this could also be called "hindsight is 20/20" or "next time just assume you're really in labor."
before you begin reading, you should know that pregnancy is no glamorous thing. but if there is one thing that can make pregnancy look glamorous, it is birthing a baby. this story is nothing short of way too much information and i hiiiiiighly caution you to read it at your own risk. should you get to a point and think to yourself "yikes, i wish i'd never read that" you should not read on thinking the worst is behind you. seriously, this is no pretty thing and no details were spared.
12.18.12 - woke up at 6am with a contraction. (could have been a little before, like 5:50 or something but i really don't know. i think it was six.) i went to the bathroom (even though i'd already been once during the night) because contractions bring out the full bladder in me. felt like i needed to poop but didn't. headed back to bed. kept getting stronger than normal contractions and eventually started timing them on my phone, maybe around six thirty. They were averaging about 5 minutes apart and i had bad back pains. starts in the center of my back and eventually gravitates to the bottom center of my belly. needing to breathe through them. sometimes getting on knees and elbows in bed. 7:00 chris left for work and i told him to be on call in case i went into labor today. I told him they were five mins apart and he made a comment about isn't that pretty close and i explained about how sometimes they can just go away. he said no problem because he just had meetings and conference calls and would be around all day today. i told him i'd keep him posted and said bye. then i went to the bathroom. actually did poop... similar to right before i went to the hospital last time with abigail. hoping this is false labor because i just keep thinking of everything i have planned this week and how i just want to spend some more time with abigail. i have to keep reminding myself that i'm just adding a kid. not trading abigail in for a new one. doubting my previous desire for a natural birth. i really just want this to be a positive experience. also thinking i should probably pack my bag for the hospital and maybe jump in the shower. still feeling the need to poop. some diarrhea.
[most of what is written above was written while i was in labor around 7:15 or 7:20 am and just saved in a gmail draft. some additions and complete sentences added later... hence the mixed tenses and being disjointed... everything below was written in the following days.]
my text to chris around 7:10 or 7:15 said "contractions getting stronger. just fyi. i'm gonna take a shower so i'll update you after that." i stopped timing contractions when I got in the shower at 7:30. Took an average 20 min shower and always leaned over and braced my hands on my thighs when experiencing a contraction they were pretty strong and frequent but there was no way for me to time them and know for sure. At 7:53, i sat on the toilet again (still feeling the diarrhea urge but my system was pretty cleaned out already) and called Klaudette and talked to her for two minutes, telling her i think i might be in labor and to come over. i should have acted a little more in labor like this was an urgent situation because i had asked her what her morning looked like and if she could maybe come over to watch abigail and whatever and she started telling me stuff like "ohhh carrie! that's so exciting! what're your symptoms?!" and started telling me this long story about how she and brent had an appointment at the passport office at 11 because they're going on their anniversary trip soon and even though their passports aren't expired, they don't have enough visa pages or something for all of the places they're going to visit and blah blah blah. meanwhile i was experiencing such a bad contraction that i was closing my eyes and unable to even speak to interrupt her. so whereas i had initially planned to ask her to be "on call" that morning, i changed my tune and asked if she and john (my freshman college brother in law home for the holidays) could come over and watch abigail and she said they'd be over in 30 minutes. so when i was on the phone with her i realized i had never texted chris to update him. then texted chris at 7:56 and told him to come home. And then he called at 7:58 to ask if I was serious. So then I talked to him and told him to come home right then. i had really wanted to hurry and do my hair but ended up just brushing it and getting dressed. i also wished i had enough time for a quick coat of polish on my toes. i'd procrastinated painting them because i wanted them to not be chipping while i was in labor/postpartum so i was going to do that at 39 weeks. so much for having cute toenails in the hospital. i also picked up my tube of mascara thinking i'd just do it quick by not curling my eyelashes but i had to put the mascara down right away and head to my bed to lean on it and get through another contraction. i even forgot to put in my contacts and didn't even notice to toss them in with my other toiletries into my hospital bag. so. much. pain. lots and lots of pain. Cursing myself (not really, but y'know) for not being at the hospital because I wanted an epidural that very second and knowing the soonest i could get one was still a car ride and check in away. i was only getting a short break between contractions, like maybe 30 seconds, so it was impossible to focus enough to pack my bag. i threw in a bunch of clothes tanks and shirts with low scoop necks, a comfy pull over nightgown to wear at the hospital during labor and my black maternity dress. also threw in a few pairs of socks, my hair brush, and my straightener. picked out my black northface jacket to wear (ended up forgetting this and leaving it in the closet since i was soooo hot) and then picked out my favorite maternity skinnies, and put on a bra and white tank. i skipped wearing g's because i knew i'd be taking all of this off soon anyways and honestly, it was just going to be too much work added to getting dressed. kept having to go to my bed for bad contractions and noticed i was getting hot and sweaty. picked out my pink short sleeve shirt because i was so hot and it was the first thing i saw since it'd just been washed (i wore it in my 38 week post picture). i gave up trying to look cute and just needed to be dressed instead.
