Asher Jacob Birth Story...

I typed out a novel about going into labor with Asher on my mommy board and instead of trying to remember something that happened over a year ago, I figured I'd just copy and paste. So if you are a family member or someone who is easily offended, you may not want to read this. I'm pretty sure I was still on pain meds when I wrote this...

I started having minor contractions (ctx) at regular intervals Monday morning (9/27/10) around 3:45am. I told James to go ahead and go to work (he leaves for work around 5:30 so the ctx weren't bad at all yet). Once I got up to get Preston ready for daycare, the ctx slowed down. I had one ctx on the way to daycare and two on the way home...luckily all three happened when I was stopped at stop lights! THANK GOD! I laid back down when I got home and fell asleep for 2 hours. James' sister came over while I was sleeping and started cleaning the house for us. When I realized that I didn't have any gowns for the hospital, I asked her if she would go to the mall with me so I could get some and do some walking since I had read that walking could help ease ctx. The ctx continued throughout the day, but never got really consistent, nor did they get really painful so I never felt the need to pack my bag (yes, 4 days before my due date and still hadn't packed a bag). Around 6pm I decided to try on the gowns that I bought that day and OMG they didn't fit! So I told James that after dinner I was going to drive myself to the mall and exchange them for the right size. WELLLLLLLLL, that didn't happen. During dinner...around 7:30pm...the ctx started getting really painful. I actually had to get down on the floor on all fours and just breathe to get through them. That happened twice during dinner. Then I went to the living room and relaxed in the recliner which seemed to help because I didn't have a ctx for the 45 minutes I was in the chair. James took Preston upstairs for his bath so I waddled up there to say goodnight to my Stinkerpot. Good thing I did!!

