It was Friday afternoon, and I was wrapping up things in my office just in case I went into labor over the weekend. I was to be induced on Tuesday, but was hoping something would happen before then on its own. I was going to go home early but kept getting last minute things to do and ended up leaving at my regular time. I stood up to go to the bathroom one last time and felt a small gush. It didn’t feel normal, but it wasn’t enough to seem like my water had broken. I went into the bathroom and found that I’d started bleeding bright red blood.
I tried to stay calm, phoned Jamie and told him I was going to the hospital right from there. He met me there, and the doctor decided that things weren’t very serious, but I wasn’t going to leave the hospital without a baby. Jamie went and picked up Avery and took him to the neighbors’ and came back.
When I checked in around 4 pm, I was almost 4 cm dilated and fully effaced, so I was getting pretty ready on my own. At 6 the doctor broke my water and my contractions started to get a bit more regular and stronger. When they became really painful at around 8 I got an epidural, and then they gave me a ‘whiff’ of pitocin to move things along. I was at about 6 cm at that time, and got stuck there for a while. Every time I heard the epidural pump go off to give me a dose of the medicine I felt a wave of nausea. I was getting really uncomfortable because they wouldn’t let me sit up a bit because my blood pressure was low. The nurse tried to empty my bladder to give the baby room to move down, but when she tried to put the catheter in the baby’s head was in the way. So… the baby wasn’t moving because my bladder was full, and my bladder couldn’t be emptied because the baby wasn’t moving. Interesting. :P
Finally things gave way and once my bladder was empty I started dilating pretty quickly. I was concerned because the epidural hadn’t completely numbed me, especially my perineum. I mean, what’s the sense of getting an epidural if it didn’t work, right? So, they gave me a bit more of the medicine. I got even more nauseous and noticed my blood pressure was something like 58/36. I was getting sicker and sicker, and finally started throwing up. Soon after that I woke up on my side with three nurses and a doctor standing around me waiting for me to come around. I had passed out! Freaky!
After giving me some medicine to make my blood pressure go up, and another couple liters of IV fluid I had completely dilated and was ready to push. I pushed through two contractions and the nurse told another nurse to go get the doctor because baby was ready to come out. He had gone next door and suited up there because someone else was pushing there. The doctor came in and kept telling me not to push because baby was ‘right there.’ I felt a lot of pressure, but no pain, which was actually kind of cool because with Avery I didn’t feel anything at all. On the fourth contraction I pushed and little Asher was born. Well, at 8 lbs 8 oz and 21 inches, he was hardly little for a newborn. My first words to him were ‘hey little dude,’ which is when I asked the nurse if he was, indeed, a boy. Jamie cut the cord and they went and cleaned him up a bit. I got one stitch and after that the doctor looked at the placenta and determined that it had pulled away a bit, which was causing the bleeding earlier.
Soon thereafter all the nurses and the doctor left and it was just Jamie and myself in the room with Asher. After half an hour I tried to nurse him and he picked it up really well. He wasn’t very hungry, but he did eat a little before falling asleep. Jamie and I kept wondering where everyone went. When Avery was born the nurse stayed with us and showed us how to bathe her and made sure he was nursing. This time we were alone for over an hour before anyone came to check on us. It was almost as if Asher wasn’t as big a deal as Avery had been, and I felt sad for him.
We went into our recovery room, and Jamie went home to be with Avery. It was just me and Asher. I looked at his little face, all bruised from coming into the world a bit too quickly, and cried. What did I do to deserve for this little soul to be mine? Asher Skye is indeed a big deal… he is my big deal and I can already not imagine my life without him.
