I did it med free...almost!

Posted 10-10-11

Many of you have asked me to take some time to blog, so I'm going to try really hard to make it a priority. :)



There's a lot to update you on, but first on everyone's mind is probably our sweet baby Jadie. Jadie Faith was born 9-14-2011 @ 10;59 am. I'd been having mild, but noticeable contractions since Tuesday morning. They started around 20 seconds in duration, less than 3 an hour. I went to the doctor that afternoon, excited there were contractions and hopeful there was progress. I was still at a 2, 50% effaced. She said no labor this week, but that we could be hopeful for next week. I was a little embarassed to tell her I'd been having what I thought were significant contractions. She chalked the blood in my urine and the contractions up to dehydration. I'd lost three pounds that week, which reflected my disdain for eating and drinking at that stage in the game.

Anyway, by the time I got home, the contractions were extremely random, but had increased to about 30s in duration. We finished our day and went to bed. I was up all. night. long with contractions, 3-4 an hour (that's still 15m apart, people...). They'd gotten signifcantly stronger, more painful and were lasting about 50 seconds. I slept around them as I could, hopeful that it would eventually turn into labor (little did I know it WAS labor...). Jess got up around 5:30 and I informed him he wouldn't be going to work, to go back to bed. I'd taken 2 showers through the night and decided to crawl in the tub at 6:30. It was starting to really hurt to walk or stand. I climbed back in bed around 7:00 and decided to call my doctor at 8:30 because something was going on, I just didnt know what. I set my alarm for 8:30 (who was I kidding?) and called them. At that point taking steps without assistance was not an option. My mind started racing. Had I messed up in waiting to call the doctor? Was there something wrong with my baby girl? What in the WORLD was going on?

I should tell you at this point that while I'd been pregnant twice before, I hurried to the hospital at the first sign of pain with my oldest, Justin and it ended up being a 32 hour labor. With Jaleigh, I was induced, so I still didn't know what real labor felt like.

Anyway, the doctor told me to get to the hospital ASAP because I was having a difficult time carrying on a conversation with them. I told Jesse to load the kids up, called my friend to take the kids, and we headed to the hospital. Funny, we were trying to decide whether to pack everyone a bag, and finally decided not to because we didn't know what was going on. Jesse pulled up to drop me at the front door and I got out. I thought I was going to be real brave and walk in and upstairs by myself. In retrospect, that was real dumb, and I didn't make it far before they met me with a wheelchair and wheeled me up to L&D.

Once they got me in bed, they checked me. At this point, I must tell you about the new nurse, Ginger. Ginger added a comic relief to my situation. Ginger apparently had been a L&D nurse for 19 years, but you seriously would have thought she just graduated nursing school the evening prior. She checked me first (I seriously almost punched her, then held her down and ripped off her fake freaking fingernails one by one...), and came back saying I wasn't even a 2, and was still 50%. I remember saying something to the effect of, "then you need to figure out what's going on with this baby because something is terribly wrong!" Fortunately, the "real" nurse wasn't any more convinced than I was, so she checked me and I was 100% at a 6/7 and had a bulging sack. At that point, I asked for my epidural. Yes, an epidural. I'm not ashamed, folks. I have the pain threshold of....well, it's really low. I needed pain relief, like, the day before. I was exhausted and so over the pain of childbirth. Not to mention I was scared out of my ever-lovin mind. I'd heard horror stories of women who didn't get their epidurals and I'm fairly certain I knew I wouldn't surivive that nonsense. I did the only thing a raging pregnant woman in horrible pain would do; I prayed to God to PLEASE hurry the anesthesiologist up.

Once we knew where we stood, the nurse started to make calls to Jesse to get back to the hospital quickly because labor was going really, really fast. He'd been dawdling; I remember something about waffles, packing bags and him just being him. ;-) Nurse Ginger took about 10-15 minutes to draw my blood for my cdc for my epidural. Yes, 10-15 minutes. They moved me to a labor room where they checked me again and I was an 8. They were waiting for my cdc to come back before they broke my water, but Nurse Ginger (she really rocks...) accidentally broke my water when she went to check me again later. I told her she broke my water and she insisted she didn't. After about three seconds, she apologized and everyone started moving much faster.

At that point, they gave me a shot of...something? I'm not sure what it was, but I started passing out (literally) between contractions. I am not sure when Jesse got there, but shortly after he did they made him leave so I could get my epidural. Less than 15 minutes later, I was pushing. No, the epidural hadn't even come close to taking full effect, but it took just enough edge off that I didn't want to take a flying leap off the third floor of the hospital.

Jadie Faith was born at 10:59 a.m. I labored for an hour and a half at the hospital with no pain relief and I don't care what anyone says, I'm really darn proud of that. The very second they laid that sweet girl on my chest, every ounce of pain left my body (well, except the whole stitching me up part...) and all I could think about was how perfect she was. And she is. She will be a month old on Wednesday and it just blows my mind how perfect she is, how perfect all my babies are. Many of you have asked if our family is complete. Maybe...maybe not. I'm not in the business of trying to figure out what God's plan is (anymore...lol). If our family is complete, then it is perfect. If we have more children, then it will be perfect. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have the mindset to do it completely epidural free next time...