How to Have a Baby, Gory Details Included at No Additional Fee

April 4th Easter Sunday, 2010

Lost the "Bloody Show" or "Mucus Plug" or whatever other disgusting name you know for it. It sounds better if you sing "The Bloody Show" with gameshow theme music. We learned this with our first baby, we would joke about "The Bloody Show" all the time. This way when you loose that sucker you feel like you won something. What does loosing this mean? This can mean a new person will be arriving soon, or it can mean "soon" as in days and days away. With my first daughter Davy I lost it at Ikea. Definitely exciting, but was happy to be at home this time. What is it? Well, its mucus and blood that is in the cervix and comes out when its getting close to "show time."

April 5th, 2010

2:00AM-4:00AM ouch! I think that was a contraction...maybe. It hurt. Maybe it was my colon? Maybe I ate some dairy? Hmmm. yawn. Ouch again. Maybe I'm sick. Maybe I'm in labor. Don't want to go into the hospital for another Labor Fail. I will make sure I'm for sure ready this time...

4:00AM Laying in bed awake thinking hmmm what if my water breaks? No sooner had I thought that then....PoP! BaM! SpLaSh! I felt something happen for sure. I stood up and said to my delirious husband, "I think maybe my water broke." Then I sleep-ran to the bathroom with the waters pouring out. Yep for sure broken. Called my sister from the bathroom on my cellular (because she just delivered a baby with the same doctor) and said "Katie if I call Dr. Alarming and my water is broken, will he make me come right in?" She said yes. And I said, "Then I better take a shower first." So I went back in and told Christopher, "You are not going to work today...this is it. This baby is coming today." Eek. I always get so excited/nervous. I was shaking a little. Then I called my momma and asked her to come over to watch Davy sleep. She was over in 20 minutes. We called Dr. Alarming and he said that we should get to the hospital right away. So I took a shower, and then finished packing my bag, and left. When we got to the hospital, it was not like ER or Grey's Anatomy. It didn't even look legitimate. They didn't even ask for my name before they sent me to labor and delivery in a wheelchair down a desolate hallway with a very loud and lonely floor cleaner man. Then they (the nurses) chased me down to find out my name verbally as I slowly rolled away pushed by my husband.

6:30 AM After visiting 2 wrong floors due to human error and elevators only going to certain floors. I don't understand the point of that. (Hospital tours can be useful so that you know where to go.) We finally made it to the correct floor and I was asked to sign a lot of papers even though I pre-registered. I was sort of surprised. Everyone takes their sweet time. Finally I made it into the room at Triage and there was a woman next to me screaming at the top of her lungs and for whatever reason I had access to her contraction monitor on my screen. And they were coming fast. Mine were pretty much nothing according to the nurses so they always want to get my on that fake contraction-making pitocin as fast as I get there.

7:00AM I asked if I could have like an hour to try to see if my body will go into labor. So they called Dr. Alarming to see if I could have one hour. He asked to talk to me. He was crabby and angry and said I should have brought "this" up 6 months ago. Hmmm. I'll keep that in mind next time with a new doctor that will let you write a birth plan. Had he asked me what my plans were in the best case scenario I would have told him. Anyways.

9:00AM The nurses were distracted with something else for about 2 hours anyways before they were able to give me that wonderful contraction magic. They moved me to Labor and Delivery.

9:01AM And was it magical. I was in extreme pain before I knew what hit me. Fortunately or unfortunately, my nurse deduced from my body language and facial expressions that I was not in active labor and that I was not progressing as the 2-3 hours passed of extreme pain. * I once read this Hypnobirthing book about trying to relax your body to let the endorphins flow in. For me, usually the pain is so bad I can't move or scream or even make facial expressions sometimes. This makes nurses think I am A-ok, which is not the case.

11:40AMish So I felt sort of a lot of pressure after a while, like I had to use the restroom. I asked for a birthing ball. The birthing ball was nice because it felt like it was holding something in that was trying to get out. In hindsight, that was the baby. However, since I had an epidural with my first baby little Davy, I didn't know what to expect. My nurse told me that I was not in active labor according to her seismograph of my uterus. I said, well do you think I have a lot longer, and she said, I don't think you have progressed at all and I don't want to check your cervix until you are active. I felt like such a wuss. I felt like I was going to die. Seriously. The. pain. was. so. bad. I was sort of trying to go natural. A little bit. But I was open to an epidural if I couldn't take it anymore, especially with the lovely pitocin being pumped into my body. So I finally just gave up, in my mind and said I want an epidural. My nurse called the doctor and had those anesthesiologists in the room in a matter of minutes. No one checked my cervix before the needles came jamming into my back...

