Labor day

So forget my previous brilliant idea that I would post the events of Will's birth as if they were in "real time". I'm just lucky I'm posting them at all. Do I even still have readers?? Feel free to comment and let me know you're still out there...if you are. :)

For a few days prior to when JJ was born, I'd been telling myself (and others) that I was going to go into labor the night before my due date and deliver sometime the next day. I pretty much did just that. My water broke shortly before 2am on Monday the 11th, and we all know that anything prior to 6am counts as the night before. Right? Josh and I had gone to bed around 1opm after a nice, easy weekend. I had intentionally put off getting anything ready for work the next day, in the hopes that I wouldn't actually be going to work the next day. Maybe that was an omen, who knows. I went to sleep just fine, no sense of anticipation or excitement over JJ's birth that I had become so confident was going to happen. As I was deep in my slumber, I awoke to the most intense urge to pee of my life. I think I've mentioned in the past that I do not have one of those female urination problems of having to drop everything and dash to the nearest bathroom. So the shock of my bladder screaming at me like it was jolted me straight out of whatever weird pregnancy dream I was probably having. I made my usual attempt to ignore this, rolling over to readjust my internal organs with the assumption that a new position would put things off for a few more hours. No dice. Roll over again. Bladder still screaming. Finally on a third roll, and at exactly 1:59am, the flood gates burst open and I thought that for the first time in my life I was peeing the bed. Then it dawned on me...oh that's not me peeing myself. Phew! It was only my water breaking.

Wait. Say what?

Talk about being snapped out of a sleep coma faster than you have ever been. I jumped out of bed, knees together, and waddled to the bathroom, thankfully just a few short feet away. I assessed the situation (I'll leave those details to the imagination) - yep, as I had predicted, JJ was arriving right on time.

Once I had things "under control", I made the long walk to the other side of the bed to inform Josh of the recent developments. If my water breaking in the middle of the night wasn't already straight out of a movie, waking up my dead asleep husband sure was. Come to find out later he'd had some trouble falling asleep that night, so he was even more zonked than I expected. Luckily, despite his typical confusion at being shaken awake, he registered the situation quickly and calmly and rolled out of bed. I was surprised by this reaction, considering many months before he'd mentioned to me that he was hoping for the exact "water breaking in the middle of the night/rush to the hospital scenario" that was starting to play out. After getting him moving, we were soon joined by Rocky who'd stumbled up from his basement lair just as confused as Josh. "What on earth are you people doing up at this hour?" he seemed to say. I headed for the phone to call and notify the hospital, and mentioned to them that I'd noticed what appeared to be some meconium when my water broke. For those that don't know, meconium is essentially poop and can indicate that a baby is stressed. Unfortunately all this did was stress me out. I knew that I had the potential to labor at home if I wanted, but the meconium most likely nixed that idea. The Labor & Delivery nurse on the phone was very calm, but did tell me it would be good if we went ahead and came in. After I hung up I started to shake with worry that something could be wrong with JJ, and never really calmed down until we were in our hospital room. That is not exactly what you need when you're trying to use what little is in your head to finish packing a bag...and probably explains why we forgot things like toothpaste and clothes for JJ. I'll blame a little of that on our being yanked out of sleep, and adrenaline too, just for good measure. Finally about 45 minutes later, with Rocky still staring at us like we were insane, we loaded up the car and headed to UIHC. We were luckily able to find some state of alertness on the way there and call parents to sound the alarm. As we walked from the parking lot to the doors we would normally take to get inside, we were reminded that for security reasons you can only go in through the main entrance prior to 6am. Super, just what a nine month pregnant girl leaking amniotic fluid wants to do, go out of her way to get somewhere. We finally got to L&D and were happy to discover what appeared to be a staff with a pretty light load. We were greeted by name and escorted into what I now think was probably the creme de la creme of birthing suites there...it has a view of Kinnick Stadium that Josh made sure to document about a hundred times over the course of the day and which now holds permanent framed residence in the nursery. I settled into what would be my bed for the next 15 hours and made fast friends with the nurse and resident OB. They checked the meconium situation, and after a few discussions decided that yes, that was in fact what it was. So as a precaution they'd have a Pediatrics team arrive just before delivery to check him and ensure that it wouldn't cause more serious problems. I have to imagine that inhaling poop probably wouldn't be good for anybody, and even though I was still a little worried about it all, I felt better and ready for whatever was to come.