focusing on contractions, i realized that I would start panting and tensing up before reminding myself to take slow deep breaths and relax. It felt so much better when I did the hypnobirthing breathing but I would always panic when i'd start to feel a contraction and never remember til I was in the thick of it. but seriously, i was amazed that the second i took a slow, deep, hypnobirthing breath directed towards my belly and pushing the air to my uterus, i felt a million times better. need to remember this for next time! i was on hands and knees at the foot of bed when Chris got home and walked in. since i was just finishing that contraction i just looked at him and chuckled a bit like "ha, sorry i sent you to work an hour ago... this is it." i think this was just a minute or two after reaching transition because i remember that first "i can't do this! i need an epidural!" thought (according to the millions of birth stories i've read, this is the characteristic and probably the epitome of hitting transition) and i think it might have been during that contraction unless it was during one of the previous two. i told him i was ready to go and grabbed my hospital bag. i was within a foot of the kitchen (right next to the end table in the great room) when i got such a bad contraction i just dropped to hands and knees right there on the floor and was grateful it was carpet. i instructed chris to pack me milk. i told him to just put the open gallon of milk in the "pheasant bag" (that's the picnic cooler type bag chris brought home pheasant from from his client hunting trip. i couldn't remember how much milk was in the current open gallon and i didn't watch him to do it but still thinking about food (i hadn't had anything to eat or drink since the night before) i made sure to grab my purse that had all of baby's snacks in it (fiber one bar, goldfish, and a few clementines) because they said on the hospital tour (that i took the night before) that you can sometimes eat during labor depending on the attending physician. when i was making sure my camera was in my purse, i handed it to chris and told him to come to the bedroom and take one last pregnant picture of me. he was irritated (and gave me a look of compete disbelief that i would suggest such a thing) and said we'd do it at the hospital but i'm smarter than that and knew there was a good chance we'd forget. we couldn't take it in the same spot as my other pictures because the sun was so harsh in that corner of the room at that hour of the morning but he took three pictures for me (front, side, and other side) and that was enough to make me happy.
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| taken 12.18.12 at 38 weeks, 5 days. same outfit as 38 week post... you can tell he's dropped! |
as we were walking out the door chris told me his mom was still 8-10 minutes away and asked if he should go to the neighbors next door (in our ward) and see if the wife could come sit with abigail for a few minutes til his mom got there. i think i gave him a look like he was crazy and said "no, let's just go. baby's asleep in her crib and she'll be fine til your mom gets here. tell her we're leaving the garage door open for her." and i grabbed a towel from the laundry room (no idea why i have a clean folded towel in our laundry room cabinet (reading through this again i'm remembering that i keep it there as a makeshift ironing board... does that tell you how often i iron?!) but i was really really grateful for it at that moment. i put it down on the seat of chris's car in case my water broke on the way to the hospital. we pulled out of our driveway at 8:23 and chris was on the phone with his mom telling her we just left abigail unattended. she asked if chris had given me a priesthood blessing yet and so chris turned to me and asked if i wanted one. well of course. but as we were sitting at the light at the entrance/exit of our neighborhood he's like "well, where?" as we both looked around for a spot we could pullover. "do you want to wait til we get to the hospital parking lot?" to which i said "yes" and then turned off the heat he'd just turned on. i was sweating and that heat felt disgusting. the whole way to the hospital i contemplated rolling down the windows because i was sooo hot but i never did. it was just one more thing and i didn't want it to make me freezing since i knew i was covered in a full body sweat. at the next stop light christopher said something kind and put his hand on my knee/leg. and then i gently pushed it off while i panted for him to "please don't touch me." actually, i honestly can't remember if i said please or not. but i was in a contraction so i had my head back and eyes closed and could barely get the words out. as we turned onto h___ he asked me in a "let's make conversation" sort of tone "when i knew" or "when things started to get real/changed" or something and i remember trying to think of the answer