It never goes as planned

 Here's how it al went down.

Emmylou Marie Gray

(Her first big adventure)

Now I feel it only appropriate that I begin this story with my expectations. Anticipating the birth, I did what nearly all expectant mommas do, I read books, talked to veteran moms, talked to my own mom, asked the OB questions.... I was prepared. But also like all first time expecting mommas, no I wasn't. I wasn't at all prepared. My mindset going into labor was not at all dreamy. I never thought I would have the two hour labor, or that "I didn't even know I was having contractions" kind of labor. I didn't even really anticipate a normal delivery. Just like everything else in my life, I figured something weird would happen... like I would go into labor at the beach and have to manage my pain laying in the back of the wagon while Zach and I fight about if we need a police escort to get us through all of the dad gum LA traffic. But I guess I just imagined laboring at home for a decent chunk of change, maybe while listening to music, watching tv or something while sitting on the giant yoga ball. Maybe taking a hot shower to get my mind off things and then going for one last walk before our hospital run. Then, once we were at the hospital, I was hoping to spend as little time as possible there, and going in after it was too late for the epideral (to minimize any temptation of getting one), then pushing that baby out with my deep, low, pregnancy song.

(on our way to the hospital)

But in reality, it all started with a cockroach. And I feel like that's important, because that is JUST the type of "weird" thing I was anticipating. Awakened from a dead sleep, I see Zach sitting up in bed looking around frantically. By the time I ask him what's going on, he has the lamp turned on. And there, on our wall, was the giant cockroach that Zach had just felt crawling on his arm and in a gut reaction, threw. (Do not fear, this prompted a contacting of the landlord and all other cockroaches have been dealt with). He promptly got up and took care of the situation while I decided that I should celebrate such an exciting event by using the restroom. This was when I noticed, at 2 in the morning, a teensy weensy bit of not urine leaving my body and very briefly the thought crossed my mind- hmmmm.... I wonder if that was my water breaking.

But it couldn't be. I mean if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that when your water breaks, it is like a giant galloon size water balloon popping (unless, of course, if you are Rachel off friends whose water breaks and she can still wear the same skirt to the hospital). Plus, if you had known all that we had done to try and get this baby to come... I mean, I knew better than to give myself such a false hope. My family had come on May 31 and we spent the days leading up to her birth walking an average of 8 miles a day. We went to Balboa Island, to New Port, to Santa Monica, to Big Bear, to hike Heart Rock, to hike Rubidoux, to tour redlands on foot, to Market Night, to the movies, to the Dodgers game, and when all that failed, we had a day of rest. Nothing was working. Spicy foods, nope. Egg plant parmesan, nope. Pressure point massage, nope. Swimming, nope. I didn't know what else to do. But ironically, when it did happen, I didn't believe it was happening.

So back to the bathroom break- I decided to write it off and go back to sleep. Only, when I laid back down, I started to cramp. After about 4-5 cramps, I told Zach about what had happened and to put my mind at rest, I decided to call L&D. They seemed less than worried and said that the only reason I would need to come in is if 1. I was excreting bright red blood 2. I couldn't feel the baby moving or 3. I was excreting liquid. So I told her about the liquid and she said that was something that would have to be diagnosed in person, not over the phone. Well, I feel like I need to remind you that it was 2 am so, this little lady was more worried about her sleep than her slight cramping.

But in the excitement of the roach and the possibility of having a baby that day (yeah right), Zach and I were sleepless in Seattle, in Loma Linda. Zach read his book in the living room while I laid on the couch and counted the minutes separating my contractions. 6 minutes. They were 6 minutes apart. Now during this time, I switched positions a few times and each time, that tiny amount of liquid would make an appearance again. Around 5 am, Zach decided to go sleep again and I followed suit 30 minutes later with a nap. Come 7 am, I woke up and went to the bathroom to find a larger amount of liquid had escaped. I suppose with the 2 extra hours of sleep under my belt, I felt more rested and decided to make the second call to L&D. They let me know that I definitely needed to come in and be checked and if it was in fact my amniotic fluid, I would admitted. If it wasn't, I would potentially be admitted but there was a chance I would not.

All I could hear was "no more eating after this point." So, I did what I would expect anyone in my shoes to do: I had my mom run out and get me a chikfila biscuit. When she returned and my belly was filled, we walked over to the hospital, rollin' deep. Our crew of four nearly filled up the L&D waiting room and so I was REALLY hoping that we wouldn't be sent home, solely because of how silly we would look for a false alarm. But it wasn't a false alarm. We were staying.

