To spare some details, I was pretty sure that my water had started to leak, but I wasn't positive, since I was pretty much passed out from the epi on the table and at 8cm when I had Jonathan. It was 8 am exactly. I remember looking at the clock when I went to our bathroom to put my face on and clean up a bit. But once we started to go out the door, I think I knew I wouldn't make it through church and informed Lars we should go to the hospital instead.
It was just shy of 10:00 am when we drove over to my mother-in-law's to drop off Jonathan in his church clothes. We then headed over to the new Downey Kaiser Hospital on Imperial to check in. Lars was joking the entire way and we were laughing like crazy. After we got all checked in and they made me get into a horrendous hospital gown and hooked me up to the belly monitors, we sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. At least I was able to wait BY MYSELF!! Amazing feeling, no black women to listen to screaming while I tried to stay calm with each contraction.. sorry. >.>
Lars and I decided to play "I Spy" in the tiny claustraphobic room and he was SUCH a pill! Oh man. I was laughing SO hard. Seriously, I couldn't catch my breath. The nurse came in and asked me to get on the table to be checked since I was sitting on one of the chairs. I stood up and it was Niagra Falls all over the floor. The nurse quickly responded, "Well, no need to check you!" which made me laugh all the harder. Good thing Lars was there. I'm sure all that hard laughing broke my water!!! I'm glad I decided to go the the hospital because my water would've broken right in the middle of Relief Society!!!
The nurse came in to draw blood FROM MY HAND, which made me bawl because they tried to IV me in the SAME PLACE. I started to cry and cry. I would've rather been in labor with no drugs. No matter how hard I tried to breathe through the pain, I started to panic. My attending sent in another woman to IV me, since she didn't want any bad feelings between us since she was going to be with me my entire labor. Smart woman. I remembered I needed a blessing and asked the nurses to leave the room for a moment as a matter of personal religious circumstances. I felt much better afterword and knew I'd get through everything with the Lord's help.
Lars hadn't had breakfast that morning and he was all dressed to the Nines in his church things- tie and all. When he saw the blood residue smeared on my hands and watched the IV needle probe around under my skin, it made him get dizzy. He stood up to get me a cup of water since it felt like the Sahara Desert in my mouth with all that dry air in the hospital, but the nurse ended up getting HIM one while I waited for the wheelchair to take me to my L and D room. He took his tie off per the nurse's request and sat down outside the observation room with a cup of cold water until they had me all cleaned the blood off my skin and threw away anything with my blood on it. While they started me on a hydration drip, a midwife came to talk to us- Tom Morrison. I was thrown for a loop when a man walked in the door and introduced himself as The Midwife. I mean DUH, Rebekah! It was just such a stretch for me to think of a man being something I'd only ever associated with women. Hahahaha!! It still cracks me up!
They brought the wheelchair, took me to the room and hooked me all up to the machines and started me on Petocin for induction. I then had Lars go to his mom's house to check on Jonathan and to change out of his church clothes and hurry and get back to the hospital.
Now I'm sure you all know that I had a terrible allergic reaction to the epidural with Jonathan, so this entire time I was pregnant I didn't really have a problem with doing it naturally (since I was nearly a 7 when I got the epi the first time), up until the first night I had Braxton-Hicks (4 days before I delivered). All the sudden naturally didn't seem so ok. I tried to brush it off, but the contractions started coming faster than I antisipated, especially since I was waiting for the anestisiologist on call (turns out there were 4 on call that day). The anestisilogist wanted to call the other hospital to see if she could get my medical report about my reactions, since she couldn't really pinpoint what specifically caused my hives and burning in my veins.
As I was waiting, another anestisiologist came in and she was pretty assertive, but hard to understand in her thick Asian accent. But she was adamant that I get an epidural. She told me we'd figure it out as we went, but she wasn't going to let me do an induction without pain meds. And rightly so. The contractions were coming faster than I had antisipated, and after watching this lame channel on cable, I was wearing thin on laboring by myself. I kept calling Larry and there was no answer. Finally, he picked up. By the time Larry actually got to the hosptial, it felt like a year had passed and I was in serious pain. I had Lars rub my temples while I breathed through them and flipped on the tv that had a peaceful music channel). Lars was asked to leave for a half hour during the epidurl procedure (new hospital procedure due to a HORRIFIC accident that happened). It took 3 attempts in different locations for the dr. to put it in my spine without me yelping in pain. She was getting frustrated, and said "How odd. You feel that? Boy, you super sensitive lady!" She also put in an order for a dose of Benedryl to be injected into my IV every 4 hours, which I was grateful for.
Larry came back up to check on me and I sent him back to Gramma's to feed Jonathan and bring him back to our place to nap in his crib. (He doesn't sleep anywhere but in his bed or carseat.) I slept most of the time (minus waking a bit when I was contrating). It was pretty nice. But when the contractions started coming stronger, I called Larry to come back and be with me. I was getting freaked out being alone. So he dropped the Peanut off at Gramma's again and came to nap on the room's couch by me.
It was surreal. I was just sleeping, trying to remember to roll back and forth to keep the epidural spread through out my body. Pretty peaceful, especially because I finally had company. It was so much easier to be calm with his presence in the room.
Finally around 6 pm, my contractions were getting very, very strong and the epidural was starting to wear off a bit. I told the nurse in slurred speech that it was getting overly hard to try to sleep and I was feeling A LOT of pressure with each contraction. She made a call and another nurse came in they chatted for moment and called Tom. He came and checked me. "Wow, you've got another cemtimeter to go!" The nurses sprung into action and tables came out of nowhere and shiny intruments and bowls were prepped and set out on surgical cloths. I tried hard not to watch it all. Seeing all that stuff for a split second made my stomach turn over so I squeezed my eyes shut. Three more nurses came in to dress Tom in delivery garb and set up the baby table.
Once Tom was all dressed, he checked me again and I was ready. They pulled the table apart and I shifted down to the end of the bed. Lars held my hand and all I heard was, "When you feel a contraction, bear down hard. PUSH!" I could hear Lars ask if the nurse could see any hair. "Umm, no. But it's a little early to tell." With lots of encouragement and direction, Avonlea was out in 6 pushes. She officially arrived at 6:50 pm. When she came out, Tom asked Lars if he wanted to cut the cord. Lars looked at me and I asked him if he wanted to and said he didn't have to if he didn't want to. Relief flooded his face as he turned back to the doctor and said, "No. I'm good." She cried twice as she sucked in air to breathe for the first time and then was quiet and curious, just like her brother.
The cord was cut and the nurse placed her directly on my belly and told me to touch her and bond with her. Disoriented, I touched her tiny head with the edge of my right hand by my thumb. Tiny and blue, she was sticky. It grossed me out. I felt bad about thinking that, but I couldn't bring myself to touch her again. She was whisked to the table on the left side of the room and cleaned up, weighed and given to Lars, while I was put back together by the doctor. When I was able to hold her, she looked so foreign to me, a lot like Larry. It was diffecult to gasp the fact I'd just had a baby. A little over 10 hours start to finish. A piece of cake really, which i was ever so grateful for!
Lars spent the rest of the time holding her while I recovered from the numbness in my body before I was checked into the Postpartum Recovery Ward. He was capitvated by her. She was itty bitty and perfect.
The nurse who came to check us into the Recovery ward informed us that Avonlea was the ONLY baby born that evening. The rest had been born that morning and early afternoon and the other women who came in around the same time as me and just after me were still laboring. Now that's pretty cool.
Welcome to the world, Avonlea.
