Cullen's Birth Story

My SIL asked me "What kind of birth do you want?"

Now this is not as simple as "The kind with a baby at the end of it."

But I think this may have to be a multi-part post, starting with Cub's birth story:

There are a lot of things I don't remember about my pregnancy, but I do still remember the feelings and emotions around the last couple of weeks. There were a couple of scares with pre-term labor that were chalked up to dehydration. It was July/August in southern New Mexico and very hot! I just couldn't seems to drink enough fluids, and I didn't understand the importance of ALWAYS being hydrated.

I look back at the pictures of my baby shower, on a nice Friday night, and can't believe how bloated I look. I remember going shopping with my mom sometime around then too and coming home with huge, swollen ankles. Then I woke up on Sunday morning at 38 weeks, with contractions. They were not consistent yet and not all that bad. We went to church that morning and the contractions got closer and steadier. We went home after church and waited to see how they would do. I don't remember the contractions being very powerful - in fact I cut RescueMike's hair a few minutes before we headed to the hospital. I could walk and function through them all, but they were consistently 5 minutes apart for quite some time. So we headed to the hospital.

I was SHOCKED to find out that I had gained 60 pounds at that point! I knew I had gotten heavier than I should, but not that much. They ask about the contractions and from the look on the gal's face I figured they would be sending me home.

Then they took my blood pressure. I had hovered around 100/60 through the whole pregnancy but this time it was somewhere around 160/110. It was all a blur for a while. I remember RescueMike asking if a certain room was available - one of only two Labor, Delivery, and Recovery rooms in the hospital. It was and so we had the room we wanted.

We got settled in and they told me I would not be allowed to leave the bed except to go to the bathroom. I was disappointed because I had hoped to labor walking around and give birth in a squatting-type position. Instead, they stopped my labor (now I know it wasn't real labor, just a symptom of the high blood pressure) and gave me a sleeping pill to help me sleep. I was so out of it, I barely remember her coming back in at about 6am to give me something to soften the cervix. Then later they gave me pitocen to start the labor. At some point I was also started on Magnesium Sulfate to help prevent seizures. I remember they had to increased to dose of pitocen at some point because the labor was not really going yet.

The contractions really got going at some point late in the morning. RescueMike, my mom, my little sister, and one of my friends were all there. I kinda viewed the birth as a spectator sport! (Still do) I don't remember much of the real labor - I was really out of it, feeling very disconnected. I was asleep between all the contractions and was only conscious for the pain. Toward the end, I was forgetting to breath. I don't mean forgetting how to do the "deep cleansing breathes", but between contractions I would forget to breath. At all! I remember hearing RescueMike tell me to breath, begging me to breath. It felt like I was in thick syrup, I could understand him but I was unable to get my body to obey. They started giving me oxygen since I was having so much trouble.

At some point I told whoever was standing next to me that I was having a lot of trouble not pushing. I think they had just checked me and I had not been fully dilated. My mom left for a little while (to get film?) because they said it would still be an hour or so. NOT! When I said I needed to push, I meant I needed to push now!

I guess my mom got back right as Cub was born, because we have pictures from immediately after but not during the birth. They took him to the NICU shortly after that and kept him until the next evening. That was an unbearably long time.

Next: The confusion and bitterness.