I will say that the nurses weren't thrilled that I had been in labor for 8 hours already without coming in. But, I'm gonna go ahead and throw my "first time mom" card out there and say that my fear of fasting definitely kept me at home. Anyway, the cytoteck started immediately. After four hours, nothing had changed. I was still only two centimeters (the dilation that I had when I had been admitted). They started the second dose with little optimism and if I remember correctly, we started the pitocin earlier than the end of the second set of four hours. Now if any of you heard my "plan" for laboring, you'll remember how reluctant I was to go on pitocin. At this point, I had already been stripped of laboring at home, AND of laboring in ways other than laying in bed (because of my early water breaking, I was restricted to the bed for fear of my umbilical cord slipping out). So this was number 3 on the list of things I didn't want to happen happening- a pitocin jump start. Well, it turned out to be far more than a jump start. The pitocin started around 15 hours into labor and they just kept cranking that baby up until the actual baby came....24 hours later.

The nurses kept coming in and asking how my pain level was and I kept saying fine because I wanted natural. Now, I say "nurses" because my labor outlasted 6 nurses. Praise Jesus, our last nurse was fantastic and we had her for 12 hours straight, but the one during the night shift was less compassionate and laughed when I told her that I wanted no pain meds. At one point in the night, she looked at me and said "you're already on a pretty high dose of pitocin but I'm gonna turn it up. So hang on, because it's about to get real." And she was right, a few hours into that level of pitocin, my back was hurting me so badly that I fought off tears with each contraction. I had to swallow my pride and look that same nurse in the face and let her know she was right. The pain was too much and I needed an epidural. This was 31 hours into it and as much as I didn't want to do an epidural, there is no way I could have lasted eight more hours with the state my back was in. (If you're keeping track, that is number 4 on the list of do not wants).

Well, as you guys know, we are at a teaching hospital. So when the doctor came in and asked me if I was okay if a resident did the epidural, I said yes knowing good and well that when his time comes, Zach will also need willing patients. If I wish compliant patients for him, I feel it only right that I live up to my own standards. Well... that might have been a mistake. If you've never had an epidural, let me paint you the picture. I am leaning over a table (keep in mind i'm HUGE... so, the table is digging into my belly), holding onto Zach who is trying to steady me (so, he is pulling me into the table as a result). The doctor says "if you feel a contraction coming on, let us know." "Oh gosh, I didn't even think of that" I thought, "good thing they have a plan in order for such a scenario." And then the teaching began. The slow, trudging, ever detailed teaching.

 "Ok, first you want to feel her spine and locate the proper positioning. Do you feel right here? So this is where you want to insert the needle." -Doc
"Ummm, alright... I'm feeling a little bit of resistance. Is it supposed to feel like that?" Resident
"Go ahead and push through that" Doc
(Struggling harder than what's usually necessary) Resident
"Hold on, let me feel. No, that's not right. Let's start over"

I mean, are you FEELING my blood pressure rising! Get that freaking needle in me!!!! I can't be entirely sure how long the ordeal was, but I can tell you that the amount of time was long enough for me to have 6 contractions from start to finish. Oh, and there was zero plan implemented. The first contraction came and I told the doctor "oh, here comes a contraction" to which he replied "ok, don't move." DON'T MOVE! THAT was the big plan. Clearly this was not a female doctor.

Now once the epidural was in place, my luck or lack there of, continued. It only took to one side and so everything on my right hand side was still kicking. I didn't mind it so much though because even with half of the pain diminished, the alleviation was great! I was finally able to get some sleep! The sleep didn't last long though and two or three hours after the epidural, Emmylou and my heart rate went up. The nurse made note of this and checked my temperature. She said if I had a temperature, we would have hit the 3 for 3 jackpot of the signs of choreo (an intra-uteran infection that is an automatic pass for the baby to stay in the hospital for 7 days on antibiotics). But my temp was good. And remained so for about the next hour. Then we hit the jackpot, and I got the pleasure of laboring the next 5 hours with an ice pack between the legs and under the arm pits. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Emmylou had been decel-ing each contraction leading up to this and so they had me laboring on my side.... for over 8 hours! Oh and double Oh! I ALSO forgot to say that apparently a side affect of an epidural can be getting the shakes. Well, I am certainly not about to let a negative side affect go by me. By golly, if I'm gonna have a rough delivery, it's gonna be the MOST rough delivery apparently. I lay for the remainder of my time in the delivery room nearly convulsing on the bed. Zach would try and hold me still, they kept piling blankets on me, I think I even scared Zach's little sister out of ever having kids. Thankfully, the Lord has allowed me to forgot a lot of my pregnancy, although not evident by the length of this blog, but I do remember spending most of my time after the epidural focused solely on keeping my body still. It was rather ridiculous.