The next 3-4 hours were pretty uneventful. I got all hooked up to my IV and various monitors, and focused on my contractions. Our nurse, Pam, suggested we walk for awhile to help the contractions along, but more importantly to stall on the inevitable addition of Pitocin, a wonderful medication that makes your contractions go from tolerable cramps to feeling as though the devil has taken up residence inside your uterus. Because my water had broken and so intensely, they were going to make me deliver within 24 hours since without the protection of the amniotic fluid the baby and I had an increased risk for infection. We were allowed to patrol the L&D unit as far as the elevators, which is where we happened to be when my family arrived, all dazed and confused after having been roused out of bed at 3am and subsequently forced to drive an hour and a half in the dark. We chatted with them in the hall for a bit and it was at that point that I could tell my contractions were getting more intense, since I was starting to have to stop and breathe through them. We were only allowed a certain amount of time to walk, 30 minutes I think or maybe an hour, so we headed back to our room with Mom, Dad, Katie and Richard in tow. Things at that point are a little fuzzy, maybe because my pain was increasing, but as far as I remember it Julie, Dan and Katie also arrived and at some point during all of that I was started on the Pitocin. I remember everybody chatting happily, as I lay in the bed quickly realizing how much the pain was intensifying. Although I was enjoying having them there I knew I was going to need some quiet. I asked Josh to tell them I was ready for a break, so they all headed for the waiting room and Josh was blessed to get to stay with me while I endured contractions now closer together and more and more painful. He was doing his best to work me through them, even pulling out a few tricks from our childbirth class, only to have me nitpick at anything from when I would take a warm washcloth on my head to when I would tolerate him rubbing my arm to whether he was allowed to breathe in my direction. People don't kid when they say you are high maintenance during labor! Even though at the time these things were of the utmost importance to me, I did feel bad even asking them of him. Luckily that was pretty much the extent of the insanity that was directed his way, because I soon had a new focus. Sometime after the sun had risen, our nurse and OB's shift ended and our medical team switched hands. I had gotten so comfortable with them and although I knew this was going to happen, I was sad to see unfamiliar faces suddenly appear. Unfortunately for the nurse that would ultimately be there until the end (Sheila), but unbeknownst to her, I had an extra hard time adjusting to her arrival. Her perfume, lotion, hair gel or whatever it was - her "smell" - was nauseating. It wasn't long before I took a few contraction-free minutes to consider telling Josh to figure out how to get rid of her. I couldn't believe I was even thinking that way, but I really wasn't sure if I could survive the birth of my son with her scent wafting past my nose. I might even die. I eventually decided that if she would leave the room now and then I would give her a chance, and thankfully before I knew it she had settled in for her shift and started coming in and out more than hanging around. Ok, I would give her this trial run and take it from there.

Before long Sheila was talking to me about my interest in having an epidural. I had decided during my pregnancy that I would go into the hospital with no intention of having pain medication, but that I would not be closed off to the idea. I'm smarter than that, plus I had read time and time again that no birth ever goes as planned. I've always considered myself someone with a rather high pain tolerance anyway so I wanted to give it a shot, but more importantly, I was terrified of the idea of a stranger inserting a giant needle into my back, and in extremely close proximity to my all-important spine no less. As I had told just about everyone I came in contact with during the previous nine months - I'm a fan of walking. Epidurals scared the bejeezus out of me no matter how many people told me I would be fine and that I'd be begging for one at some point. During our discussion, Sheila and her perfume made sure that I knew that if I decided I was ready for one, to plan for about 30 minutes before the anesthesiologist would be able to come. Ok, that was manageable. At approximately 7:30am, at a whopping dilation of 4 with Pitocin contractions delivered straight from the depths of hell, my uber-sensitive nose reeling from Sheila's morning bath of drugstore eau de toilet and Josh's attempts at soothing me about to send me through the roof, I broke down and requested the drugs. Forget my big girl attempt at breathing through this, I was in more pain than any pregnant woman had ever been since the beginning of time. Stick that needle in my back and paralyze me for life, I don't care. Just get in here and do whatever you have to to make.it.stop. Josh alerted Sheila Smelly Pants who in turn alerted Dr. Anesthesiologist (hereinafter referred to as Dr. A). Ok good, just a short 30 minutes and life would be happy again. Thirty minutes came...thirty minutes went. An hour came, an hour went. Sheila checked to see what was taking so long – it turned out there were others having babies higher on the list than I. One woman had come into the hospital dilated at 8 and one was going to have a c-section, and apparently that meant I was sinking lower and lower in Dr. A's priorities. Come to find out, since our arrival at 3am every single room in the unit had filled up - all 10 of them. I couldn't believe my luck...after over nine months of anticipation over whether or not I would want the epidural, here I was asking for it and not getting it on demand. I mean, isn’t that the point? I didn't see where these other women mattered, really, but what did I know. I had beaten them to the hospital so what was wrong with first come first served? Finally, after two long, long hours of pain and suffering, Dr. A, or as I like to think back on him, Dr. Feelgood, arrived. I was so relieved to see him, but in a matter of seconds and somehow through the cloud of contraction torture I noticed his seeming lack of bedside manner. As a sidenote, I am a big fan of bedside manner. I feel as though I (my insurance) am paying you part of your ginormous salary, you chose a profession specific to helping people, you darn well better have something resembling a personality with the added bonus of the ability to promise me you will not turn me into a paraplegic. Dr. A, it turns out, does not come with such features. This is another part where the details are fuzzy, but that is probably for the best as Josh would later tell me that watching Dr. A in action made him nervous to the point that he almost stopped him. Fabulous. Once Dr. A and his invisible bedside manner had successfully finished the job, I settled in to wait for things to kick in and before I knew it the world was good again. Sheila finally smelled normal. Josh was once again my beloved husband who could do no wrong as long as he was by my side. I even requested the return of our family members, albeit it in small doses of two at a time. It was nice to be "functional" and prepare for the what was ultimately to come. The morning went by, we visited with whomever came in the room, I tried to nap, continued on with my addiction to ice water and Sprite, watched TV, text messaged a few people...all while having contractions with monitor readouts the size of Mount Everest.

