The Coolest Thing Ever

I finally have a minute to put the whole story in writing. Lydianne was due on Jan. 5th. We had really just been hoping to make it through Christmas, so after that we figured our little girl could arrive at any minute. Well, the 5th came and went, and to our surprise, we ended up going back to work with no new baby. Lydianne was pretty disappointed since she was pretty uncomfortable, and the lesson plans I had prepared for January for my assistants to carry-out became my official lesson plans.

Lydianne was continuing to have contractions on occasion, sometimes lasting for hours, but they would eventually stop and none were so strong as to get us too excited. We had weekly OB appointments but we were wanting to avoid cervical checks to avoid getting our hopes up since she could be dilated for weeks. We would take walks, eat spicy food, and do everything imaginable to get things going, but to no avail. Once we hit the due date, she was getting checked for dilation was at a 1/2 cm and eventually 1cm for 2 weeks. We wanted to have a completely natural childbirth, but would have to have a c-section if this kid wasn't out by the 19th. We had an induction date set for the 18th to try to smoke her out.

Fast Forward.

Friday 1.15.10
We watched a really really bad movie. Lydianne fell asleep. It didn't matter that the movie was really bad, I had been falling asleep pretty early in the evening on the couch for weeks. When she woke up to go to bed at about 9:30pm, it appeared that her bag of waters (BOW) had ruptured. It wasn't a huge gush or soaking wet, but it was definitely different. We could tell something had happened, but it was not what we had really expected, so we weren't sure. Since we intended to labor at home as long as possible, we didn't want to call the Dr. because they would have made us go in to be checked, and at that point we would have been on their clock counting down toward C-section. Background info: being a VBAC patient, I couldn't be medically induced (i.e. no pitocin), so we had to use natural induction methods to get things going. So we just went to bed...though we were talking about it and nervous.

Saturday 1.16.10
1:20am Lydianne is sitting up in bed and breathing through some strong contractions. She is clearly in discomfort, though she's had pretty uncomfortable contractions before. We're still not convinced the BOW had broken, but we still think it might have. She occasionally checks and thinks that there is still some leakage. These contractions continue until the morning. We get very little/almost no sleep. We figure it's going to be a long day, so we try anyway. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had a "leak", but it was definitely not "ruptured." Around 2, maybe 3am, I finally get out of bed and take a nice, long, warm shower...I figure that it might be my last for a while. It wasn't until after that that I was able to get some sleep between contractions.

We get out of bed about 8:00am to take care of Harrison and go about our day. She says to me, "We're going to the hospital today." We're probably in labor, so our goal is to keep these contractions going. For weeks they start and continue for hours, only to stop and leave her tired and frustrated. We do our normal stuff, and these strong contractions continue throughout the morning. We don't tell anyone to avoid getting their hopes up (and ours as well), but we know that because of the BOW, we have to go in. It's been 12-hours since the pipe has started leaking, so the risk of infection increases. The contractions are strong, but they avg. 30-40 sec. and are 7-10 min apart. It was sometime in the afternoon when the contractions themselves were not hurting as much as the immense pressure in my hips and on my pubic bone during contractions. We had thought that this baby was possibly posterior and hanging out on/above my pubic bone. The last thing I wanted to do was to try to make these contractions stronger, since every one made my bones feel like they were going to break.

That afternoon we decide to take a walk. Contractions have continued since 1am and it is now 3pm, although they do not get any closer together. We walk down the street with the stroller and Wham! One on top of the other as we're about as far away from our house as we can be. They are now 1min long and coming 2 min. apart. And I have to figure out how to get us back home safely. They told us, they way to when they're "real" contractions is if would stop in the middle of the street to have one...we did that twice. Right in the middle standing there holding her with Harrison in his stroller. It was a long walk home. It's important that I note that she liked me to squeeze her hip bones together during the contractions, not only for later, but so that you can imagine us standing there in the middle of the street doing that, and on the sidewalk all the way home as cars drove by. Even with the pain, I was incredibly self conscience when people passed by. I didn't have a choice, though, I had to get some relief.

5:30pm
We finally make it home and decide it's time to get Harrison to the sitter so we can prepare to go to the hospital. Once she's sitting down they space out again and are back to 7-10 minutes apart. We decide to order a pizza so that we can have some dinner before heading to the hospital. Lydianne tells me she is so exhausted and sore and feels like she has been working out for 2 weeks because of all of the contractions she's been having. Her body is sore and tired....and we've only just begun. At this point, I am really worried that I am too exhausted to complete this task, but I still have my hopes up that maybe I am progressing well, and that the end is close...

6:00pm
I order the pizza and am getting Harrison's stuff together when Lydianne decides to go lay down on the bed because of how painful the contractions are. She asks me to squeeze her hips. Okay, this part was awesome! I was laying on the bed, having a huge contraction and I call Kris to come squeeze on my hips and when he does it, I immediately feel a HUGE gush. Once, the contraction subsides, I say "uh, oh" and hop over to the toilet...I think that I freaked Kris out a bit when I did that. And yeah, her BOW is definitely broken. There's the gush of waters we heard about. Instantly she starts having contractions one-on-top of the other. And by "right on top of each other", he means I'm sitting on the toilet (sorry if this is too much info for some) and I literally cannot get up. Every time I go to move, another one hits. I was freaking out...I thought I might be having this baby in the toilet, which would be less than ideal. She needs me to squeeze her hips and talk her through them to help her relax, Harrison is crying because I won't hold him, I need to pack the van, pay for the pizza, and make sure we have all of our stuff. We went from about 30mph to 100mph in 2 seconds. The pizza guy shows up, I fling the door open, told him to hang on, then run around trying to find the check I wrote but can no longer find. Hand it to the guy and might have slammed the door, I'm not sure. Finally get everything loaded into the car, throw the pizza in there, and then walk my wife VERY slowly out the door. It felt like each second took 10 minutes.