My sister called at 8:57pm and I talked to her while I laid on my side on my bed. In the 30 minutes I was on the phone with her I had 3 horribly painful ctx. James was still upstairs for the first one, then in the shower for the 2nd one, and then witnessed the 3rd one (side note...my sister is a SAINT! She talked me through all 3 of those ctx! She had 2 of her 3 kids without ANY pain meds, so she knew exactly what to tell me to do. I really wish she would have been able to be here for the delivery...I think I would have been able to do it without the epi then). Anyway, James was mad at me for wanting to go to the mall after dinner so he started griping at me after I hung up with my sister. LIKE THAT'S WHAT I NEEDED!!! While James was griping, I had to run to the bathroom. I didn't make it back to the bed before the next ctx hit. I was on the floor in the bedroom next to James side of the bed on all fours breathing (where he was all cozy under the covers just looking at me. Grrr!). He asked if he needed to call in to work and if we needed to go to the hospital. I told him that I'm not going to the hospital until the ctx are 4 minutes apart and I put in my birth plan that they were to send me home if I wasn't at least 4cm dilated and/or my water hadn't broken...so since my water hadn't broken and the ctx weren't 4 minutes apart that I wasn't going anywhere (remember my bag at this point is pretty much non-existent!) About that time I had another one. It came 6 minutes after the previous one. I said I was going to take a hot shower because that would probably stop the ctx, plus I needed to shave my legs! LOL I had 2 ctx while in the shower. We have a stand-up shower so I had NO room to get down on hands and knees. I had to lean up against the wall and hope I didn't fall over. James by this point had gotten up and started getting ready to go to the hospital (put his contacts back in, got dressed, called work, etc). I told him to stop, I wasn't going, but he told me he was in charge and wasn't listening to my shenanigans anymore.

~~~DELETED TEXT - TOO PERSONAL~~~ Long story short here...James made me leave :-) ~~~

Well my hair was still wet, I wasn't dressed, and had NOTHING in a bag. I was NOT going to the hospital with wet hair, so I proceeded to dry and style my hair. I begged James to straighten my hair during ctx, but he wouldn't do it. He then remembered he didn't have the car seat installed, so he went out to do that. Luckily I was able to get my hair done, get dressed, and throw some things into a suitcase that just happened to still be in the bedroom from when I went to my company meeting 10 days prior. I have NO clue what I even packed! Just started throwing things in. By this time the ctx were coming about every 3 minutes and were HORRIBLE! I read somewhere that ctx felt like the whole top and bottom half of the body trying to separate from each other, and THAT feeling had totally hit me! James' sister arrived at the house to stay with Preston and off we went (about 11:10pm). We got to the ER and I had to get down on my hands and knees in the parking lot because James parked in the farthest parking spot from the door and I couldn't walk fast enough to make it to the door in under 3 minutes. Then when the L&D nurse came down to get us, she had me walk to the elevator to go up to L&D. I started having another ctx when the elevator arrived, but I hadn't made it there yet and the nurse looked at me (doubled over in pain) and asked "Do you want me to wait for you?" WHAT??? Nah, you go ahead, I'll catch up with you....dumb a$$. Have NO idea why she didn't get a wheel chair for me!

I get up to triage and they make me put on a gown and hook me up to all the monitors and go get my birth plan from my file. The nurse checked me and said "You're between 4 and 5cm...let's get you to a delivery room!" ~~~DELETED TEXT~~~

So now I'm in my delivery room and the dang nurse is asking me all sorts of stupid questions like am I an organ donor (to which I responded "why? are you planning on killing me?) and what my highest level of education is...all while I'm having horrible ctx with no pain meds! James looked at her and said "What the heck do you ask during pre-registration??" Anyway, since I didn't have an epi or an IV hooked up, I was able to walk around which was nice cause James rubbed my back during ctx while I leaned against a wall...really helped with the pain! Around 2:00am I had a ctx that lasted 2 minutes. It was a beast! At that point I screamed for the epi. I was only 6cm and 90% effaced so I knew it was going to be a while...plus my water hadn't broken yet. I had been dry heaving and just couldn't take it anymore. The dude with the needle came in and talked me through the epi. I heaved the entire time he was back there so I'm not sure HOW he was able to do it. Anyway, it kicked in, I started shivering so they loaded me up with warm blankets and I took a bit of a nap.

I then woke up because I realized I could still feel the contractions on my left side! WHAT?!!? That happened with Preston too! I guess my left side is just resistant to pain meds. But I could also feel the ctx in my chest and my arms. It was really weird. I felt really wet when I woke up so I asked James to lift up the blankets and check to see if my water had broken. He did and said that it hadn't, but something didn't look right. I told him to call the nurse cause that didn't sound good. As soon as he put the blankets back down there was a LOUD noise. It sounded like a muffled gun shot...NOT EVEN KIDDING! Both our eyes got really big and I said "Um, that was my water...it just broke!" I totally felt it even with the epi. James lifted up the blankets again and he said it was so gross looking. He said it was everywhere!

I didn't even have to call the nurse...she must have saw it on the monitor or something cause she was walking in the door as James put the blankets back down. I looked at her and told her my water broke. She said she needed to check me and when she did she said his head was coming out and NOT TO PUSH! She was yelling at me as she was running out the door to not push, "don't even move!" The doctor came in with 4 nurses and said there was meconium in the water and to get a NICU nurse. We had to wait for 5 minutes for the NICU nurse to get there and I needed to push SO bad, but they wouldn't let me. I guess they can't deliver the baby until the NICU nurse gets in the room since there was meconium in the water. Poor Scuttlebutt was in distress for some reason.

ANYWAY, nothing too eventful from that point on. I started pushing. Did three sets of pushes and his head was out. In between pushes I noticed James had a HUGE smile on his face and said something about Asher's hair. I asked "What color is it??" and he just said "It's not dark brown!" and then the doctor said "He's got daddy's hair!" I just laid back and smiled cause I knew I had gotten my red head! After he was out, they took him straight away from me to check him for signs of distress. I told James to go with him.

But that's about it. The NICU nurse said he was fine and left. The nurse kept trying to get him to cry so he could get all the crud he swallowed out of his lungs but he wouldn't cry. They gave him 2 shots and a heel prick and he still didn't cry. He cried a bit while she was bathing him, but not enough so she ended up having to put a tube down his nose and suck all the crap out. It was GROSS...not sure why she showed me. Once she got the crap out of him, I FINALLY got to hold him and nurse him. It was weird because he still didn't have a name so when she handed him to me I said "Hey....buddy" I hated not being able to say a name! My nurses name was Ashley and she was the best nurse EVER! LOVED her! So James said, "I really liked our nurse, Ashley. We could name him Asher after the nurse." So we did!