Just after
10am, they decided it was time for me to push. I wasn’t very good at it for a
long time. They said my epi was too good. I laughed at that. But eventually as
the pressure got stronger I could understand what they were telling me to do.
Mike had to remind me to tuck my chin every single push. I don’t know why I
couldn’t remember that, and I don’t know how he did remember it every time, but
he did. There was lots of time between pushes at the beginning. When we got to
the hour mark I asked how much longer and they said for first time moms with an
epi the average was 2 hours. After that was when I got better at the pushing.
They continued flipping me from side to side and on to my back sometimes. I was
fascinated that I could tell I had legs, they were just really heavy. I could
move myself around in the bed more than they thought I should be able to, but I
had to use my hands to move my legs because they were like giant logs. At some
point everyone got excited because they could see the head and that meant I was
close. I remember thinking, “Yay! If they can see the head I’m probably going
to do this w/out needing a csection!” But who knows if that’s really true.
I’m
guessing that all the monitor looking and quiet conversations meant more than I
realized at the time because right around the 2 hour mark, the room started
getting busy. Previously, it had been me, Mike, my nurse & her student, and
occasionally the doctor. After the doc and nurse both made a phone call, we
gained I think 3 nurses plus the on call pediatrician. The warmer for the baby
had been in the room for awhile, but they brought in a giant tool box thing
with baby stuff, the plastic bassinet thing that baby would be living in, and a
giant scale. The doctor disappeared into the closet and came out fully gowned
with a mask instead of in her scrubs and hoodie like she had been all day. The
nurse explained that the baby needed help getting out because his heart rate
was starting to show that he wasn’t tolerating the contractions as well
anymore. I got a little worried and asked what kind of help. She explained they
were going to use the vacuum (I was glad we had seen the tiny contraption at
baby class so that I wasn’t visualizing a Dyson or something.) Luckily, after
one set of pushes with the vacuum, only 25 seconds or so, the baby was out!
They gave
me the wiggly baby and I did ask, “Is it still a boy?!” and it was. They let me
hold him for awhile while he screamed and they sucked stuff out of him and
rubbed him down. Then they took him to the warmer so the pediatrician could
check him. Since he kept screaming and peed 4 times in less than 5 minutes, the
pediatrician laughed, did his checking, and said he was fine. Due to the
vacuum, they had to measure his head and make sure he was ok, but they weren’t
concerned since the vacuum wasn’t on for very long. Finally they gave him back
to me clean and dry and snuggly.
The only
real down side is that around then I realized that the doctor and nurse were still
busy working on me. It took them about a half hour to fix me up and I’m still
dealing with some issues 9 days later. That part isn’t fun at ALL. I feel like
I will be able to be more of a parent once I can walk, sit, and generally not
be in a lot of pain. Thankfully, Mike is awesome and is doing pretty much
everything baby related (other than food of course) and my mom is doing
everything household related and Mike’s parents have brought dinner a couple
times and now that my dad is here he’s doing some shopping and errand running.
So that means all I have to do is lay on the couch and feed the baby on demand.
That part seems to be going reasonably well. I set low expectations since my
body rarely does what I ask of it but I think we’re surviving. And that’s that!
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