Husband

**Part 1**
**Part 2**

When we left the triage room I left my phone sitting on the table. Hubby and the nurse were great because they grabbed everything I walked off without and placed in our room for me.

When I got back to our room around 9 the nurse told me that the doctor would be around soon and told hubby that I could have one other person back there with me while we waited. He asked me if it was okay to go out and eat his breakfast and he’d send someone in to sit with me. I told him that was fine. My mom and father-in-law came back to talk to me. I was nervous so I was really jumping around on topics and just talking to keep my mind off of things, especially the small amounts of pain that were going with the contractions. My mom timed the amount of time between contractions and said we were about a minute apart.

Then mom and my FIL decided to give others a chance back with me so hubby came back in and my grandma came with him. Grandma kept saying how excited she was for the little one to come and how she couldn’t wait.

Eventually my mom came back in with me and sat while I waited. The doctor came and gave the okay to give me the Pitocin which would make the contractions stronger and more regular. The nurse gave that as well as some fluids because I requested to have an epidural because truthfully I was so scared I didn’t need to feel all that pain doing it all natural.

Just before the lady came to do the epidural all the sudden I broke out into a huge sweat and thought I was going to be sick. I knew the lady had been called but she wasn’t there yet so I’m not exactly sure what took over, my nerves possibly.

Once the epidural showed mom was asked to leave the room for about 30 minutes. They ran through the procedure and asked a bunch of medical history questions, told me the complications and said that I would actually have to sit still during a few contractions while she was performing the epidural itself. I started shaking and kept complaining about being hot.

The nurse started fanning me while she was holding my left shoulder and hubby was holding my right. As long as the nurse fanned me I was doing better, I think I focused on that, but when she’d quit I’d start saying I’m HOT! They kept telling me I had to arch my back like a mad cat and stick my spine out. All I could think of was I thought I was and boy it’s hot in here. The shot to actually numb my back hurt like the dickens when it went in. The best comparison I can give was when a red wasp stings you, but maybe multiply that just a tad. It hurt. But I sat still like they told me I had to do.

Then they put the catheter in my back and told me to sit still during anything I felt but to let them know if I felt a zing. I asked what a zing felt like. They said imagine grabbing an electric fence. I was like oh I know what that feels like, I’ve actually done that. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that….

I had to tell them which leg and where I felt the zing. Mainly I felt the zing in my left leg between my knee and my hip. Finally once the catheter was in and the epidural started doing its job I couldn’t feel contractions, I couldn’t feel my leg, I couldn’t move my legs or my feet… it was the weirdest feeling. Although my legs did get tired of sitting in one position even though I couldn’t feel them. Hard to explain.

The nurse kept coming in and moving my legs and even though I couldn’t feel them, sometimes the positions were uncomfortable and she’d say, can you at least let them sit that way for 10 minutes? I’d tell her sure… not like I could move them anyway. Now let me tell you, my hands could feel my legs but my legs couldn’t feel my hand sitting on them and they felt like jello. They also felt like they grew about 3 times in size. I even asked if my legs were fat and no one would answer me, they just laughed.

Once I was sitting there not feeling my legs at all and just hanging out and waiting, I finally asked for my phone to help keep my mind off what was coming. I was still nervous even though I couldn’t feel anything. I saw I had a bunch of text messages from friends asking how I was and wishing me luck today. Hubby was like, did you tell people we were at the hospital. I was like, nope, they think I’m taking my final. So I handed him my phone and told him to respond to them. I didn’t know how to respond. Once I handed him my phone, I didn’t care where it went.. ha!

At around 12:50pm the nurse came in and said, okay, we’re doing this. She said take a deep breath, hubby count to 10 for her while she pushes and I needed to grab my legs. I misunderstood and didn’t hold my breath for the 10 but let it out on a count of 10. Finally she told me I was doing it wrong and explained I had to hold it for the entire count of 10. I did this on every contraction (which I couldn’t feel) 3 times and then we’d rest waiting for the next contraction.

My nurse happened to be the Director of Obstetrics so she was constantly being called away. She got a phone call and told us to keep at it. Well I couldn’t feel the contractions and hubby wasn’t sure what she was looking at to tell me when to push so we’d just push when we thought it was time. She was gone for about 10 minutes. Finally she came back and so did the Epidural lady. The nurse asked her to turn the epidural down from a 12 to an 8 because I needed to feel the pressure behind the contractions (just not the pain) so I knew when to help push.

The nurse said that I was lucky because basically I’d feel like a bowel movement and once that happened baby girl would be out. There shouldn’t be any complications.

Once I started feeling the contractions I started nodding at hubby and he’d start counting. The nurse then started moving my legs around with the help of hubby to help try and push her out. About 2:20 or so they brought the doctor in and said, okay we’re ready to really push now. She had me pushing on every contraction for 4 counts of 10 (about 45 seconds or so). Eventually hubby had one leg, the nurse for Peanut had my other leg and the director grabbed my hands while she was standing to the side of the doctor (who was catching :)) and I had to pull against her. I kept yelling my thumbs because I thought they were going to break. 3 times like that and out she came just like the nurse said she would. Her official birth time was 2:50pm.

I took my Nikon underwater point and shoot so that if we got goo on it I could wash it off. Hubby handed the camera to the nurse and she took a picture of him cutting the umbilical cord. Then they placed her up on my chest and I started bawling like a baby.  We got our first official picture as a family.

