The Day My Life Would Change Forever

On Wednesday, February 24th at 2 AM my water broke. It woke me up and I thought to myself “am I peeing myself? can I keagle and make it stop? nope…OMG my water broke.” So as I am in the bathroom I call Joe’s name and the 2nd time he heard me and woke up. I told him my water broke and I have never seen a happier face in my life. Little did we know the adventure that we would experience over the next 30 hours:) Joe was so amazing through the whole thing. He was my rock and I feel blessed to have such an amazing husband.
Before leaving for the hospital I took a shower, blew dry my hair and even put some make up on (duh! I wanted to look good when baby arrived). I eat an  apple and on the way to the hospital a Luna Bar. Little did I know that would be the last thing I ate….for 30 hours:) (Ok I did get to eat ice chips, a couple of popsicles and I had a few Air Head Suckers.)
We arrive at the hospital carrying in our bags and some pillows. Later on a nurse told us we looked like first timers with all of our stuff. Maybe next time we’ll leave our stuff in the car until we are settled into the labor and delivery room so we can sneak it all in:) So while in triage the nurse tells me she is cursed because everyone she has admitted on her shift has had high blood pressure-including me. This is strange because throughout my whole pregnancy my BP was just fine. We are in good spirits though and Joe is helping me breathe through my little contractions.
After getting settled into our labor and delivery room a few nurses come in with worried looks.  They tell me my BP is so high that they worry about me having a seizure during labor.  A seizure? It sounds so ominous and I have these images flash through my head from all the episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and ER I have seen over the years. They proceed to tell me they need to put me on Magnesium Sulfate and that the downside is that it will make me feel really hot and maybe even groggy. They leave the room and I burst into tears because I don’t want to be loopy during labor. But Joe takes my hand, kisses my head and looks me in the eye. He assures me it will be ok….this was the first of many times he had to do this:)
So I’m having contractions but nothing unbearable. But when they check me to see if I am dilated (one of the most painful things I had to experience) they tell me I’m only a 2. I think I was a 2 for about 24 hours. That was annoying to say the least. You see the magnesium is a muscle relaxer and the uterus is a muscle. So while my body is trying to progress the drugs are working against it. They give me some pills to help me dilate but that didn’t seem to help very much. At one point they put me on pitosin but when exactly I don’t remember. It all seems to be a big blur.
The contractions are getting intense and I’m not dilated enough for an epidural. I am in so much pain and started to get vocal about it (let’s just say I could never be a Scientologist). They offer me Staydol which is pain medication they administer through the IV. In our childbirth class they talked about the downside to this drug that it can make your baby sleepy and groggy when they are born. I really don’t want to take it but I am in so much pain. They tell me that by the time the baby was born the Staydol should be out of his system. I cry some more and Joe tells me it will be ok.
Soon (I think) after the Staydol I am finally dilated enough for an epidural. I was nervous about the gigantic needle I had heard about but really it wasn’t that painful. The Staydol+Epidural brought some much needed relief and I fell asleep. A couple hours later I wake up and have this strange sensation. I can’t move my left leg and I am feeling the pain of contractions again. I am a little loopy and I start to panic. Sara was there in the room and she saw a look in my eye and knew something was wrong. I felt like I was going to lose my mind. I start to have what I can only explain as a mini panic attack. They bring the nurses in and they determine that the epidural has gone down to my legs. Last time I checked I didn’t have pain down there. So the anesthesiologist's assistant comes and administers another dose which didn’t seem to work so then he comes and gives me some more….still doesn’t work. By this time I am screaming and crying and so confused that I am in so much pain. This lasted a couple of hours. Finally the anesthesiologist comes back to my room and tells me that the doses that were given to me were so high that I should be feeling nothing. So he makes the determination that my epidural has come lose and he will have to give me another one. The tricky part is my contractions are so close together and I’m screaming bloody murder at this point and so he has to wait to stick me in between contractions. Well it works this time and I got to rest again. For how long I’m not sure but finally they tell me I am a 10 and can start pushing. I started crying  just so relieved that there seemed to be an end in sight. Prior to that I felt like I just wanted to give up and made a comment that if they had to do a c-section do it (this is sad because that was the last thing I wanted). I asked the nurse if she was sure I was a 10 and she told me she had been doing this for years…she was sure. So finally I start to push….and continued pushing for OVER 2 hours. Needless to say by this point my epidural has started to wear off and I feel like I’m having a natural childbirth. I’m sure there was some pain relief but I was sure screaming like there wasn’t. Finally the doctor comes in which is a good sign…the baby is almost ready to come out. But I am beyond exhausted at this point and feel like I have no energy or will to push anymore. I think I asked if they could just pull him out on their own…just reach in there and make him come out. They probably just ignored me:) Thank goodness for our nurse Paula she got in my face a few times and kindly but firmly commanded me to look at her and told me that I had to push. I listened and finally at 8:43 on Thursday morning our little Colton Cruz made his appearance to the world.
Because of the amount of medicine that had been given to me over the last 30 hours they had the NICU doctors down in our room waiting to check him out to make sure he was ok. And he was absolutely perfect! He weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz and was 19.5 inches long. As they are checking him the doctor is taking care of me and she tells me “don’t worry, the next one will be much easier.” Really. She just said that.  I thought the afterbirth of the delivery would be painful but really it was nothing after what I had just gone through.
Finally after Colton is given the ok they bring my boy to me and I just stare at his perfect face. And kiss him over and over again. And at that moment, all 30 hours of torture simply melted away. I forgot about the screaming and the crying and the pain and just like that I was a mommy. I held this perfect little soul who seemed to know me and be comforted by my voice and the beating of my heart. His little cry sounded like a kitten and I knew at that very moment that my life had changed forever.