He's Here!

Ethan Paul Richardson

April 2, 2011 @ 12:11pm

30 hours after water broke

18 hours after contractions started

2 hours of pushing

My due date had always been up in the air, but for some reason I always felt it was going to be April 1^st. It's what I told everyone. So when I woke up early Friday morning I thought I had wet my pants, I was in disbelief. There is no way I was actually going to have Ethan on his due date! Plus, it was never a big gush like I thought it would be. It was more a series of small gushes. I brushed it off thinking I had just wet my pants, but when I got up for the day and it happened again I began to think it might be my water. I had to ask Paul if it smelled like urine to him and thought it smelled sweet. Holy crap I thought, it might just actually be broken.

After Paul confirmed that I had not peed my pants I decided to call Sherrie, my doula, and my mom just to give them the heads up. Sherrie was on her way to Disneyland and asked if she should not go. I told her to go ahead and go, as contractions had not started and I would call her if anything changed. My mom also asked if she should head over, I told her not yet.

I decided it might be a good idea to get adjusted to make sure my hips were ready. I hurt them pretty badly on Tuesday, to the point that I had to use a walker to get around. After the adjustment, we started calling around to see if anyone could watch Katelyn so we could go to my 40 week appointment, but no one was available. So she came along for the appointment. The whole way there I was debating if I should tell the Dr. my water had broken. We decided to play it by ear. We didn’t want to be put on the clock.

We arrived for my Dr. appointment a little late; we wanted to have the truck packed in case she wanted me admitted or if anything changed and need to be admitted. When they took my blood pressure it was high and there were trace amounts of protein in my urine. My weight was up to 192, a big jump from the week before and my legs, ankles, and feet were really swollen. She wanted me to go to Labor and Delivery to have my blood drawn to rule out Pre-Eclampsia. She also did a pelvic exam and said I was 1-2cm dilated, 50% effaced, -2 station and super soft and squishy. As soon as the exam was complete a gush of fluid came out. She thought she had broken my water and started apologizing, saying she didn’t mean to do it. At that point she said I really needed to go to Labor and Delivery. We told her we needed to go home and drop off Katelyn and pick up our bags. She said no problem.

The drive home was a little weird; we were going to meet Ethan in the next day or two. We were nervously excited. We decided to go get squishies at the same 7/11, it’s a family tradition. I got one the day we got married, and another one the day Katelyn was born, so we figured it would be appropriate to get one on Ethan’s possible arrival date. While on our way we thought it might also be a good idea to go get a pre-marathon dinner. I called Jennifer Angell and Sherrie to ask their opinion as to what I should eat, and they both suggested steak and potatoes, so off we went to Lazy Dog to have dinner.

We got home at about 5:45pm and my mom was already there. During the drive home contractions started, they were about 10-15 minutes apart and lasting about 60sec. We packed up some final Items and headed off to the hospital. I called Sherrie on the way to the hospital and let her know we were on our way and would call her when we were ready for her.

We got to the hospital at about 7pm and began our check in with nurse Angela. Luckily, since my water had broken, we got to go straight into a room and skip triage. We were told the Dr. Koperk was on call that evening, which I was not thrilled about but there is nothing I could do. At around 8pm he came in to do an ultrasound to confirm position, and he was still head down. But it was at this point that I realized I really did not want him to deliver Ethan. He immediately started with the negativity. He talked to me about his blood pressure concerns, told me if it was pre-eclampsia that a VBAC was out of the question. I questioned his reasoning and he said we’ll see when the results come back from my blood draw. At this point contractions were at 6-9 minutes lasting 60-80 seconds. At about 10pm blood work came back and everything looked good.

I was still handling the waves very well and Paul was being amazing at helping me work through them. At 10:50pm Dr. K came in for a pelvic exam, I agreed, as I wanted to see what progress I had made since my Dr. Appointment. He was really rough and the exam hurt more than any contraction I had had. I was still at 1.5 cm Dilated but was now 100% effaced and he was now +2 station.  Contractions were 6-7 min apart. I was disappointed that I had not progress in dilation but happy that I was 100% effaced.

I kept laboring with Paul’s help until about 1:30 at this point I was getting tired and really needed to focus to get through them. I told Paul it was time to call Sherrie. Things get a little hazy at this point. Sherrie got there and between the two of them helped me get through the waves, which were 3-4 minutes apart. Sometime around 3am we told Paul to take a nap so he could be refreshed when I needed him. While he was napping, Sherrie thought it might be a good idea to get checked again, and the nurse came in at around 6am. I was still at 1.5cm and 100% effaced but during the exam she was able to break up some scar tissue I had from my leep cone biopsy and quickly progressed to 3cm. I was devastated. She also told me that my bag of water had resealed and suggested that I have it rebroken. I agreed so she summoned the Dr.

I had to get my blood drawn yet again, and this was the one time I was vocal during my whole labor. The Lab tech came in and ignored Sherrie to give me a second as I was in the middle of a wave. He kept saying “good morning” thinking I was asleep. After the 3^rd time I finally told him to shut the eff up, I was in the middle of a contraction. He left me alone. Soon after the Dr. came in and broke my water. It was another painful exam. At around 7am Sherrie had to leave and was relieved by Cathy. Cathy and Paul convinced me to leave the rocking chair and try out the shower. I didn’t want to but I did. I spent what felt like 15 min in the shower; it was actually close to 2 hours. Paul and Cathy were amazing, showering me with warm water while I bounced on the ball. Finally, I'd had enough. At around 9am I gave up I said I needed an epidural, not because I couldn’t handle the waves, but because I was so sleepy, little did I know I was in trasition. Paul finally agreed with me after fighting very hard to do without it, he knew how important it was tome to be drug free. I got out of the shower and they started prepping me for the epidural.

While all this was going on, I suddenly had the urge to poop. Since I had just been checked 3 hours earlier no one thought anything of it but the nurse asked if she could check me just in case. I was 9.5cm! Holy crap! I went fron 1.5-9.5 in 3 hours. The room turned into a circus getting everything ready for delivery. At about 10am I started pushing with contractions, which was actually a relief because I got to sleep in between contractions. I pushed for about 2 hours, but it really didn’t feel like it was that long. And at 12:11 Ethan Paul was born and immediately put onto my chest.

Feeling the warm slimy baby was the best feeling in the world. I could not believe I had done it. I gave birth to my son! I held him on my chest for a couple of minutes, then they had to take him to the warmer since he was having a little bit of trouble breathing. But I was on cloud nine. As soon as they stabilized him, he was back on my chest while I delivered the placenta. Then they sewed me up for a 2^nd degree tear.

Everything was looking great until about ½ hour later, when I started to hemorrhage badly. They gave me Pitocin and Cytotec and did uterine massage until they were able to stop the bleeding. I think they said I lost about 1800cc of blood. Because of this fiasco our family time didn’t go quite as planned. Katelyn got to briefly meet Ethan, but then everyone had to leave so that they could stabilize me. It was so cute though Katelyn made the connection and pointed at him and said ET. The next day I had two blood transfusions.