Well everyone, we're home as of Monday evening and doing fine. It is soooooooooooo niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice to be home after all that time and stress in the hospital. Thank you for any prayers you sent our way. :)
But NOW let's talk the details that make you glad you have a blog: the birth story. And frankly, my friends, this one's a doozy. Buckle up. :)
So Grandma Heidi arrived Wednesday at 8pm. (I would here like to state that she didn't come for the purpose of having the baby, after all, we were still almost 2 weeks early. She just had some days off from work, so decided she'd pop in to pay us a long weekend visit. Ok.) So Grandma got there, we got the (excited) kids to bed and started folding laundry. Because people, as I said, it was Wednesday and Wednesday is laundry day, come rain, come shine, come snow, come labor, whatever. Got the laundry done and talked until midnight, when we finally let Grandma get some rest.
At 2, I had a contraction that was hard enough to wake me up. This, however, is not super unusual, as this has been my life for the last few months. Tons of contractions this pregnancy. Just crazy tons. So I just got up, went to the bathroom, and figured that when I found a more comfortable sleeping position (like that exists), they would go away. Sadly, they didn't. Also not totally unusual. So I just went out to my comfy chair to wait them out. So I'm trying to relax and trying to get some sleep, so I'm not real aware of things, but eventually, it occurs to me that they're not only not going away, but they might be coming faster? So I had to go wake up Ryan, just to ask him to please time these for me because I'm just concentrating on being okay. He timed like 2 and said, "Well, maybe I'd better throw those last few things in the hospital bag, just in case." Contractions were every 3-5 minutes, and we left the house at about 3:45.
30 minutes later, we arrive at the hospital, and try to get ourselves checked in. Despite the clear sign that indicates that there IS valet service, and that you just have to bring your keys in, the ladies at the front desk sent Ryan away to go park our car, and sent for a man to wheel me up to labor and delivery. I'm sitting in the waiting room, trying to just be okay, trying to deal with the (fairly substantial) pain. One of the front desk ladies goes, "So, what number of baby is this for you?"
Gritting teeth, "Four."
Her: "Oh. Okay." Then she turned to her little partner at the front desk and goes, "Where is he (the man who was supposed to wheel me away) coming from, Canada? Radio him back and tell him that if he doesn't get here quick, he'd better bring a catcher's mitt!"
Finally, dude does come and wheels me off to the labor and delivery triage, where the idiot nurse (my blog, I'm callin' it like I see it), gives me paperwork. Paperwork. Please. I am having a fairly hard time here, and I HAVE preregistered, so why am I filling out my name and birthdate and address? Moreover, why am I doing this while she is also asking me the same questions? ALL of these same questions that were on my pre-registration forms??? Makes no sense and is making me mad because it's hard to talk and have contractions, hard to write and have contractions, well, frankly, it's just hard to live and have contractions. FINALLY, Ryan arrives, just about in time for me to be done with all this rigamarole and to hear her ask me, "So. What brings you in here tonight?" See why the idiot nurse label was warranted? As we have discussed, I usually do try to be socially appropriate. I try to help people who behave stupidly not feel stupid for their stupid behavior. This is how I live my life. But I elected not to mask my feelings when I looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "I'm really pretty sure I'm in labor."
So they take me back to the triage unit. This is the place where you stay while they decide if you really are in legitimate labor, they like to monitor your contractions and the baby for like an hour, and if you're progressing and the baby's doing okay and all that, then they admit you. So my new nurse (nice-not the idiot) has me go to the bathroom, get changed, and then get on the table. She straps the monitors on and goes for the check. As she pulls her hands out from checking me, she very kindly says to me, "Okay, and were you planning on having an epidural tonight?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah I was, so could we get the epidural man on the hook because I'm ready for one, like, now."
Kindly she says, "Well, yes, we can do that, but I just need you to know that you are fully dialated and your bag of waters is hanging out. I am pretty sure that it would be much faster just to go in and have the baby than to wait for an epidural."
Mmmmmmm hm. Okay. Now this is a quandry. You seem to be telling me that this can be over for me really really very quickly if I just blast through and go natural, and that I would have to deal with this pain for longer if I have the epidural.
FINE fine fine, let's do it. Let's get this thing ON. So we head over to the delivery room, where people are frantically scurrying to get anything and everything ready. No time to call my sweet doctor. Doctor Whoever Is On Duty will have to do. So they get me in there, get ready, and say, "We'd like to pop in an IV just in case you start bleeding heavily or we have to administer some other medication after delivery. Is that okay?" Sure, sure, whatever, do your thing.