7:00pm
We drop Harrison off at the sitter's and I jump back in the car. Lydianne's face is a mask of pain and concentration. She looks so beautiful to me. She's breathing through her contractions and counting the seconds so that she can keep track of their length. I wasn't actually counting seconds, I was counting my breaths in what I found to be a pretty good coping mechanism. We have a 30 min. drive to downtown Dallas and I'm worrying that we're not going to make it. It seemed like we went from 1st stage labor to transition phase in a matter of minutes. I update my status on Facebook (of course) and called our parents to let them know we were heading to the hospital. I also sent a text to our siblings. Half-way there Lydianne turns to me and says between contractions, "This is the coolest thing ever." With every contraction, I was gushing tons of fluid, and I was really worried that the adult diaper I had on was not going to suffice for the whole car trip...I actually don't know if it did or didn't, since Kris was in charge of cleaning out the car later on. I was sitting on a bunch of towels, though, so I'm sure clean-up wasn't too difficult.

7:30ish
I really lose track of time at this point. We arrive at the hospital without any problems and make our way into Labor & Delivery. Umm, I did have one problem...my pants, shoes and socks were sopping by this time. I felt like I had just jumped in a pool with my clothes on. We have to stop several times before we make it to the desk. Despite all of the nurses and office people looking at us, no one says a thing to us. Is that normal? We make it to the desk and get signed in and they take us to a room. It has been almost 24-hours since her water "leaked" but we aren't really positive that that's when it happened. We haven't had any sleep and lunch was a long time ago. I make a point to hand our birth plan to anyone and everyone. I think maybe the custodian even got a copy. Kris did such a good job handing our birth plan to everyone. I was so impressed. He was such a great advocate the whole time.The nurse is immediately concerned that her water has been broken so long and that we didn't call or immediately come in. She tells us that we may need to have a c-section soon if her water has been ruptured that long (see why we didn't come in then?). I asked the nurse if she's ever done a natural birth before and she told me that before she moved here, that was all she ever did. This is a good sign. They check her and she's still at 1cm. So all of this work and no progress. The midwife is notified and eventually makes it in, as does Olivia, our Bradley coach, who was acting as our doula for the evening. She was incredible.

The next almost-12 hours were amazing. If anyone has ever doubted Lydianne's toughness or ability to endure, I can testify that this woman is the epitome of strength and tenacity. Despite the nurse and midwife suggesting we go ahead and schedule the c-section now, she stuck with it. And despite their suggestions, the hospital staff allowed us to try every single thing we could possibly do to be successful and get this kid here naturally. They were very patient with us and allowed us to stick with our birth plan until the very end.

Sunday 1.17.10
6:00am The contractions have been going on for 30 hours. Her BOW has been ruptured for who knows how long. Lydianne's body is completely exhausted. She is in so much pain, she hasn't slept, and she's only had cheese and crackers to eat since lunch on Saturday. I spent the entire evening/night squeezing her hips with each contraction and getting her water, trying to help her relax through the contractions. Olivia has done the same. The pizza sits on the table uneaten. The midwife comes in and checks her. She is still at 1cm dilated. The baby's head just won't come down low and engage on her cervix. We finally decide to move to Plan B, an epidural. It was at this point that I realized that without some sort of miracle (and maybe the epidural could be my miracle), this baby was not going to get past my pelvis. Plus, I was hurting so bad, I needed a break.This will allow her body to relax and possibly help her cervix dilate more. It's our only hope. She will also be able to get some sleep if she does get to try to push the baby out.

8:00am
The midwife checks her again, She has dialted to a 2, but that might be generous. I had given her a priesthood blessing and we felt confident that we had tried everything we could possibly do to get this baby out naturally. Lydianne started to get a fever, which meant there was an increase risk of infection. We were afraid if we were going to have a c-section, they would keep the baby separated from us as a precaution, which is not what we wanted. So after 47 hours since we first noticed her BOW ruptured, we okay'ed the c-section. Was I disappointed? Somewhat. Was I upset? Definitely not. I felt like we made this decision totally informed. We tried everything we could, and it turned out that this little (okay, big) baby was not going to fit through my pelvis. Whether it was malpositioning or size, we'll never know, but I am glad that I tried.
Olivia and I get dressed up, everyone runs around doing their jobs, and Lydianne is off to the OR. In no time, our baby girl is out and in my arms. I even peeked over the curtain to look into my wife's insides. It's messy in there, but still very cool. Lydianne did a great job, though she was dizzy and lightheaded at times. I got to be with the baby from the second she was out to the moment we were wheeled away into the recovery room. They put the baby on my chest as we were wheeled out. Which was totally awesome! One of the reasons I wanted to avoid another c-section is because I felt like it was such a long time before Kris or I were able to be with Harrison after he was born. They took him to the nursery for quite a long time after he was born, but it was a totally different experience this time around.Then I threw the uneaten pizza away. Poor Kris, he didn't eat OR drink anything since lunch the previous day. He was such a good coach and partner.