He's Here

I started contracting on Friday night while at the in-laws. Hubs and I put on our walking shoes and got moving. Before we knew it, we were at the hospital and I was 3cm dilated. They sent me to walk around the floor some more. From midnight until around 6am I stayed active and kept trying to keep things from stalling. It was then that I found out my doctor had "signed off for the weekend" as the nurse put it.

As you can imagine, I was NOT thrilled at the idea of having a doc I'd never even met delivering my baby. But, I suppose I had no choice. So I labored until around 3:45pm Saturday. Then I was at 6cm. The phantom doc directed the nurse to give me pitocin to "speed things up". In it went, up it cranked and at 5pm I was 8cm.

Here is where I will say if you've never had pitocin, you've never been tortured. It is like slow death, every forceful contraction squeezing the life out of you. It was at this time the phantom doc showed his face finally.. this James Lipton looking fellow came in and sat at the end of my bed. I'd even go so far as to say he was a little creepy. He looked at me with a slight grin and asked if I felt like pushing.

Um, hello. There I was, on my hands and knees, butt hanging out for all to see and who the hell is this guy?? Am I SUPPOSED to wanna push? So, I decided to bear down just a little and at that point I realized I was just there and my body was in full command. I turned around, fell backwards on the bed (pretty sure I died for at least 10 seconds), an anesthesiologist walked in to offer me an epidural (are you effing kidding me, hello I'm at TEN CENTIMETERS) and three pushes later, the baby was born. I was in such a state of shock I kept looking for the baby. Turns out he was on my tummy the whole time. Talk about the biggest adrenaline rush of my life.

Zero pain meds made this one of the most interesting experiences of my life. I think if I could have foregone the pitocin it would have been nothing short of perfect. For me, I wouldn't trade it though. My baby arrived perfectly alert, perfectly content and beautiful. Welcoming my sweet little one was one of the happiest moments of my life.