My Birth Story and last entry

It's absolutely amazing how much ones life can change in a very short amount of time. For anyone who's interested here's my birth story.

On May 13th shortly after midnight Adam and I headed to bed. I was telling Adam before I dosed off of all the things I planned to do the next morning. Oh I wanted to dust the house, vacuum through, complete the laundry, go grocery shopping and visit the girl's at the daycare. Looking back now it's obvious I was having my nesting instinct but I was too tired to care. At 2:15am I woke up out of a deep sleep with what felt like a really bad menstrual cramp that cover my entire belly reign. At first sleepy me doesn't have a clue what's going on. When the pain was tolerable it dawns on me I must be having a contraction. I had remember reading that if your contraction happen at night time that you should try and go back to sleep. Because being that it's your first pregnancy it would average that you wouldn't be holding your baby in your arms for at least 20 to 24 hours. So I tried just that, but the next pain came 10 minutes later, then 8 minutes, then 6 minutes and by 4:30am I couldn't take it anymore. The contractions were becoming erratically some were 8 minutes apart where others were 5 minutes and the contractions were lasting longer. I started to get scared....I finally woke Adam up. I had held off as long as I possible could to wake Adam up because I knew as soon as I did "it" would become all too real...and it did. As soon as I told Adam I was experiencing pain he jumped out of bed, starting running things out to the car and somehow managed to eat a bowl of cereal really fast. The whole time I was in bed trying to accept the fact and muster up the courage that I did indeed have to go to the hospital NOW!! It was quite comical..here I am saying to Adam "no, no, no we don't need to go yet" in the middle of a contractions, well Adam fights to put my pants on for me. So by 5am we're out the door and on are way to St Joe's Hospital. Adam helps me waddle into the hospital and two personnel smile at us and point us in the right direction without any words spoken everyone knows why am obviously here. As Adam is filling out all the ridiculous paper work I've decided that I've had enough and I'm going to find myself some help. They took us to this room and hooked me up to a machine to see how all my vitals were. Then the nurse left us there for a half hour. She didn't say when she'd be back and the last thing I wanted to do was lay down and wait for her(so uncomfortable I wanted to be up and around). Since this is your first pregnancy you have know idea the magnitude of pain your feeling right now could possible be any worse and yet it does just that. The lady finally comes back and says "yep were going to go ahead and admit ya....your in active labour" and am thinking you're sure as hell right your admitting me I didn't even think at that point sending me home was an option. So now am laying in the Birth Room bed and the contractions are causing me to loose all focus. Am having a really difficult time answering questions. An the nurse suggests that I take a soak in the whirl pool tub. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very private person. But when your faced with an unimaginable kind of pain you loose all self respect for yourself or at least I did for a short period of time. Adam is trying to fetch me my bathing suit and am swatting at him to leave me alone as I waddle off to the bathroom completely nude and slid into the tub. Amazing how soothing water can be. It only lasted 2 hours though and then I thought I was going to bawl because the pain was so great. The nurse then checks me and am 7 centimeters dilated so I still have a ways to go. For about an hour and a half concentrating on my breathing really seemed to help me. And then again I started to feel like I was going to actually loose it, I felt like I couldn't cope anymore I started to rock back and forth, back and forth and so on. The nurse re-checks me and states that am now 9 centimeters dilated. Then she tells me this is going to be my absolutely last chance to get an edpidural. She goes on to say that the baby is turned upside down ( making in a back labour so the baby is going to be harder to push out), that they suspect the baby is even larger then they had originally suspected and that the contractions are now going to be on top of each other now and they won't be any breaks inbetween. Currently my contractions were a minute apart. So with all that being said I panicked and eagerly accepted drugs of any kind now. The anestioligst asks me if I want to take a 1 in 10,000 chance that the drug might actually kill me, as am currently in the peaking point of a contractions I say "YES" without any hesitation at all. An man when those drugs took affect I was an entirely different person. I was sitting up in bed laughing and talking away to everyone, it was great. The nurse keep telling me that I could have more drugs but I wanted to feel some pain so that I would know when my baby wanted me to push her out. I had this in controllable urge to push Mackenzie out at 9:30am but the Doctors were all busy and said to up my dosage of meds. At 10:30am it seemed as though my body was going to push the baby out on it's very own. The Doctor checked me and said the baby was still turned the wrong way and that he wanted me to hold off as long as I possible could to give her a chance to turn the right way. At 11:30am I could no long hold off even if my very life depend on it. Mackenzie didn't care that the labour was going to be harder on us both because she wouldn't turn...she was coming out anyways. They convinced me to touch Mackenzie's head as I was pushing her out...man that was crazy it was spongy feeling. At one point I looked up so see 7 pairs of eyeballs starting at me crouch reign....what's a girl to do. I just had to put it out of my mind and focus at the task at hand. After an hour of pushing the doctor tells me that with one snip the baby would be in my arms with the next push. Or he didn't have to cut me just yet and we could see how things progressed. He wanted to know what I wanted to do "GET HER OUT!!!" I say. The doctor smiled and just as he had said after that next push she was here at 12:31pm. I could see only her feet and then they rushed her over to the observation table. She didn't make a sound and she looked blue. I just laid there trying to will her to make her first sound so that I could breathe myself. I then I heard the nurse say "were calling ICU" my heart was in my throat. And just then when I felt like my world was caving in I heard my most favorite sound in the world ever....Mackenzie sneezed. So all is well now right?! Wrong...just then it comes to may attention that the doctor has shoved the med student out of the way who was working on me. The doctor is telling the nurse to bring him all of these things and there is urgency in his voice as he says it. He then stands up and a see his gloves covered with blood and it dripping of his elbows. I start to feel fuzzy ( that's the best way I can describe it). An then suddenly everyone calms down instantly and the nurse says to me that I lost close to 2 liters of blood. My uterus wasn't contracting the way that it should have been and apparently am a bleeder. It scary to think but in the old days I would have hemorrhaged to death.

OK on a much happier note they finally brought Mackenzie over to me and she was all bright eyed and alert and sooooo cubby ( 9lbs 10 oz). I remember looking at her for the first time thinking she doesn't look like anyone I know. An then it dawns on my that's because we've never met before and that she looks like herself, Mackenzie.