That was the wrong answer because in seconds, blood was spurting from my hand. I don't know what she did wrong and I don't even want to know, but within seconds, my entire hand was swollen like a bad bad bee sting and I had a huge pocket of blood hanging out on the top of my hand. She apologizes and asks the doctor if she should try on the other hand. I was like, "NO! No, this is the deal, if I go natural, I get to go quick! No more IV, let's just have the baby!" The doctor was like, "Okay, if there's a problem, you'll just have to do the IV afterwards." With that, she pops the water and the real badness begins.
Friends, neighbors and countrymen, there are no words. The wall of pain. Blinding, searing, death defying pain. I was totally unprepared. I have never gone natural before. I have never wanted to go natural. I have never taken a breathing class or a mental preparedness class-nothing. I mean, obviously, I have my own methods for dealing with pain. I got myself dilated to a 10 this time around without any pain medication. With Nathan, I arrived at the hospital dilated to an 8. I still got an epidural, and am GLAD I did, but obviously, I went quite a ways dealing with the pain. With Cody, I got dilated to a 6 before I asked for the epidural. Of course, he was induced, so that was a 6 of pitocin contractions, and those are kind of different. With Leah, I just don't know how far along I was before I got the epidural because I had a little Pakistani nurse with tiny fingers who couldn't find my cervix. Let's not go into that at this time. But anyway, my point is, I have done a lot of laboring without medication and I about passed into the other world at the moment that the doctor broke the water.
What followed were some of worst minutes ever, I cannot describe them. After she broke that water, she started telling me to push and I was in so much pain, such a fog of pain in my head that I couldn't figure out how to do it, couldn't even figure out what she was talking about. I was just trying to live and breathe for another moment. Finally, though, I realized that this would never end if I didn't do something, so I did start pushing. And I did not stop for a solid... I don't know ... forever? Time has no meaning under such pain and duress. At one point they asked me to stop pushing.
Ha.
Ha.
I said no and kept pushing. At one point, I just started gasping, "Can't you just pull him out??" Like, hello, I am doing everything I can on this end, can't you do anything from your end? At all? Like, ANYTHING???
I pushed like the devil until the little Tank emerged. 4:55 am. We had been in the hospital a total of 40 minutes.
If you had told me the day before (while I was being harrangued in the parking lot by the old "is it twins lady") that I would give birth naturally the next day, I would have laughed at you. Natural. Scoff. Why would I do that? I dig drugs! And THEN if you would have told me that NOT ONLY would I go natural, but my first "natural" experience would be giving birth to a child with the very UNNATURAL weight of ELEVEN POUNDS AND SEVEN OUNCES, I would have rolled around on the floor laughing at you. Who would DO such a thing? What hilarious madness. And yet, this is the truth my friends. The horrible painful truth.
I, Bethany R. Weed, on the date of October 18th, 2012, did in fact give birth to a child of unusually large size without the assistance of any pain medication. Oh and also? I didn't tear. Maybe that's too much information, but then again, maybe it will persuade you into thinking that I am something of a superhero, and I'm going to need that boost because I'm pretty sure I'm going to LOOK pregnant for the rest of my life, and it would be nice to hear, "Oh, look here comes PregnantWoman!" rather than "Geez, didn't that lady give birth already???"
Of course, the pain didn't end there (a fact of which I was blissfully unaware, as I had never done the whole "afterbirth" thing without the aid of drugs!)
I would now like to tell you something which not many people know. It's a rare and unique talent that I have, and I feel the time has come for me to stop hiding it under a bushel. Let my light so shine, if you will.
I grow amazing placentas. Yeah, I do. I have been complimented on them pretty much every pregnancy. But THIS time around, they gave me some numbers and details so I can explain to you exactly what medical professionals find so exciting about my placentas. Like my babies, they are huge. As in, the nurse told me that a normal placenta is about 1 to 1.5 to 2 pounds at the heaviest. A 2 pound placenta is a pretty darn big one. This time around? Mine was 3.8 pounds. Combine that with a baby weighing in at 11.7 pounds and we are carrying about 15 pounds of baby material. I should just start telling people that yes, it is twins, because weight wise, it is. 15 pounds? Divide that in half and that's two normal sized babies. So yeah. Now you know. Medical professionals from here to Dallas all remember the day when they delivered that lady with the amazing placentas.
Though seriously? After our baby was born, I DID start to feel like somewhat of a celebrity, as nurses kept peeking cautiously into our room and saying, "I heard that an eleven pound baby was born..." to which I say, yes madam, here is your admittance to the circus show, come on in and oogle the manchild. I did, however, make one requirement. If you're commenting on the size of my baby and you say "11 pounds," I will correct you. You will either say 11 pounds 7 ounces, or if you want to be casual about it, you can say 11 and a half pounds, but you will not short me those ounces. I earned every blasted one of them. I did NOT have an eleven pound baby. I had an eleven and a HALF pound baby. Come correct.
And that's my story, friends. Comment away. When I've got the time and can stand the sitting down, I will post about the follow up story of the NICU and I'll post pictures of the little man. (He's really nice.)