In addition to having "predicted" when I'd go into labor and the fact that I happened to be doing so on my actual due date, I also managed to land everything on a day that my very own OB, Dr. M, was in the house. She stopped by at some point in the morning, marveling at my amazing planning abilities. Before she left to go back about whatever her day was to entail, she suggested that I not deliver until after 4pm so that she could finish up a surgery and be back in time to welcome my child into the world. No problem Doc, piece of cake. Do you want this week's winning lottery numbers too while I'm at it? I personally think Sheila took note of Dr. M's suggestion, because I could tell they were buddies and enjoyed delivering babies together. So early that afternoon, Sheila appeared and informed us that she thought someone should check to see how dilated I was and whether or not it was getting close to time to push. I had gotten so used to being comfortably doped up that I was shocked to hear that there was still work to be done. You mean one of you can't just pull this baby out somehow, while I lay here eating Bon Bons? Sheila left to try and track down my new resident OBs (this time there were two) and came back informing us that she would just do the check herself. Sure enough, I was at 10 and ready to go. I simply couldn't believe it - how did I go from 4 to 10 without having a clue? Boy, no wonder so many people in this world like drugs. And at around 3:45pm, I found myself being told that I was going to start pushing and finally deliver this baby. Ok fine, let me turn off the TV and finish my Sprite. Sheila took one leg and directed Josh to take the other. The poor guy didn't see it coming and neither did I. During all of those months of birth daydreaming, I had envisioned a team of frantic medical professionals delivering the baby while Josh stood calmly by my head holding my hand. No such luck for us. Things were going to get rolling with the three of us only - we apparently didn't need anyone else. Ok then! This is one thing that isn’t happening like they do it in the movies, but whatever. I must also make note that aside from our little pushing team we were joined by none other than Ona Manning, who within the hour prior had snuck herself away from the rest of the family members and now assumed the self-appointed role of contraction monitor watcher extraordinaire. She had been very sly in finding this job, so I figured with effort she'd put forth during her brief on the job training, we'd let her stay. Off we went, Mom telling us when a contraction was coming and Josh, Sheila and I doing the rest. Contraction coming...deep breath, push, deep breath, push, deep breath, push, relax. So, how's the weather? What's for dinner later? Mom, see any contractions yet? We continued this way for awhile, and as time went on were joined by the two OBs and a med student, and eventually, you guessed it, Dr. M. Although her role in the actual birth of the child was minimal, it was really nice to see her considering she'd been my care provider in this for all these months. I feel like I've known her my entire life, so to actually have her there was a blessing. The chit chat continued with all of the new additions in the room, and as a result I found myself with an even larger cheering squad. I had no idea how my pushing was going considering I couldn't feel a thing from the waist down, so it was up to everybody with a direct shot to keep me informed, and that they did. Looking back I'm still amazed I pulled the delivery off, since what constituted a push was simply closing my eyes as tight as I could and pretending I could feel the all-important muscles needed to help this child down his path from womb to world.

