Juju and I welcomed Enzo Alessandro on January 27th. He was a little guy, coming in at 5lbs 11oz, 18 inches in length. And he is just perfect and has forever changed my life, our life. On friday morning, around 2:30a i started having contractions. I had felt fine the previous evening and night. In fact i spent the entire afternoon/evening running last minute baby errands, washing and folding his clothes.
I sat up in bed, got up and walked around- thinking that it was false labor and moving around or changing positions would subside the contractions. Nope, nothing. I had felt some contractions before, including some the prior weekends, but these contractions felt a bit different. I started looking at the time, each contraction was roughly 7/8 minutes apart. Still, i didn't believe this was "it". After an hour of regular contractions i finally realized that i still had some of the baby's laundry downstairs. I went down to grab his laundry basket and sat on the couch for a few minutes. Then it hit me... I was going to miss Targets online baby sale, and i needed to get the baby a few more items. At about 4 am i finally woke juju up with all my commotion. I told him i was having contractions and together we tried deciphering whether or not it was false labor.
I then decided to hop in the shower and if i didn't feel any better we would head in to the hospital- the worse that could happen would be getting sent back home. As i made my way into the shower my contractions started getting a little more intense and closer together, about 5 mins apart. Mid shower my legs started shaking with each contraction and i thought to my self, ok this has to be it... there is no way this is false labor, because if it is- i hate to know what real labor feels like. And with that thought i grabbed the razor.
The next few hours, and i can't stress the word FEW enough, flew by. We left the house at 5:45. We told my in laws that we were heading to the hospital to get checked out. We didn't want to call anyone until we were sure I was in labor. We arrived at the hospital at 6am. I was checked in to OB triage. I figured i would let them know everything relevant to my pregnancy, like the fact that the baby was breeched, and i was admitted for low amniotic fluid in december, and still had low fluid, and i had a scheduled c section on feb 6th, which was 10 days away. They hooked me up to a fetal and contractions monitor at about 6:10a. A nurse came in and asked a thousand questions and told me they were going to check my cervix for progress- even though my water had not yet broken, this would let them know how fast they would need to get me into the OR. The nurse left the room and at 6:27a my water broke, either that or i peed myself... A LOT. Thats when we knew it was time to make the phone call.
Within minutes a midwife came in and did a pelvic/cervix exam. Turns out i was 4 cm dilated and 40% (?) effaced. My contractions became very strong and i was contracting every 3.5 minutes. My OB had been on call and she was off her on call shift at 7am. The nurses told me that they would fill her in and she could decided whether or not to stay or have one of her partners delivery the baby. I was told that they would have me in the OR within 20 minutes. I was taken to a L+D room and was greeted by about 7 hospital staff members, from drs. to nurses to lab people. My room was filled with people prepping me for surgery. It was also 6:55, and there was a shift change at 7 am. . This meant there was 2 of just
about every dr, nurse, hospital staff in my room. I was bombarded with people
poking, drawing blood, starting IVs, checking my pressure, asking me sign
papers, explaining things etc etc. All this was happening in between
contractions, which where 2 mins apart. I appreciated the fact that while i was
having a contraction everyone would literally stop dead in their tracks, wait
for me to open my eyes back up- and pick up right where they left off.
I was given one last ultrasound
to ensure the baby was still beached and checked one last time before being
wheeled out to the OR. at this point i was contracting every minute and was 8
cm dilated. By the time i was in the OR i was shaking in pain. I hadn't been
given any pain meds yet- i was scrubbed down and prepared for the spinal block.
second before receiving the spinal block i remember thinking to myself.
"dear lord, i can't do this. i can't. i can't. there is no way i can stand
another minute of this" i thought i was going to pass out. Suddenly-
before the block kicked in, i felt this immense pressure to push [after all, i
was fully dilated] - which i made very vocal. I was told not to push [duh]. i
said okay i won't but you guys better hurry up. still in that much pain i
thought i would have some sense of humor about it. Juju walked in
shortly after they began the c section. He sat next to me, holding my
hand.
The last thing i remember before
the spinal kicked in was "dear lord why do women do this more than
once?!?"
And then i heard Enzo cry for the
first time.
THIS is why.