in my head before thinking "what?! who cares? why does it matter?!" so i impatiently told him (well, i probably panted it) "i don't know" and i think he got the picture that i wasn't really in the position for light conversation type of stuff. i opened my eyes for a few seconds and noticed we were in traffic on c_______ but i just closed my eyes again (knowing there was nothing i could do about it) and did my thing. on m___ street, i felt like i was about to crap my pants. this was a little frightening for me (even though i was sitting on a towel) because of the poop issues i'd been having earlier and because that is super disgusting. especially to think about pooping your pants in the car when you're about to check in to a hospital). then i was like "oh my heavens i've read about eighty million birth stories... is this what they call the urge to push?!?!" and so i remember hearing and reading that when you get the urge to push that it actually feels good to push so i tried it and it felt good and then i had a "holy crap my body is pushing a baby out! in a car!" moment. and i can't remember if this was before the pushing or during (because i was on hold for a bit before talking to a real person) but i told chris "crap! i never called kaiser to let them know i was coming to the hospital!" according to my phone, i called kaiser at 8:35. so i was listening to kaiser music waiting for a person and by the time she actually came on the line "hello this is ____ may i have your kaiser number?" we were pulling up over the hill and could see the hospital. so i gave her my best, "my name is carrie hillier, my kaiser number is _____, i'm in labor and we're pulling into the parking lot right now at ____________. so then i can't remember if she said anything else but meanwhile i was motioning to chris where to turn and not turn (ohmygoodness SO THANKFUL I TOOK THAT HOSPITAL TOUR THE NIGHT BEFORE!!! or else this baby could have been born in a parking lot!) and had pointed to the entrance to which he said "you don't want me to park?" and i told him to valet the car. (with abigail i had told him to park the car so that we could go in together because i wanted him by my side constantly. this time i needed him by my side but there was no way i would be able to walk any distance of a parking lot.)
i think i hung up with the kaiser lady (my phone says our call was 3 minutes long but it doesn't specify seconds so we must have arrived sometime between 8:38 and 8:39) as the valet opened my door and i waited for a wheelchair. chris got all our stuff and once we got inside the first set of double doors, he stopped pushing my wheelchair to adjust all the bags and get a better grip on them and i remember wanting to yell out to him to "RUN!" but i knew that not was not the time to bring contention into the situation so i waited patiently and then motioned to him to go to the admissions desk. as we pulled up the lady asks why we're there and gives christopher some paperwork to fill out. "i'm in labor" to which she lazily replied "yes, but why are you here? did someone tell you to come in?" and i just told her no but that i was in labor. for me, it seemed totally obvious that of course she could see my body was pushing a baby out but now i realize that with my head rolled back and my eyes closed for contractions (and no yelling or moaning or anything), i probably didn't actually look like i was in heavy labor... but honestly my brain was not capable of processing that like the moment like how i'd forgotten to call kaiser to let the hospital know i was coming. and chris got really irritated at the lady (honestly she came off rude and patronizing) and testily snapped at her "she's in labor, just tell us where to go" and she said that she'd call upstairs and someone would come down to get us. so i asked the lady what chris was filling out and told her i'd already preregistered and she still lazily explained that yes, but you gotta fill this out too so chris filled that out while we waited for someone to come down and roll my wheelchair up.
the lady came down and got my wheelchair and wheeled me over to the elevators... there was one that several people were already in and one man held the door and asked if they should make room for us and my wheelchair lady casually told them no thanks and that we'd wait for an empty elevator. i almost yelled out right there but decided instead to just inform the lady "i'm not totally sure what it means (and then i had a random "you're at 5cm" thought and i have noooo idea where that came from) but i've been feeling like pushing for a while now (it had been about ten minutes i think. also, why was i still in denial that i was about to have a baby?! apparently labor = irrational thoughts). so she kept calm and said something like "okay, we'll get you checked out... were your other labors fast?" and i told her that my first kid was a seven hour labor from very start to finish.
