbands sleep if labor starts in the middle of the night, because they would need a lot of rest to pull them through the day ahead, so I let DH sleep. At that point, I was feeling very mild contractions, kind of like what you feel in the very beginning of your period. If it were my period, I might have taken an Advil or two, but that would have been it. It wasn't painful, more like discomfort. Well, I was creeping around the bedroom, putting my stuff together, when DH sleepily rolled over and said, "Are you okay?" I said, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just putting things together because I'm in labor. Go back to sleep. I'll wake you when it's time to go." At the word "labor", he sat up in bed with this alarmed look on his face and said, "Are you sure?" I nodded. At that, he leaped out of bed and began running around, trying to find his clothes! I told him to take it easy, we weren't suppose to go to the hospital until the contractions were 3 min. apart. He said forget that, we're going NOW!!! Despite my protests, a half-hour later, I found myself sitting in the car on my way to the hospital!      Well, we got to the hospital early and they were initially going to send us home, but then decided to let us stay. They put me in a labor room and hooked me up to the fetal monitor. DH was so nervous! Shortly after hooking me up to everything, they said I could walk around the floor in an effort to speed things up. I got up and began to walk, with DH dragging my IV pole along. The contractions were definitely stronger at that point and like very strong period pains. They weren't strong enough to double me over, but strong enough to make me walk semi bent and very slowly. Because I had the flu, I felt like I was going to vomit every time a contraction hit. I didn't want to vomit in the hallway, so I asked DH to take me back to my room.       Things progressed quickly for me. You have to be dilated a certain amount before you can get an epidural and when I hit the magic number, the doctor told me I could finally have one. One thing I remembered from my childbirth classes was that the epidurals were administered by an anesthesiologist and it could be an hour until one was located who had time to come and give you one, so I insisted on having some other pain medication in the meantime. They didn't want to give it to me. They kept saying, "But you're getting an epidural." I said I knew that, but I still wanted something in the meantime, because the pains were getting unbearable. (I remembered what the instructor said about my being in the driver's seat, so I insisted.) Well, they gave me a shot of something and it really relaxed me. Good thing I asked to, because it was a while before the guy showed up to give me the epidural.       Because I was so weak from the flu, I feel my pain threshold was a lot lower and I didn't have the mental control to make the breathing exercises I'd learned work for me. Up until I got the flu though, I was really psyched and think I could have made them work for me. Anyway, after I got the epidural, I took a much needed nap for a couple of hours. DH went to get something to eat and I snoozed. I was so out of it from that shot! The next thing I remember is the L&D nurse waking me up to tell me it was time to push. I was still numb from the epidural, so I couldn't feel myself pushing! (WEIRD sensation!) The nurse and my DH held my legs up and told me to push, push, push, push and I tried, but I couldn't feel anything! It was so weird! I kept thinking, "Geez, I hope I AM pushing!"       Well, I dilated quickly, but paid for in pushing. I ended up pushing for nearly 5 straight hours! The epidural made it impossible for me to feel the contractions and I never got the urge to push. Once the epidural started wearing off, I was in a lot of pain. They wouldn't give me any more painkillers, because they were interfering with my pushing. I didn't care at that point. My contractions now felt like one, unending pain. Still, I never screamed or swore or anything like that. They weren't THAT bad.       I nearly died when I saw them bring in the pitocin. They said it would help me feel the urge to push, but it didn't. The doctor told me to keep pushing and she'd say that she could see a little bit of the baby's scalp, but every time I stopped pushing, it slipped back in. I was getting exhausted and wondered why they didn't give me a C-section. The doc kept saying she knew I could deliver this baby, but I was getting too tired to push anymore. Finally, they decided to use the forceps, but I still had to push the baby out to a certain point before they could use them. It seemed impossible to me and I remember I started crying. I had pretty much figured I was going to be stuck in that position until my doctor got it through her head that I needed a C-section, when all of a sudden she told me we were going to the delivery room! I was so happy!       At that point, I was in a LOT of pain and exhausted. We got to the delivery room and in no time at all, I felt the baby come out. All of a sudden, I heard a cry and a lot of jubilation! I thought, "Oh my God, that's a BABY!" The doctors and nurses had been rooting for me and knew what a rough time I had had, so they were all congratulating me and giving me lots of praise. One nurse started palpatating my abdomen to get the afterbirth out and that hurt a lot! I told her to stop it, but she said she had to do it. I endured it as long as I could and then took her hands and told her to stop it and she did. Then, a nurse brought my beautiful baby girl over for me to see.       How can I describe that moment, except to say that it's kind of like a blind date where you've talked on the phone for a while and then finally met face-to-face. Suddenly, there was a face to those middle of the night kicks and the rolling I'd feel in my tummy after eating. I was fascinated by her!       I started shaking and shivering and the nurses put blankets on me that felt like they'd just been taken out of the dryer. I was sewn up (I had an episiotomy) and taken to the recovery room. As tired as I was, I was exhilirated and wanted to do it all over again! I started planning my next pregnancy as I was laying there and asking my nurses about the differences in labor and delivery for second babies! My daughter is now 17 mos. old and absolutely a delight! Still, I can't wait to get pregnant again!       The pain of labor and delivery was definitely not as bad as I'd feared it would be and I'm looking forward to doing it again! Search the Birth Stories Match All Terms Any Term and show results in Standard Form in Compact Form Hint! Enclose phrases in quotes. For example "home birth" [ Return to Section Two Birth Stories Index ]