The birth plan that never was…

It was 10:30 PM, my husband was fast asleep in case the baby decided to arrive that night.  I grabbed my cell phone and Googled “contraction calculator”.  Sure, this was my third pregnancy, but it’s amazing what you remember and what you forget.  First of all, in all three of my labours, I always question whether or not what I’m feeling is in fact contractions.  Secondly, I couldn’t remember at what point you need to start to “panic” or get yourself to the hospital.  Lying in bed for another hour, counting between contractions, my husband wakes up and asks me if I feel anything.  I reply “I think so…”.

He’s immediately up, asking me questions like how far apart are they? Are they strong, etc… at this point I’m still in denial and answer “I think I’m in labour but not sure???”.  I reluctantly call my parents and the hospital to let them know we’re coming.  But before we headed out the door, I grabbed THE shirt, knowing it’s going to put a smile on the nurse’s face (she didn’t even notice). It is Labour day (September 1) after all!

Arriving at the triage, my husband and I are both cool as cucumbers.  We even high-fived and smiled as we checked in as if to say “We got this… we’ve done this a thousand times before!”  Twice to be precise, but you get the idea.  Nothing could surprise us or shock us.  Get me the epidural, we’ll have a good night’s sleep and we’ll be on our merry way tomorrow morning when the baby arrives.

BUT… life has a funny way of showing you how little you actually know and how surprises happen in various ways. While lying in the bed at triage, the nurse  noticed my happy, “not-in-too-much-pain-yet” demeanor and quickly advised us that she will be sending us home if I’m not at least 4 cm dilated. While I was being checked, I had my arms outreached hanging over the sides of the bed with my fingers crossed whispering “please be 4 cm, please be 4 cm”.  I was not about to be sent home.  The resident in chief came up and proclaimed that I’m between 3 – 4 cm.  HURRAY! Victory for me…. or so I thought.

The nurse told me that I can either get up and walk around because I still have a while to go or I can keep lying down.  I told her that I’m going to stay put but I also politely reminded her that I will need an epidural. As the minutes passed, the strength of my contractions became stronger as did my pains.  Apparently if labour has taught me anything it’s that I have a low threshold for pain.  I always thought I was strong, but nope.  I’m wrong. A few minutes turned into 10, 15 and then 20 minutes.  There was still no sign of them moving me to the labour and delivery room or of the Anesthesiologist. The nurse finally came in to hook me up to the IV (I had high blood pressure) and all of a sudden, I had the urge to push. Without any hesitation, she checked me and realized that the baby was coming out.  She quickly yelled at my husband to start pushing my bed.  She said that he would push and she would steer but that they had to get going.  She yelled at me to not push because she didn’t want me having a “Hallway baby”.  I was used to having 10 people yell at me to PUSH!  Not to NOT PUSH! She also kept yelling into her high-tech walki talki gadget strung around her neck.  She kept saying, “go to room 7, she’s having her baby” over and over again.  As I’m being rushed down the hall and around corners, we made it to the delivery room. There was some hesitation about whether or not there’s enough time to transfer me to the delivery bed and the Doctor just took matters into her own hands and pulled me over using the bed sheets.  Within one minute and two pushes, my baby son was born at 1:29 AM on September 1st, Labour day.

The moments after my delivery left me in a state of shock.  I couldn’t believe how this all happened so quickly.  My husband and I didn’t get to have our night’s sleep and I didn’t get my epidural.  How is that even possible? I delivered my son within one hour of arriving at the hospital. The quick delivery also meant that my body wasn’t as prepared and I had a lot of pain post delivery. Details aside… I probably couldn’t have asked for a quicker birth.  Sure, it wasn’t my “plan”, but within 3 hours of feeling my first contraction, I gave birth and I was only in some serious f’n pain for 15 minutes.  However, I still kind of want a medal for not getting an epidural!  Anyone else with me?