Birth Story - The 21 hour marathon
Sunday, September 19, 2010
For some reason a lot of this 21 hour marathon was hazy and dark in my mind. I also had completely blanked out/forgotten a lot of it until the husband reminded me.
We went into the hospital at 5:00pm and checked into L&D. They took me over to an outpatient area to start induction.

Plan A
My first Cytotech was placed at about 6:10 with plans for a second dose in 4 hours and then another dose 4 hours after that. I was allowed a delicious meal of jello, apple juice, chicken broth, tea, some cranberry crap juice and an Italian ice. Yum. I was also offered Ambien (gratefully accepted) to sleep through the Cytotech night ahead of me. At one point during the night I got up to use the bathroom, peed and flushed the toilet. I was turning to wash my hands in the sink when I saw the water rising up in the toilet out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think my 39 week 6 day body had moved that fast in a while, but I scooted my big butt out of that bathroom pronto. They came out and fixed it and offered a different room, but I just wanted to go back to sleep. I got dose #2 of Cytotech and they checked my cervix and there was no change in dilation – still at the 1.5cm I showed up with at 5pm. They came back 4 hours later and still no change so dose #3 wasn’t going to happen.

Plan B
Instead they put in the Foley balloon in to dilate me. Ham Hands Helen (nurse or doctor…not sure) tried to insert it, but she couldn’t reach far enough…OMG, that hurt!! She fumbled around for probably 10 minutes. The husband was about to tell her to get someone more competent to insert it because I was in some serious pain, but before he could open his mouth she decided to get someone else. The poor guy they brought in as pinch hitter had been sleeping, but was able to insert it in about 2 minutes. Frankly, Helen, I don’t give a damn, but you are not touching me again because my husband will knock your block off. My OB had prescribed 30cc to dilate me and I distinctly heard (although it was fuzzy with Ambien still swirling around) the resident doctor insist on using 60cc…the nurse argued because those were not my doctor’s orders so they compromised with 50cc. My OB was not happy to hear that they changed his orders (I’m sure someone got an earful). Anyway, they also gave me a lovely drug that starts with a D (can’t recall the exact name) because morphine wasn’t available. I was pretty out of it at this point and I blame that D drug for the hazy dark memories I have. The Foley got me to 4cm, but I still was not contracting at all on my own.

Plan C
So, Pitocin was administered. This time they started me low on the dose so I was able to labor fairly comfortably on my own for about 2 hours before they had to turn it up a bit since my contractions weren’t consistently strong enough to move me along. I asked for an epidural when I heard that they were turning it up. Pitocin sucks ass. I got comfy in bed and from there just waited it out to get to 10cm so I could push.

The End
So, at some point around 1:30pm we decided I could start pushing. They prepped everything in the room and got some volunteers in to help hold my legs (dead wood by now but at least they turned the epidural down when I asked so I could get feeling back a bit sooner so I had to endure one less catheter than I needed than with the daughter) and cheer me on. I started pushing a little bit after 2pm. I don’t remember the exact time, but I know that the little hand and big hand were close together near the 2. The interesting thing is that I wasn’t feeling contractions, the monitor wasn’t registering contractions and none of the nurses and doctors could tell when I was contracting. So, we all went by best guess and belly poking to see if it was hard. This was actually pretty funny to all of us so we were laughing the entire time about it. Either way, 45ish minutes later out popped the second daughter in all her glorious perfection. They placed her on my stomach and I fell in complete and total love for the 3rd time in my life and instantly all the complaining, whining, worrying, and crying during pregnancy meant nothing. It was worth every single second.

She arrived 8 pounds 9 ounces, 20.75 inches with a beautiful head of dark hair, perfect skin and the most beautiful blue eyes.


Thank you to my MP3 player with kick-ass songs loaded on it so I could make it through Plans A, B & C without losing my ever-loving mind. Huge thanks to the husband for being willing to be my strong protector with Ham Hands Helen and crying when he saw his second daughter.


More mood music
Monday, September 13, 2010
I forgot these two extremely important songs.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Sorry, there is no embedding code for this one.




Mood music
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
As my due date gets closer and closer (7 days) my mind has been on the music I'll be listening to while I labor to try and get this little girl to emerge healthy and happy. When I had my first daughter, music is what helped me relax and focus to keep my energy and mind in balance.

This song was played on repeat over and over while I laid in bed in the dark with the husband not quite sleeping across from me in the incredibly comfortable fold-out couches they provide at the hospital. I had headphones on so he didn't have to hear it on repeat for 4 hours for which I'm sure he is thankful.


I still believe that repeating the chorus of that song is what enabled me to get into the right state of mind and to spend that time "talking" to my daughter about everything I would share with her as soon as she came out into the world. How I would protect her, show her all the amazing, wonderful things there are to experience in this world, and how all this would only happen if she came to me as perfect as I imagined she would be.

Now I'm digging through songs and finding quite a few on my must have play list for the hospital. Here are just a few that have struck me as important in one way or another even though they may not wholly appropriate. It could be just a portion of the song, a single line, the chorus, the music, or even the entire song. Either way, I love them all and they now reside on my MP3 player. It is stowed in the hospital bag and ready to leave my house as soon as this little girl makes her arrival time imminent.











I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.


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