Here is the story of how Spencer came into this world, because I know everyone is dying to know. On Wednesday the 19th, I got up with Jacob while he left for work and then went to lay down and watch the Today show. I was having contractions about every 10 minutes, but they weren't bad and I figured they'd go away just like they always did (it's about 9 am at this point). Jacob's mom called and invited me to go to lunch with her, her mom, and her aunts. I agreed, thinking that it might be a long time before I got to do anything like that again. I got up from watching the Today show and puttied the door and closet trim in the nursery with fast dry spackle. I figured it wasn't too stressful a job, and if it was, then it would put me into labor like I wanted. At noon, I met the women at Arby's by my house. I started having more contractions, but tried to ignore them (I was trying reverse psychology, you know, if I don't time them, maybe they'll turn into something). We went to the dollar store to get something and we all went in one car. I was having worse contractions at the dollar store and was rubbing my belly when Jacob's mom asked if I was having labor pains. I said I maybe was, but it was really nothing to worry about. We were going to go to a movie at the mall so we went to leave, but they wouldn't take me back to my car to take with us. They made me leave it at Arby's because they said if I went into labor I wasn't going to be able to drive myself to the hospital. We went and walked around the mall until our movie was supposed to start. I was getting a little worried because the contractions were picking up, but I figured it was just due to all the walking around. We saw "Letters to Juliet", and it was really good. The contractions sorta mellowed out during the movie, and so I figured that I didn't need to worry and it was all because I had been walking around. However, once the movie got over, they started to get bad again. They all asked how I was doing and I told them I thought it must have been a false alarm. I was actually in pain, but I really wanted to go home, so we did. I made it home and made myself lay down for a while to see if they'd still be going. They stayed coming and were getting closer together and stronger. I remembered learning that true labor gets longer, stronger, and closer together, so I figured I better give Jacob a heads up. I told him I thought that it might be legitimate and wondered when he would be home. It was alreadyafter 5 at this point, but he was busy getting ready for a Go Live with his work that night. He said he would be home by about 630. He was also supposed to have a big missionary meeting that night so I told him to find someone to go for him (the missionaries told Jacob that no matter what happened, he should really try to get to this meeting. Nice try, but I wasn't letting him leave me when I was in labor, no matter how important the missionaries thought it was). He asked me to put a few last minute things in his hospital bag and to get ready to go when he got home. I did and also added a few last minute things to my bag as well (but my mind must have been elsewhere because I still forgot important things). Once he got home, we went to the hospital. We got there about 730 pm and they checked me in to see if I should stay. I got to pee in a cup, put on the gown, and put this huge tube sock on my belly to keep monitors on. They checked my dilation and I was disappointed to find out that I was still the same as I was at the doctor's the week before. I don't really know what they saw on the monitor, but the nurse came back in after calling my doctor and told me he was going to come in and break my water and we were going to have a baby! I was shocked because since I hadn't changed dilation, I for sure thought they'd just send us home. Dr Bierer showed up a little bit later in jeans, black tennis shoes, and a black rock t shirt. I just had to describe the outfit because the only thing I've ever seen him wear is green scrubs, so seeing him in normal clothes was funny. He broke my water and they put me on pitocin as well. Both of those things started to speed things up a bit. He told us he thought we'd have a baby by 4 or 5 in the morning. I called my dad who was on a trip at the time to tell him what was going on so he could try to get off work early. Once the doctor left, Jacob and I put in Madagascar to watch while I labored through contractions. I had been for natural birth only because I've seen epidurals be placed and it freaked me out. Well, needless to say, I decided I wanted that epidural pretty darn quickly once they kept upping my pitocin. I got an epidural and it was amazing! Not nearly as bad as I had built it up to be. I was praising the Lord for epidurals, just ask Jacob. The epidural allowed me to sleep through the night, even though they kept coming in to check me and such during the night. The next morning, much past the time that Dr Bierer had said we'd have a baby, my blood pressure went out of control. I'm not sure at what point, but at some point my blood pressure dropped to about 80/40 ish. Blood pressure problems are the number one side effect of epidurals, so I wasn't surprised. It got so bad that they put me on the oxygen and started giving me lots of ephedrine to help it get back up. I just felt a bit lightheaded mostly, but then started getting really nauseous and throwing up. That was not a fun part at all. At one point, Jacob went out to get me ice chips and came back in and told me my mom was outside in the waiting area. We didn't know she was coming to the hospital to hang out, and I'm glad she stayed in the waiting area so she didn't see me puking. About 6 in the morning, one of the nurses disocvered the reason I was progressing so slowly. The baby was trying to come face up instead of the normal face down way. It was making labor go more slowly than it could have been. They decided to try some position changes to see if we could flip the baby to the normal position. They had me lay on my side with one leg in a stirrup. My epidural was sorta wearing out at this point so they redosed me, but all it did was make one half of my body REALLy numb, and it didn't do anything for the pain I was having in other areas. We got the baby to turn finally and we could start pushing. I could feel pretty much everything down in that area, especially all the pressure. That pressure is some of the most uncomfortable pressure you'll ever have to deal with in your life! You basically feel like you have to have a HUGE bowel movement, but you aren't allowed to try to get it out til someone says so. About 11 am we started pushing. At some point in there, the nurse called the doctor and had him come to deliver me. I pushed for about 1 hour until baby Spencer was born at 12:07 pm. I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like my doctor didn't acknowledge me very much during the whole process. Keep in mind it was me having a baby and you'd think he'd at least call me by name or something, or even talk to me, but he really didn't. All he ever really said to me was when I could push or not. Spencer came out with 2 loops of loose cord around his neck, but nothing alarming. I however was hemorrhaging and nobody bothered to tell me. I could feel a lot of blood but couldn't really tell how much it was and what normal is supposed to feel like. I was getting pretty bad so they upped my pitocin a lot and gave me 2 doses of Cytotec. After the doctor was gone and Spencer was all cleaned up, I continued to bleed profusely. There were huge gushes and clots every time the nurse would massage my uterus. The nurse told me that the doctor said that if I gushed one more time, she would have to give me a shot to make it stop. Lcukily the gush wasn't so bad that time so she didn't have to give it to me. Spencer got to meet his grandmas and they were so excited.
All in all, it still feels surreal to me. I know I have a baby now, but I still feel like it didn't really happen and it was all a bad dream. After all, a lot of weird things happened to me that I only ever thought I'd learn about in school (like hemorrhaging or having a baby come the wrong way). I still feel slightly bothered about the whole doctor thing, but I'm not sure why. Did anyone else feel this way or is it just me?
