Labor of love...literally

I'm a jack of all trades but a master of none (this will make more sense at the end of this blog).  This long process started on Tuesday (11/9) morning at my Dr's appointment, my blood pressure was still on the high side, but not dangerously high, my midwife and I chatted about different options, whether that be waiting till the baby comes on her own or being induced (granted this was before my cervix was checked), they checked me and my cervix was not even close to dilating or moving, so the midwife asked if I wanted to come to the hospital tonight and have a bulb syringe inserted into the cervix to "help" it along, so I agreed, thinking okay, we'll do this tonight and possibly she'll be born tomorrow.  Todd and I decided to go out to a nice dinner (I call it the last supper) and then we headed to the hospital around 8.  We arrived on time and they put the bulb syringe in place.  Overnight the syringe did what it was suppose to, it made my cervix dilate to 3cm's, yay for small victories!  About midmorning on Wednesday (11/10) my midwife showed up and said we're going to start Pitocin and you'll have this baby before the day is over with.  So, we walked and we walked and we walked...lets not mention that there is only 1 hallway in labor and delivery, so it was a very scenic route for the 2 of us, my poor husband, God bless him for sticking by me through all of this.  Later in the afternoon my midwife returned to check the progression of my cervix and well it only dilated to 5cm, so we're still progressing, at this point I was still thinking positive.  Then there was a stall in progression...my midwife left and night shift came on (you know its bad when the techs are all saying, she still hasn't had her baby yet).  The doctor on nightshift decided since there was no further progression, that she was going to stop the Pitocin, so I could eat dinner and have a good night sleep, well obviously my contractions didn't get that memo because they kept me up all night long.  So here it is Thursday November 11th and still no baby.  My doctor came in and announced that she was starting up Pitocin again but stronger and that by the end of the day we'll be holding our baby (yeah, I've heard that before lady).  At around 3pm, the doctor came back and checked my cervix...7 cm's...woo hoo, I thought.  I got my epidural and was feeling great....ready to do this thing until my epidural failed on 1 side, sadly they didn't want to try and fix it (there's more to this story but I'll skip those details).  My nurse, Todd, and I decided to start pushing...it seemed that time flew by cause all of sudden the room was filled with everyone and their mother.  Here I would like to mention that I was dealing with a student, 2 residents, and an attending that just happened to be an Endocrinologist and loves doing C-sections....ahem.  Anyways, there was all this chatter about using forceps and noone knew how to use them except the attending (kind of gives you a warm fuzzy inside doesn't it), needless to say one of the residents was shown and pulled that baby out of me (with a lot of pushing from me no less) and at 5:49pm on Veteran's day our baby girl finally joined us, with the cord wrapped around her neck twice, I actually didn't know this till 2 days ago.   But, she's healthy, has 10 toes and 10 fingers, and thats all we can ask for...we are truly blessed.  I have to say it was NOT what I expected but the ending was perfect.  I am so thankful that I have the husband that I do, he was a champ and I couldn't of gone through any of this without him and the wonderful nurse that was with me through all of it.  Now back to the beginning....being a jack of all trades but a master of none...I'd like to think that if anyone needed advice on the syringe bulb that I could give them advice, if anyone had a question about Pitocin that I could talk to them about it, if they had a question on getting a Epidural...I could help them, and if they wanted to know about forceps that I could let them know....so I feel that this saying fits.


After all of this, I'm still debating on whether I could go through all this again....I don't know.  I know everyone says, "oh, you'll forget about the whole thing in a few weeks."  I seriously doubt it.  But, I can say this....the outcome was priceless!!