she took me to a delivery room (after the birth, she told me later that she was going to take me to triage but when i told her my body was pushing, she thought maybe going straight to the delivery room was a better idea) wheeled me in there at exactly 8:45. i had told her by the elevators that i was losing feeling in my arms and i couldn't feel my hands and that they were just super tingly and she said it was from breathing too fast and kept telling me on the way up to take deep breaths when she'd noticed me panting. so even though she'd kept reminding me to take slow, deep breaths in the few minutes that she was taking me to the room, i still had no feeling in my hands or arms. so i somehow unhooked my bra (while i took off my boots... i was sooo hot, i just wanted those fur boots off!) and she took off my shirt for me. it's amazing how when you're in so much pain, awkwardness ceases to exist (although i wonder if it was awkward for christopher. i mean, normally if he's seeing me naked, no one else is with us. i'll refrain from asking about this, just to save some sort of face in our marriage). meanwhile she'd been asking me about my first labor and i told her i had an epidural and i can't remember if she assumed i wanted another or if i told her i wanted one. so then she grabbed a hospital gown for me to put on and i told her i wanted to wear my own clothes (a hospital gown sounded so terribly uncomfortable at the moment) while telling chris to bring me my duffle bag. and she told me i couldn't wear anything that pulled over my head if i wanted an epidural (i'd just asked the lady about this on the tour the night before!) so i asked her if i could just stay naked and she told me "no, because it makes the anesthesiologist uncomfortable." what?! who cares if he's uncomfortable! he's supposed to give comfort! not take it for himself! so by this point in our conversation she was having me stand up but once again, not being able to use my arms and feeling shaky and unstable, i supported myself on the bed and she was asking if it was okay for her to take my pants off. i nodded yes and so she was taking my pants off and BAM, my water broke and niagra falls'd all over the place and then there was a smaller gush again and i apologized and she kept telling me it was okay (although i'm pretty sure i heard her scream with surprise at that first one). but it did feel good to have my water break... such a release of pressure. so she got my pants off and told me sternly to get in bed but i honestly couldn't move and was thinking to myself that i'd just wait for this contraction to pass but then she and chris started yelling at me over and over to get on the bed and that scared me enough that i just made it happen. then she checked me and said that i was at a 10 and i think she said baby was at a 2 station and i immediately said "no epidural, huh?" (i think i was at those few seconds in between contractions when i said that because i was feeling pretty good and was super happy not to have to make the decision to get an epidural or not... like "yeay! look how cool i am! i'm having a natural birth!") and she said something like, "nope, you're having a baby! right now!". and so since i was on the bed, i was breathing down the baby with the contractions because i had told myself days or weeks before that i wasn't going to listen to anyone if they told me not to push (to wait for a doctor or something... according to those birth stories that's actually pretty common) when my body was pushing... i was just going to follow what my body was doing. i also felt at least one or two more small gushes of water on the bed. christopher said after it was all over that he could see the baby coming out basically as soon as i got on the bed. i think it was right before the nurse checked me (or immediately after) that she yelled out super loud "i need a doctor and a _____ and a ______!" with a super scary urgent voice that you hear in hospital scenes in movies and stuff. i think they came in pretty immediately (i had my eyes closed so i still don't really know) and i remember at one point asking them about pushing (no one was cheering or "coaching" me like they did with abigail but they also weren't telling me not to push. it kinda seemed like they were ignoring me. so when i asked them about pushing i think they were like "yeah, you're pushing a baby out" or something like that in a "duh, didn't you know that?" sort of voice. and then i felt a little better knowing i had their permission or approval or whatever... who knows. at one point towards the very end, someone calmly told me that i was doing a really great job and that she loved the way i was gently pushing (i think that's what hypnobirthing is talking about when they say you don't "push", you just "breathe the baby down" which someone on youtube explained is more like bearing down when you have to poop.) i'm glad that even if i was too panicked to use my hypnobirthing breathing techniques for the laboring part, at least i could use the birth breathing. anyways, i liked that the lady said that because it confirmed that i was making progress and at that point i was indeed trying to be gentle because i seriously could feel the head crowning and then felt a slight burning for a second and then felt relief and i thought to myself "oh my gosh, was that the ring of fire?!" (yes, i know i've read waaaay too many birth stories online but some say it lasts for over 30 seconds and some say it's less like a ring of fire and more like a blowtorch and some say that they don't even feel it) and so i opened my eyes and looked down and holy crap there was a baby in between my legs! they hadn't broken down the bed because it all happened too fast so it was like a huge black, or at least really really dark, blob and i think they saw that i was just sitting there looking at it and told me to keep pushing or push real hard or something and i thought to myself "oh yeah, this baby isn't all the way out yet!" so i pushed really hard and at 8:51, a baby was born!
brady robert hillier
tuesday, 12.18.12 at 8:51am
7 lbs 3 ounces, 20 inches long
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hair pulled back? no makeup? naked? not exactly the look i was going for for my first mother and son pictures.
and yes, i know they're risque but i put them on facebook anyway. |
sooo in case you're a visual learner like me and enjoy the use of timelines, here's a tiny little one for you...
6:00 - woke up with a contraction
6-7:00 - contractions about 5 minutes apart
7:00 - sent my christopher to work telling him to be on call
7:30 - took a shower
8:00 - husband and mother in law both on their way
8:15 - finally dressed and hospital bag packed. husband home.
8:23 - pulling out of driveway
8:39 - pulled up to hospital
8:45 - entered the delivery room
8:51 - no longer pregnant
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| timing contractions |
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| texts to my friend, sarah, less than 12 hours before i went into labor. |
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| the costco part is a different story titled "carrie is an emotional train wreck when she's pregnant." |
and eventually i'll get up the "part 2" of hospital recovery/first 24 hours... i know you can't wait.