A little over 37 hours into this ordeal... and believe me, it had turned into an ordeal, the doctors came in to have the conversation we were hoping wouldn't have to happen. They said that if nothing had changed in the next hour and a half, we would have to start talking about a c section. Which, at that point, was absolutely believable, since it had been inching up to forty hours of my water being broken and little miss stubborn as her mom over here wouldn't drop past a -1. Plus, for the last ten hours or so, the right side of my cervix wouldn't efface past 90% and I couldn't seem to break 9 cm. Another hour went by and the doc came in to check me, I had no progress. I looked over at Zach who had his hand on me and his eyes closed. He didn't have to be speaking out loud for me to know that he was praying over me and our little girl. I asked mom and Dad to join us in praying over my body and Emmylou. It was a very precious sight and a great way to enter into the next phase. Thirty minutes later a new doctor came in to check me and she told us exactly what we wanted to hear... 10 cm, 100% effaced, and Emmylou was at a +1. As we were celebrating, the excellent nurse slipped out of the room on a hunch of suspicion. Since a lot of the measuring is dependent on the doctor, she wanted to make sure that there was not lack of fluidity in the measuring. The previous doctor came in shortly after and told us the measuring hadn't in fact changed; she was at a -1, I was only 90%, but I had climbed to a 9.5. Before we declared it a c section though, the doctor was kind enough to let me do a hail mary push. With her hands inside of me, as she tried to work the part of the cervix that was not totally effaced over Emmylou's head, I gave it 2 or 3 pushes. No luck. They were calling it a c section. Zach looks at me and says "Are you okay with this?" and I said, "to quote the great Sir Lancelot (the husband of the dear friend I student taught under) 'It is what it is'." This made mom laugh which was my intention: to lighten the mood on this EXTREMELY long day.

So, they wheeled me out, Zach scrubbed in, and with an hour and half until mom and dad absolutely HAD to leave to make it to their flight, we were in business.

It was weird though. As my arms got strapped down to the operating table and the curtain went up, I looked around at the sterile while room and the team of 12+ all in blue backward jacket things and thought "huh. this was not how I expected Emmylou to come into the world. My inner Chandler Bing kicked in as I started making jokes with the assistants or residents or whoever, in hopes to get my mind off of reality and also from wondering where Zach was. When he did come in, my shaking had gotten so bad that I was boarder line having lock jaw. He sat there massaging my jaw as the show began. I mean what do you do in that situation? Where are your eyes supposed to be... on the curtain? Staring straight at your husband trying to see what's going on through the reflection of the black part of his eye but also kinda feeling you're interrogating him? Trying to determine what part of the surgery the surgeons are act by using their motions as some sort of charades game? I don't know... this is my first time playing too? So I looked all around while trying really REALLY hard to stop my convulsing lest I get another scar like the one of my knee. Then I looked over at Zach and the first thing I noticed was the boy's face mask was sopping wet! I mean you could wring it out. I gave him a puzzling look and he just turned to me and whispered... "I just saw her."

And that was it. Everything was suddenly fine. It didn't matter the ridiculousness that brought us to this point, the agony felt, the frustration, the healing that would have to happen, who cared... Emmylou Marie was with us.

Looking back I praise Jesus for Zach because He used Zach to prepare me. A c section delivery would have been a complete disappointment if Zach hadn't have intervened. Leading up to her birth, he talked to me three different times about my skewed mindset. He made sure that my focus wasn't how she got here, but rather that she did get here and that she and I were safe. And you know what, by the time the 9th of June rolled around, "healthy baby, healthy Mama" truly soared into being the first priority over the remedial details like laboring at home, listening to music (which I couldn't do because the internet at the hospital is basically dial up), having no pain meds, entertaining folks with my labor song (which totally didn't happen, apparently I"m just a lamo whimperer), and giving birth naturally.

I will however add that I may or may not have gotten gallstones after coming home from the hospital. Truly, I may or may not have. I might not know the answer to that until I go to heaven. I had all the signs of gallstones- couldn't stand up straight, couldn't lift my right arm, couldn't lay down, I had a terrible pain in my neck, on the upper right side of my back, and wrapped around to under my ribs. But again, the Lord is great and after a prayer meeting with several of our friends from church, the pain diminished. It was a miracle on all counts, if you ask me.