Taking the Bun out of the Oven

Before there was Active Labor, there was Almost Labor
Had I been a cavewoman living in the primitive and drugless past when I started my contractions, I probably would’ve been contracting for days. Since that’s not the case, I lasted for only 27 hours before I went to the hospital seeking morphine.

Here’s “Almost Labor” in a nutshell:

1. 11 days before Ari’s due date, I start contracting at 5:00am on a Friday morning. I dub these contractions “almost labor” because they hurt, the pain wraps around from my back to my front, and they won’t go away. The only reason it’s not active labor is because the contractions aren’t less than 15-20 minutes apart.

2. Can’t sleep. I try to defeat the contractions with Tylenol, milk, and Harry Potter. Nothing works. I can still sorta function, so I go about my day, contracting at least three or more times every hour.

3. Sunrise the following morning on Saturday: still sleep deprived and now doubling over from the pain. We go to the hospital.

4. I wasn’t expecting to stay and get the party going--and I don’t. They deem me not in active labor. Doc gives the green light for morphine. I rejoice.

5. Nurse says morphine lasts 6 hours unless it relaxes the muscles and speeds up the contractions. Doc says he wouldn’t be surprised if I came back later that day in active labor. I’m like, for reals? Are you kidding me?

6. Morphine is crazy. I feel light and heavy at the same time. But I can finally take a painless nap after 30 straight hours of contracting.

Now it’s Active Labor
7. Two hours later, I wake up to one really bad contraction, and my water, like, half-breaks. I take care of that. Then I throw up. The contractions come back worse than before. I throw up again.

8. Contractions are less than 5 minutes apart! Party time. I throw up outside the car. We hit every single red light on State Street. I squirm and squeal in the seat and try not to wish an evil curse to befall every driver in our way.

9. We arrive!

The Magical Epidural
I don’t know how I could have survived labor contractions without the epidural. By the time the anesthesiologist came I was moaning, curling into a ball, and violently shivering with every contraction. They told me the shivering was normal and happens to a lot of women. That’s when I started getting the idea that there’s a lot more to this whole labor/childbirth thing than people tell you. Although, movies do make it look pretty painful--I guess that’s all I needed to know.

I asked if they could give me the epidural while I was shivering. At first they said yes. But ‘twas not meant to be. I’m a petite little lady, and he only had a teeny tiny space to work with in my back. I found out later that he actually stabbed me three times with the needle trying to make it work. I didn’t even notice because it felt like a mere pinprick compared to the agony of contractions. In the end, he said I had to be perfectly still. He’d work on my back, then when I started shaking, everyone would sit back and wait for the contraction to be over.

At last the epidural took effect, feeling like a cold liquid metal filling my back and lower half, followed by a wonderful numbness. It was amazing to look at the monitor, see the line spike to indicate a contraction, and not feel a thing. Such a thing of beauty.

The Waiting Game
Not much happened for hours after that. I slept and Clayton hung out with my parents. The rest of my water broke. I got a fever, which they quickly subdued with antibiotics. I never lost 100% control of my limbs; I could still help the nurse a tiny bit when she moved my legs from side to side.

I was really proud of having some control over my limbs, until I realized later that my body burns through painkillers pretty fast. They have a button you can press to keep the numbness going if feeling starts to come back. It didn’t work for me. Twice the anesthesiologist himself had to come in and inject more painkiller stuff into me because I was starting to feel the contractions again.

I dilated like a pro for most of the labor. Everyone started to get excited as we approached 7. My mom said that usually the last few inches are dilated the fastest. I reached 8. Then 9. Then...still 9.

My contractions slowed to more than 5 minutes apart. It took hours to dilate from 9 to 10. I laid there and tried to send mental messages to my body: whoa, you’re not done yet! Keep a'going! Then I wondered, well geez, did my baby get cold feet, and change her mind about coming out? They gave me Pitocin to see if it would help, but that affected baby’s heartbeat, so they stopped. It was a very anti-climatic ending to hours of labor.

Taking the Bun out of the Oven
Active labor lasted from about 4:00pm on Saturday to 2:00am on Sunday, when I finally dilated to a 10 and the time came to push. It was just me, Clayton, and an awesome nurse in the Operating Room because they wanted to check Ari’s breathing and her lung immediately after birth. (She’d had a cyst in there for a big chunk of the pregnancy.)

I was an awesome pusher; the nurse told me so. She even wrote that down in the notes on the monitor. My parents were in the other room and could see the same stuff on the monitor as we could in the O.R. After 40 minutes we were ready for the doc to come in and do his thing.

But of course...the doc was attending to someone else. We had to wait. The nurse said if this wasn’t my first baby, the baby would have come out already. Her words brought some small comfort. For 25 or more minutes, I laid there with a baby head putting horrible pressure on my lower half. All I wanted, more than anything, was for her to come out and that pressure to be gone.

At last the doc came. Only a few pushes later, I felt my baby’s joints and limbs pass through my torn and aching body. I got a glimpse of her little red body before they took her away and the doc started fixing me up.

When the Magic of the Epidural Ran Out
In movies (which are, you know, totally like real life) you don’t see women still crying after the baby comes out. Plus I had the epidural, so I was totally unprepared for the pain that followed the birth. I should have known that feeling her come out of me was a bad sign. I should have realized the relief from that horrible pressure--that I wanted so badly--never really came. As the doc worked, I started to feel, and it hurt. So. Bad. At one point I said, “It’s hurting.” It began as a throbbing ache, then became a very sharp throbbing ache. I said again, “It hurts.” The tears started flowing.

The doctor must have thought I was a wuss or something, because his way of testing my lack of numbness was by sticking the needle through my torn skin as he sewed me up and asking, “Did you feel that?” I cried out “Yes! YES!” and he sat back, finally accepting it, and we all waited for the anesthesiologist to come. It took forever. I clutched Clayton’s hand and just cried, cried, cried. It was probably the worst physical pain I've felt. At last the anesthesiologist came and gave me my third injection of painkiller stuff. I tried to feel the painkiller go through my body, tried to make the pain stop. Gradually it lessened and I calmed down. But even that injection didn’t numb me completely--they had to give me a local anesthetic as well before the doc could take care of everything.

Then, before I knew what was happening, Clayton was helping me sit up and placing a living, beautiful, swaddled newborn girl into my arms. I started to cry all over again, but as I did I whispered to my baby girl, “These are happy tears. Such happy tears.” In that moment I felt a powerful warmth and love touching my spirit, like I was holding a piece of Heaven. I chose one of two names we were considering and named our angel Ariana.

Every experience is different and I believe that the Lord doesn’t give us trials we can’t handle. My trial was strong but brief, and even stronger was the love I felt from Heavenly Father, and the love I felt for the new little being who had entered my life.