Two and half days or 3,180 minutes or 190,800 seconds, no matter how you look at it, it’s not a quick amount of time. 53 hours was the amount of time it took start to finish for the little mister to be among those that breathe oxygen.
Wednesday, January 21st, 10:30am
I went to the doctor for our scheduled appointment only to find that we had progress. Not much, but enough to hope. 1cm and 70% effacement. Dr. Rita was willing to do something for me right there and send us over to the birth center but I wanted to wait and let him come on his own. It was Jesse’s birthday so we went out to lunch and then the contractions started. Apparently the check by the doctor irritated me enough to get the party started. My contractions were 5-10 minutes apart for the rest of the day and at 2am on the 22nd I started getting nervous.
Thursday, January 22nd, 2am
I was more than uncomfortable at this point. My contractions were consistent and getting more intense so since I had never done this before and was ferociously nervous about giving birth on the shoulder of 435 we decided it was go time. We got to the birth center about 3am and upon a quick check we learned that I had made no progress from my doctors visit earlier in the day. No. Way. They told me to walk for an hour and then we’d check again. Walk. At 3am. For an hour. In labor. Sounded awesome. So walk we did. As the hour was nearing it’s end I had several contractions that demanded my full attention. I had to stop and breathe and think about happy things, the happy thing being when the contraction would be over. At 4am I learned the thoroughly depressing news that my walk had done nothing. At this point the nurse decided I should go home because I would be “more comfortable” there. I assumed this meant that when I got home my front door would be a mystic portal into another land where labor isn’t painful, but the misleading nurse was just that. At 6am, exhausted and still feverishly contracting (now 4 minutes apart) we got home and I took a shower hoping that since the front door didn’t make me more comfortable perhaps another door in the house would. I slept off and on until 9am when I could not sleep any longer. The contractions were 3 minutes apart and nothing in the world could make that more appealing than it sounds. I took a bath in hopes of some relief. Breathing and moaning seemed to fill in the gaps of comfort that the nurse mentioned.
At this point it was apparent to me that I had no idea when I should go to the birth center. My original plan was to wait as long as possible but as the day drew on and we got closer to I-435’s fateful rush hour I didn’t know what “as long as I could” meant any more. Jesse called the doctor who informed us that she would have liked to have had us stay the night before but as you recall the misleading nurse was misleading. Dr. Rita said she would call the Birth Place and make sure a room was ready for us whenever we decided to get there. This was around 1pm on the 22nd. It took me another 2 hours to get to the car. The car seemed disgustingly unappealing so I went from my bed to the couch as Jesse packed the car and waited patiently for me to be ok with the idea of modern transportation.
I knew I needed to move on so I summoned my strength and ventured to the car. We called Alison and Carrie and told them to meet us at the birth center. The drive wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Thursday, January 22nd, 4pm
We arrived at the birth center at 4pm. I was 2cm and 100% effaced and we were staying. Finally. I had already been in labor for 29 hours and was hoping to sleep but to no avail. My contractions were now 2 minutes apart and would be such for the next 24 hours. From here on out the time line looked a little something like this:
23rd at 4pm: Arrived at Birth Place
23rd at 7pm: labored in the tub
8pm: back in bed on the monitor–4 cm
9pm: back to the tub–5cm and small gush of water giving us all false hope
10pm: monitor and birth ball
11pm: back to the tub–7cm, water bag still not broken, I could talk while I was in the tub
midnight: bed/monitor, wished I was dead for a bit
1am on the 23rd: In the tub–could speak to the team between contractions
2am: Back in the bed for monitoring, 8cm, complete exhaustion started setting in
3am: on the ball, slow leak in the water bag, 41 hours in labor and 3 days without sleep, I now know my limit. Get me an epidural or I’ll slit my wrists and end all of this
3:30am Enter anesthesiologist: “Hi, I’m doctor (I didn’t care), flood of questions Jesse answered, blah blah blah, allergic to anything? Little pressure, (Alison, Carrie and Jesse all nearly passed out), don’t move even though you’re going to feel a little shot down your leg, I’m in love with myself, boy or girl, cool name, three, two, one, sighhhhhhhhhhh”…sweet relief. “Alright, nurse, call me if you need anything.”
Side note: Alison later saw him at the nurses station surrounded by nurses telling a story not sure if he was talking about me or not saying “Yeah, there was blood everywhere and I couldn’t see shit!”
4am: I felt magical. Magical meaning I felt ok enough to sleep, and sleep we all did. Jesse, Alison, Carrie and I all went to sleep until 6am when my doctor came and said it was go time, meaning water breaking time. 8cm still.
7am: shift change, I now had the nurses I started with affectionately called “the duo” Kerry and Andrea, they were amazing.
8am: 9cm which means we’ve now gone 1cm in 5 hours. That epidural was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
9am: The duo came in with a plan, hands and knees and pitocin to make the contractions a little more serious
10am: 9.5cm, Tae was facing a weird way so this little lip of cervix wouldn’t get behind his head
10:30: still 9.5, duo decided that if I pushed a bit we could get that bit of cervix out of the way
11am: pushed for 45 minutes, dilated to 10
11-2:30: rested, moved around a whole bunch in order to keep Tae facing the right way, he kept tilting his head to the side, hence the issue, sat up to let gravity help us out, various other things…
2:45pm on January 23rd: Started pushing again
3:15pm: the duo called the doctor and told her to come on back–still pushing
3:30pm: enter doc and flood of nurses, apparently we all had decided it was time
3:40pm: Dr. Rita asked me if she could use the vacuum, Jesse and I said no and then she looked at me and said “Char, if we don’t get this baby out now I have to send you for a C-Section” Mind quickly changed, vacuum away
1/23 at 4pm exactly, Taegan was placed on my stomach as Jesse, Alison, Carrie and I all wept. Jesse cut the cord. I’ve spared you the details of these 20 minutes because there are many things involved that are excessively traumatic, including blood spraying literally all over the room, Alison being the big hero because it got on her face and in her hair, me perhaps being the other hero on account of the fact that it was my blood.
Apparently, we didn’t know this but people all over the hospital were talking about me because 53 hours is uh, long. My doctor informed me that every other doctor in the hospital wanted to know why I hadn’t been sent for a C-Section. I was soooo grateful for her. Thank you Jesus that today mom, dad and little mister are all at home safe, sound and happy as anything.
53 hours. 5-3. And now we have our little mister.