Then Becca (Peanut’s nurse) took her to weigh, measure, etc. Hubby went over with the camera to get pictures of that while the doctor sewed my little tear up (I got 4 stitches on top of each other which they said was really good). Becca kept yelling out the stats on baby girl, I’m going to claim for me so I knew but possibly for the doctor to know as well??

They did her foot prints and tried to show me what they looked like. I was like I can’t see them because I made hubby take my glasses off while I was pushing because they were driving me nuts so Becca brought her foot prints closer so I could see them and a flood of emotions made me start crying all over again.

In our hospital all is done right there in the room, you never have to leave. So while they cleaned her up and me up hubby took a picture of her and sent a text to mom so she could show everyone. (Mom, dad, MIL, FIL, Grandma & Earl). Earl told me she wished she’d have had her video going because when grandma saw her she said, and I get to hold that bundle of joy come August on Monday’s. (My grandma is watching her on Monday’s while I’m in school!).

Once she was cleaned up and I was they brought her back to me and I (we) got to love on her.

**More to come**

**Part 1**

Thursday morning rolled around and at 12:34 I got up to go to the bathroom. When I was finished I kind of leaked a little and wondered if I just hadn’t finished peeing but I just blew it off as I was tired and went back to bed. (weird I know.) At 1:30ish I woke up again and had to pee really bad. Nothing new, this happens a lot so I went to get out of bed and thought something didn’t feel right. I tried to wake hubby up and he muttered at me in what can only be determined as a foreign language and he rolled over. I sweetly tried to wake him up again and again, he spoke that language again.

Finally after the 3rd time I yelled his name loudly and got his attention. He asked what was wrong about the same time he jumped out of bed and I told him I think my water just broke, get me a towel please.

He was like what? I said, I think my water just broke. He said why do you think that? I said well I feel like I’m peeing my pants but I have to pee really bad. So he turned the light on and grabbed me a towel and I went to the bathroom. He came in to check on me and we determined that yes, that was my water breaking so I went ahead and stayed in the bathroom and hubby ran around the house almost like a chicken with his head cut off.

Before we went to bed the night before we made just a small list of last minute things to grab just in case something like this happened in the middle of the night. Pour hubby was running around the house and I kept having to tell him to calm down. Just before we left the house he brought me clean clothes. I put my shoes on and we headed to my car. The dogs were extremely excited but they sure didn’t know why.

Just before we left we called the hospital (as the doctor told us to), my parents, my aunt and my father in law. Hubby even brought the house phone into the car with us :). On the way to town we called my mother in law. Hubby teased me on our way because the day before I knew I needed gas but I decided that I would have gotten gas on the way to school (that day). On our way to town the low fuel light went on. Hubby was like, of course, the one time you need gas, your low fuel light goes on. I was like, there’s still 50 miles left and we’re about 8 miles from the hospital so we had a good laugh on the way to the hospital.

The way the hospital is set up, you go in through the Emergency Room and they check you in. Then you are immediately wheeled back to the OB area. Being a small town, our hospital only has 4 delivery rooms then 3 triage delivery rooms. The day before had been a busy day at the hospital in the delivery department so they put us in the 1st Triage room.

 In fact, they had a induction coming in at 5am that was supposed to be in there so they pushed them back since we took the better of the Triage rooms.

Around 3:30am the nurse called her boss to see what they were going to do. Her boss, Sandy came in around 5 and checked my stats and explained that they were going to put me on one of the exercise balls as gravity is my friend. I’d spend about 30 minutes to an hour on the gravity ball and then I could take a 30 minute nap or vise versa. We decided nap first. She also said that Dr would be around to check on me in the 7am hour.

We were told to try for a 30 minute nap. I never got a nap I just sat there and watched CMT but hubby was able to conk out for about 15 minutes before they brought the medicine ball in.

Then I was told to sit on the ball. The contractions were getting a little more known but still nothing too terrible. The only thing is Sandy kept telling me not to hold my breath. I had to breathe through them to make sure that baby was getting enough air with the contracting muscles.

On the ball I was to bounce up and down, wiggle from side to side and float forward/backward. I was supposed to change what I was doing ever 5-6 contractions. It was to help the brain through the contractions and loosen muscles because my brain wasn’t focused on the contraction but what I was doing. My mom was allowed back at this time so she and hubby talked to me to keep my mind off things as well. Mom said they were all getting tickled in the waiting room at all the random text messages I had been sending her since about 3something that morning. Obviously I was bored… lol.

The doctor came in around 7, I had been on the ball about an hour to an hour and a half. They made fun of me because I was sitting Indian style (you know cross legged, that’s how we learned it in school) on the ball and not falling. About this time my parents left to go home and feed critters and then stop and get hubby some breakfast.

They decided to take me off of the medicine ball. Just before 8am they said that the “gravity” theory was working and they wanted me to walk the halls for an hour. By the time I got through with that they’d have a room to put me in. So hubby and I took off to walk the halls. Memaw (my Mother-in-law) went walking with us.

There are hand rails that line the walls and Sandy said that if I needed to stop for a contraction, don’t worry. She said they’re used to seeing women walking the halls all the time. I was told to avoid one hall because that’s where the sick patients were kept and they tried to keep us out of that wing :). Toward the end of that hour walk, the contractions started getting a little harder but they were very random too.