The whole process took a little over an hour, and at 4:52pm William George Cocherell made his grand entrance. He weighed 8 pounds, 5.5 ounces, but that is and probably always will be debatable because when he was later weighed in the Mother/Baby Unit he was 8 pounds, 6 ounces. He was 21 inches long, and had absolutely no problems resulting from the meconium issue, thanks to the fast acting of the something like four Pediatrics folks that arrived just in time to snatch him from the OB that ultimately delivered him. Even though we had been told that it would be better if he didn't cry at first so that he didn't inhale any meconium that might be in his lungs, he apparently did let out a wail and we have some pretty funny pictures to prove it. He was cross-eyed, which we soon learned is the case for many newborns. They can only see about 6-8 inches in front of them when they're born and are likely trying to figure out what their own noses are. Josh cut the umbilical cord twice, once for the initial separation and then again to cut it down to size. All of the wonderful medical staff that had arrived for the big moment quickly disappeared and I don't really even remember noticing so, or much less thanking them, Dr. M in particular. I know that for her it was all in a day's work, but at that moment I was so overcome with gratitude towards her that I wanted to give her a huge hug and kiss. Maybe that happens to her often and is why she bolted so fast. Before I knew it the family were all rolling in to finally meet Master Will. He was getting passed around from person to person, and quite the red carpet photo session soon followed. I just sat there and tried to take it all in as best I could despite my state of mind. Eventually the excitement died down and it was back to me, Josh and Sheila, the three pioneers of the adventure into Will-dom, and now the golden child himself. I was required to stay in recovery for two hours, so we ordered food from the hospital kitchen and despite my chocolate chip pancakes tasting like Josh's cheeseburger, it was the best meal I'd had in awhile considering I hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. We wrapped up and soon were transported to what would be our home in the Mother/Baby Unit for the next day and a half. My legs were still quite numb, the right one in particular, but it turned out there were no wheelchairs available. Sheila's shift had ended shortly before we moved, so the new nurse only had to help us with this one process, and an entertaining one it was as I had to be pushed to our new room on some kind of manual scooter sort of thing that I can't begin to name. All I know is that I had to sit on top of it, hold onto some sort of handlebars and pray I didn't fall off. The M/B room, although much smaller than our L&D VIP suite with the awesome view of Kinnick, was nice and cozy and included a full-sized bed. We settled in and if I remember correctly watched some TV with our beautiful new son fast asleep in a bassinet beside us. The rest of our stay in the hospital consisted of friends and family visiting, various tests on Will, taking care of me to the best of everyone's abilities, and trying to get what sleep was possible. We were allowed to leave on Wednesday the 13th, and Josh couldn't get out of there fast enough. I, on the other hand, knew there was no need to rush our discharge considering we'd had nurses taking care of everything since we walked through the door two days earlier. It was going to be a much different story at home. However by 11am that morning we were packed and ready to go, Will trying out his new car seat and with the required approval of the nurse. We left my happy home away from home and by noon were rolling into our garage and into the overjoyed kisses of new big brother Rocky.

And here I am just about four weeks later, finally telling the story. I of course also have pictures to post, which I will...eventually. But I'll just say that the time with Will since his arrival has been wonderful, terrifying, hilarious, exhausting and a million other things all rolled up into one. Yes we've had the sleepless nights as we try to figure him out. We've watched his eyes slowly un-cross, much to our relief. :) We've seen his umbilical cord fall off, which to me was the first of a million milestones to come over his lifetime. We've even seen his features change a little already. It's all amazing and unbelievable, and despite the proof by the sleep deprivation coma I'm currently in, I still can't believe he's here. We've met a million and one people over the past weeks, we've taken a long trip to Keosauqua, we've been to the dog park and the pediatrician, Target and back to the hospital to pick up paperwork. And we've hung out at home, like you're supposed to. I'm terrible at the whole taking care of myself part of things, so I hope I haven't done much damage by not following direction and soaking in baths three times a day (really?) and taking every opportunity that he's sleeping to sleep. I was terrible at napping before he was born, and really only do so now when I'm need of a serious revival. It has also been wonderful being home with Rocky and fun to be here when Josh comes for lunch, and it's already all going too fast. I am down to only eight weeks left in my maternity leave and simply have no idea where the time has gone. So I’ll make every effort to keep the posts coming, but forgive me if they’re few and far between as I do my best to take this all in and enjoy the ride.