Sunday, August 30, 2015

Eliza Scout & the craziest 42 minutes of my life

I'm pretty sure I felt like I was in a movie. You know, the crazy kind that are only made up in someone's imagination. Thursday night around 7, I looked over at Aaron and all we could muster was, "did that just happen?"




Let's backtrack. Baby girl had been teasing me for 10 days with false labor and talk of being 3 centimeters dilated. I went to the hospital once for high blood pressure and almost another time with contractions. My due date was quickly approaching and so was Everett's first day of kindergarten, so Thursday morning I was anxious to know if the doctor thought baby girl would be here soon. He wasn't sure, but offered to strip my membranes to see if it would kick start anything. He also let me know I was 4 centimeters. All day I was in pain, but no contractions. I was feeling pretty defeated. I was also feeling pretty restless with my body hurting and starting to wonder why I asked him to mess with anything. 

Both boys took a long nap and were slow to wake up. Everett got up and was still tired, so we relocated to the couch to read books. Aaron had gotten home and was messing with bills at the dining room table. We were sitting and looking through Where's Waldo when the chaos began. Out of nowhere, I felt a pop and then my water broke. I knew the feeling because my water broke with both boys and I took off racing out of the living room. We just had the floors refinished and for whatever reason it made sense to just go run out the open back door onto our patio. As I stood there, I immediately had a contraction that was 2 minutes long and felt like a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale. I yelled to Aaron that he better call his mom right this instant and got on the phone to call my doctor.  I got the answering service and then an even worse contraction and then I promptly told him he better have one of his brothers meet us at the hospital. After another wave of crazy contractions, Aaron realized how serious the situation was. In a matter of about 5 minutes, Aaron got both boys dressed and loaded into the car and I climbed in too. 

Our new house is 8 minutes to the hospital. (PRAISE THE LORD!) I was screaming pretty much the whole way. My contractions were now coming 1-2 minutes apart. Aaron said he started thinking that we may actually have the baby in the car on the way, but was acting calm. Meanwhile, our poor kids were sitting in the back seat trying to figure out what in the world was going on. In between contractions I would look back and say something like - "Mommy is okay, baby sister is just coming!" I'm not sure they were convinced. I was positive everyone was driving slow on purpose. Didn't they know I was about to have a baby and in the car if they didn't hurry?! After what seemed like forever, we pulled into the hospital and my doctor called me back. I let her know I was in crazy pain and the contractions were a minute apart. We pulled up to the entrance and I stumbled out mid-contraction yelling to the valet guy to get me a wheelchair. I hobbled over and sat down while Aaron got the boys out of the car. He left it there running and we headed inside. At this point, I can only imagine how we looked. Me screaming in pain, Aaron pushing me in the wheelchair with 2 little boys running alongside us. Ridiculous. Also, sorry valet guy.

Whatever I said to the doctor must have made an impression, because she was standing there with a team of nurses waiting for me when we rolled into labor and delivery. Everything happened so fast that Aaron's family wasn't able to get to the hospital yet, so one of the nurses took Everett and Graham into a side room to watch a show and color. The next 20 minutes are a complete blur for me. If you ask Aaron he'll say, " I've never met that person before" referring to my behavior. I told them I wanted an epidural, which I and everyone else clearly knew was not going to happen. I am positive that my screaming was heard by everyone on the floor. (oops?) They were able to get an IV in me, get the contraction and baby monitors on and check me. I was 7/8 centimeters and yelling that I couldn't do this and trying to rip the monitors off because they were "too tight." Aaron was calm and just kept holding my hand and telling me to breathe.  Five minutes later (after being at the hospital for only 15 minutes), I knew I had to start pushing. 2 contractions and 3 pushes later and there was our baby girl on my chest. I could not believe it. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! From my water breaking on the couch, to pushing Eliza out was 42 minutes. That's less time than it takes me to make dinner some nights. After laboring with both boys for 12 hours after my water broke, I am still in shock how everything happened. 

Ten minutes later, Everett and Graham came into the room to meet their baby sister and see that their Mommy was alive and well. A nurse let them know I was a superhero, which they thought it was awesome and I felt like one after all that craziness. The crazy, scary, painful, wild birth was all worth this insanely sweet face that came out. Eliza's clavicle broke in her quick entrance. We're thankful with all that could have gone wrong, that was the extent of the damage.

Eliza Scout --- you were worth every single one of those crazy 42 minutes. We are madly in love with you already.