Submitted by ChildFun Mama LeeAnn
June 29, 1998
I don’t remember doing anything different on Sunday (28th) night…woke up at about 5am (Buddy gets up to get ready for work at 4:30, so I’d been dozing since then) needing to use the restroom.
Before I got up out of bed, though, I noticed some contractions. They didn’t hurt, but they were definitely different from the Braxton-Hicks I’d been feeling for the past 2 mos. So I timed them for a little while, and they seemed awfully close together. I thought, “Oh great, I’ll bet Buddy just left for work.” I came out of the bathroom and there he was, all showered and dressed and ready for work, sitting at the computer. I walked up to him and said, “I think this might be it.” He gave me a look, like “You’d better not be kidding me” and said, “Really?” I said, “I think so,” and told him about the contractions, so he started timing them.
They were about 5 min apart. He told me he’d already called work and told them he thought the baby might come that day, and that if she didn’t, he’d be in later. Well, since the contractions weren’t really hurting all that much yet and the Dr. said to go to the hospital when they were 5 min apart for an hour, I went back to bed to try to get some rest. That lasted about 30 min…I just laid there looking at the clock, not getting any rest, driving myself crazy. So, I got up, and finished packing the bag for the hospital…I had ended up just kinda piling everything we needed in and around the suitcase, instead of actually packing it.
The whole time I was doing that, we were timing contractions. They were still at five min apart, so when I finished that, I took a shower, since I obviously hadn’t taken one yet, and then we were going to leave. While I was in the shower, the contractions jumped to one min apart, so Buddy told me to hurry up and get out of the shower, we were leaving!! I got out of the shower, and the next contraction was 6 min later, but we figured it was time to go anyway.
We got to the hospital at about 7:30am. From here on, my memory gets a little fuzzy, as does my sense of time. They got me to the L&D room, put me on my back, and strapped me to a monitor. At the Dr’s office the Thurs before, I was dilated to 2. The dr came in to the hospital room, checked, and said I was at 3 cm. A little while later, the nurse checked, and said I was at 5!! I was excited that I seemed to be dilating quickly. But I stayed at 5 for what seemed like forever.
My ribs on my left side were killing me…it felt like everything inside me was pushing them outward, so I rolled over onto my right side, and that helped. After a while, they took the monitor off, I got out of bed, and went to the bathroom, then Buddy helped me walk up and down the hall once. I got back to the room, and Buddy went to call people, to get food…But my mom was there by then…she got there at 10:30, so she helped me through the contractions.
At one point I told her that I was feeling like I had to push, so she ran and got the nurse, who checked me and said not to push, I was only at 7 cm. Buddy was gone for 40 min, but it seemed like forever. Somewhere along the way, before Buddy left, I decided that I needed medication after all (I was hoping to not have to have any), so they gave me Stadol, which is supposed to take the edge off the pain, but I don’t know how effective it was…it may have taken off a very small edge.
As usually occurs, the urge to push got stronger, and finally, I ended up pushing a little with each contraction, even though I was blowing through my mouth like our Lamaze teacher said to. A nurse came in and told me not to push, not to blow, and she pushed my jaw shut and told me to breathe in through my nose, hold it a second, and then breathe out through my mouth. That helped some, but it was hard to remember to do it, and how to do it, since it wasn’t something I’d practiced, like our other breathing patterns.
Finally, it was almost time to push, and Buddy wasn’t back yet…even the nurse asked, “Where’s her husband?” He showed up not long after that. I had noticed that every time I changed position, I’d have a really strong contraction, so when they finally asked if I would roll onto my back now, I said, “Only if I can push!!” I started pushing at noon, and after wanting to push so badly for so long, I then had to learn how to push. I think I was pushing with the wrong muscles. The nurse kept putting her fingers on my cervix and telling me to push against them.
After 8 and 1/2 hours of labor, including an hour and 39 min of pushing, Hayley Deann was born. It was the most amazing thing!! Actually, what was more amazing was how much lighter I felt when the placenta was delivered!! Even more amazing than that was that she was born on my 25th birthday. I couldn’t have planned it better!! When she was born, the dr asked what her name is and we said, “Hayley.” He said, “Happy birthday, Hayley!” Then, Buddy said, “And happy birthday, Mom, too!” The dr said, “Oh, yeah, that’s right. It’s your birthday, too, isn’t it?” They had a bassinet in the room with me, on the other side of the monitor, where they cleaned her off some, did her Apgars (8 and 9!!), and other things. It was killing me when she was over there, ’cause I couldn’t see her, through the bed railing and the monitor, and the glare off the plexiglass bassinet. But they finally brought her to me, and Buddy and I ooh’ed and aah’ed, and I fed her for the first time. It was wonderful!! She’s so beautiful!! She’s so perfect!! We’ve decided that she has Buddy’s chin and my lips. She has his toes, my hands. We’ll have to wait to see whose nose she has, and some people say she has my eyes, and some say she has his.
