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On December 23, 2001 I was VERY pregnant. And miserable. I just wanted to hold my son in my arms, but I was also dreading labour. Espcially the pain associated with it. I was on the phone that morning talking to my Uncle in Denver, CO. I got up to hand the phone to my Mom, and I felt a "wetness." I quickly gave the phone to my Mom and headed off to the bathroom. I felt this weird apprehension that something was wrong. But, since this was my first time being pregnant, I was not to for sure. So, I got on the other phone line and called my friend, Ann. I told her about the "wetness", and what was happening. I asked if this was possibly amniotic fluid. Her advice was to call the L&D at the hospital. Not wnating to alert my parents, and my little brother and sisters, I headed off to the study, and shut the door. I call L&D and was told how to tell the difference between urine and amniotic fluid. Lets just say it is not the most sciectific way nor the most reliable way to tell the difference. I remember them telling me what to do and me asking them if they were serious?? I mean, hello...who wants to smell the crotch of their panites? Not me!!!! So, they told me to put a pad on, if it filled up with in an hour, to come in. I just sat there. That "wetness" I had could have easily filled a pad. But, instead of erring on the side of caution and going in, I decided to wait and see if anything else would happen. So, the rest of the day passed pretty quickly. My friend from Atlanta, GA came in. I played with her son. She awed over how big I was and left after a couple of hours. About an hour later I was back to being very miserable. And I gave up on the "pad testing theroy." Nothing had came of it. So my Dad, 2 sisters, and brother came in wanting to play a game of Trivial Pursuit. Now, I am known as the best player, and 9 times out of 10 I win at that game. On that day, I could barely concentrate. I kept telling everyone I was just to tired to do this. So I got up on the couch to take a nap. Not even a deaf person could have slept thru the niose they insisted on making while I was trying to sleep. So, in order to preserve my sanity, and not bite any heads off with my snapping sleepy self, I got DOWN on the FLOOR and played. Now, you have to understand, I am almost 10 lunar months pregnant. 39 weeks, if you wnat to go by weeks. I am HUGE, and I am on the freaking floor playing a board game. I CAN'T get up!!! But, when my little brother threw down some herbal raseberry tea to help me go into labour, I somehow managed to jump up off the floor pretty quick. It was a feat though, let me tell you! I made me some of that tea. And I even left it unsweetened. I did not want the power diluted! (Hey, I was desperate!) After I put the water on, I got back down on the floor b/c it was my turn, then I got up when the kettle started to whistle. Made my glass, sat back down. Drank it, then decided, hey, what could more tea hurt? SO, I got up, fixed another and sat back down. Jeremy came in hollering that he had gotten me some more tea, so I had to GET UP, again, and go get it. I downed the rest of the second glass. Now, by this time, all that is happening is this tea is going straight threw me. I had to PEE!!! And bad. BUT....I needed to make me another glass. My Dad is yelling it is my turn, so off I go again to get down on the floor. I tak emy turn, get the stupid question wrong, and get back up to go pee....oh, shit. I lost control of my bladder, b/c guess what...there was that wetness again. So, I go to the bathroom and empty my bladder. I go to sit back down, but this time, after the earlier acrobadics of getting up and down off the floor with a HUGE child in me, I sit on the couch. I started to cramp up so I shifted my weight. Then, BAM....I felt a gushing. I knew then, wasn't no pad gonna stop this. My water had broken. My sister could tell by the look on my face something was wrong. So, she asked. I told her I thougth my water had broken. And my loving, concernned for my health dad, told me, w/o missing a beat, to "Get up off his damn couch befor eI got it wet." Then went back to counting his damn places on the board.
We called my Mom who was in route back to the house. She was kinda pissy b/c she thought Dad was calling her to tell her to pick something up at the store b/c he had forgotten to tell her 30 minutes ago. But all Dad said, was get home NOW!!! Then he handed the phone to me, and I knew, this was it. I started to cry. I told her my water had broken, to please come home. Here I was about to give birth, and I needed my Mommy. I had water running out of me, so I head off to the bathroom, thinking this wont last long....HA!!! I also had to get rid of three big glasses of Tea! My two little sisters, who aren't little, they are full grown, came in behind me. Wanting to see the action. And to calm me down. Adn to tell you the truth they managed it. This was 5pm. Mom got home, and we headed off to the hospital. We got there by 6pm. They indeed confirmed it was my water and thta I was gonna have a baby. Then a nurse asked me how far apart were my contrax. What contrax? I was supposed to have contrax? I should have known by the look passed between the nurses,I was not gonna like what happened next. They asked how long this had been going on. I thought they menat the water running down my legs, I said an hour. And they asked, are you sure no contrax? YUP!!! Hey, I was not in pain, so I was thinking I was gonna get off easy! Nope....I got hooked up to the Pit Drip. And they kept upping it. At 6pm I was 1 1/2 cm dialated, and 60% effaced. As they hours went up, so did the drip. And so did my contrax. They put an internal monitor in me to monitor Brayden's hb, and my contrax strenght. I could have told them they hurt, they did not need to do that. BTW....that hurt like hell. After 6 hours of the most god awful contrax they checked me again in hopes that I had dialeted, past the 1 1/2 cm. BTW...they had been checking me every 30 minutes, and w/ the amount of Pit. I was given I should have dialeted a cm every hour. They had also came in to do an u/s b/c they thougth the baby was WAY to big, or I had a fibriod. Now, having had 4 previous u/s I knew the baby was big, and I knew I had no fibriod. But, during the contrax they decided to do another one. GRR!!! That hurt. And stopping the damn drip did not help. At 12:45 they checked me again, 2 cm and 90% effaced. I was going no where. Then Dr. Victores asked how long my water had been leaking, finally I grew smart and said, well, I think since 10am this morning. So, they up the drip to run full strenght and came back in at 1am. Next thing I know, Dr. Victores is telling me I have a choice, wait one more hour or do a c/section now. I told him I wanted the baby out. He walked off and said ok. Then he came running back in, with several nurses. I don't know what happened, b/c I had people literally yanking things out of me, shoving my Mom out of the way, and trying to get me unhooked form the monitors. One nurse kept telling me everything was gonna be ok. Now this was about 5 minutes after he walked out. And they were frantic. They literally run down to the OR room with me, and had me prepped. I was amazed. I have neevr seen that hopsital act that quick. And I had I not been so tired or stressed, I woudl have realized something was up. The anathesiologist gave me the spinal block and I flet relief. Then at 1:31am. A mere half hour after I had consented to the c/s I had my son. Brayden Joseph weighed a heft 8 pounds 7 punces and was 20 inches long. And he had a head full of red hair. And he was beautiful. Had I to do it all over again, I would the same exact way!!!! |
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