11:45AM They decided to have a nurse anesthetist in training perform my epidural, without really asking or letting me know. She kept dropping stuff. Shaking. Taking FOREVER. I had an epidural last time and it took like 3 minutes. This time it took like 25 minutes and the whole time I felt the worst pain of my life with a mixture of "I think I have to use the restroom asap." I asked my husband for my mascara and was biting down on it to try to deal with the pain. I felt like an african tribal woman. I was begging at one point for them not to touch me during my contractions. But my nurse said, they have to. I had no say and in went those needles. After they stopped touching me and left my nurse asked how I was and I replied, " I feel like a lot a lot of presssssure." Also known as, the urge to PUSH.

12:00PM She was like, oh I guess I'll take a look. Low and behold the baby's head was crowning. She was like, "I see the baby! AH! DON'T PUSH!" and ran out of the room like a crazy person to try to get in touch with my doctor. So there I was with Christopher, feeling the uncontrollable urge to push and not being able to stop. I screamed at him and said " I CAN'T STOP PUSHING! You need to catch this baby!" He was freaking out. He ran into the hallway to get someone. Finally after a few minutes, that felt like an eternity, they ran back in with Dr. Alarming and my mom made it with 2 minutes to spare and 3 pushes later with no full effects of the epidural and no tears...

12:11AM Beautiful baby girl! Gianna Maria! 6lbs. 15oz. 19 inches and no cone head. Wooohooo.

12:14AM Then my dad called and they handed me the phone. He was like, "What are you doing?" So I told him I was birthing the placenta. I bet he wasn't expecting that.

Sorry if this was TMI.

And that's all folks.

How to Fail at Labor

So let's just say you had 5 or 6 weeks left of pregnancy, God willing, and you start feeling contractions. Not just sissy ones. Some that you can't sleep through. So you wake up at 2:00AM, hang out, listen to the screaming baby raccoons outside, surf the web for the very best baby bouncer that does not look like a 5 year old designed it, and count contractions. Then at 4:30AM you think that it's probably nothing, so you lay in bed with a constant cramping sensation around little kicking baby. Then you never sleep. Get out of bed in 15 minutes, tell your husband casually that you have been having contractions. Also, you were just diagnosed with a chronic health condition that puts you at a higher risk for premature delivery... Your doctor told you to call when they are 10 minutes apart for more than an hour and they are getting closer and stronger. Sooo just to be sure, you wait a few hours with the contractions closer than 10 minutes apart. Then they are 3-4 minutes apart and getting stronger. So you call Dr. Alarming (not his real name). He doesn't call back. 30 min. pass. 1 hour passes. hmmm maybe you should just go to the hospital? 90 minutes pass and you pull in, register, go to a strange place called triage and feel like a loser.

Then they ask 1,000,000 questions, check baby, check cervix, supposedly check contractions, incorrectly insert an IV (ouch), then re- do it in the other arm, have you use the restroom with a clear plastic cup in hand, and a few other things like strip down and keep trying to call your doctor.

Then after 4 hours, they say you can go, that your health condition probably is causing the contractions, your cervix isn't too open, and you might be dehydrated. Awesome.

Oh and your husband posted on Facebook to his close 1,000+ friends that it "looks like we are going to have the baby today, send me some names." ummmm. word of advice to the wise husband. DO NOT DO THAT. It sends people that hardly know you into a tizzy, and then it makes you look both like losers even more. G R E A T.

On a positive note, the baby's heart beat sounded good from what I could tell and I got to spend a lot of quality bonding time with my husband. Albeit I was a little uncomfortable and hooked up to an IV, contraction monitor and fetal heartbeat monitor with a band around my stomach, but it was still good.

Also, they tell you that they (your friends at the hospital) can measure how "bad or strong" your contractions are by their little device. I say that is a load of recalled lemon girl scout cookies. When I had my daughter, it seemed like my very worst contractions looked like tiny hills and when they weren't that bad they sometimes looked like mountains. This leads the nurses to believe that they can watch a monitor that looks like a seismograph and decipher when they can touch you. DO NOT DO THAT NURSE PEOPLE. Ask the woman first. I can't talk when I am in pain, which may make this difficult. But I could probably whisper.

Basically they use the same band for every size woman and depending on how big or not big you are will affect how much it registers pressure on the button thingy.

This is according to Dr. Spock--via http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,10602,00.html


The monitor's tocodynamometer, or toco for short, is a pressure-sensing device that can detect the changes in your abdomen as your uterus tightens during a contraction. It marks how often contractions occur and the length of each, producing a graph that looks like a series of hills rolling across the bottom of the printout. The external contraction monitor can't tell how strong a contraction is, since the size of the "hill" is affected by the tightness of the belt and if you are thin or heavy. If a precise measurement of the strength of the contraction is needed, an internal-pressure monitor can be placed inside the uterus.

I guess it is better to be safe than sorry with the whole going to the hospital at the wrong time thing, but it makes you feel like a FAIL. :(

I am very glad I have more time for this little muffin to stay in the oven.