At about midnight, I started having contractions that were 2 minutes apart and 1 minute in length. It wasn't until about 1am that we believed I was in actual labor! I was in quite some pain and the contractions were 90 seconds apart at this point. I remember Scott and I contemplating whether or not to go to the hospital. He thought we should head over and I remember asking him to draw me a bath between a contraction. He looked at me like he thought I was crazy and said, "What? Okay..." He started the water, put in my lavender foam bath that I had bought especially to get me through that part of labor and then he told me he was gonna go get dressed! Haha. I was in pain, but was expecting it to be much, much worse at that point...10 minutes later, I was swearing in the bath so that's how we knew it was time to go! I didn't awake my mom or the girls in the laboring at home so I call that a success! We scrambled to find the outfit I wanted, woke my mom up and ran out the door. Now, I don't know about you, but I learned that night that trying to get in and out of an elevator during a contraction is just about impossible! Our elevators are already pretty snappy, so I remember us trying to get in and out without the doors closing on us...4 times. We finally made it outside onto Broadway, Scott called the cab and I slowly got in between my furious contractions. The cab driver said calmly..."Going to the hospital?" :) We got to St. Luke's Roosevelt at about 2:30am. It's approximately 30 blocks away from our apartment. I told the cab to drop us off at the front entrance....why did he listen to the crazy pregnant lady?! Of course it was closed (I should have learned that from Kennedy's birth Karisa!) SO we walked around the corner to the ER.
So if you ask Scotty, he'll tell you that I wanted to go a little more holistic this birth. I had done this twice before, so I knew what I wanted and definitely didn't want. (Yes, I watched the Business of Being Born a few too many times on netflix too ;) I bought a few books, had Scotty do a little reading, which was totally out of his scope, since he administers anesthesia everyday for his job! His method for pain relief = is take the drugs! ;) We waited in triage way too long it felt since the pain was even more intense now. I asked for a drink of water from Scotty and after I drank it the nurse came up to me and said, "That's your last drink of water, okay?" I remember Scotty giving me the most empathetic, upset look. This was real! They were gonna take my birth plan and throw it out the window! Finally got in a triage bed, hooked up to the external monitor and a resident came to do all the questioning. Of course my Dr. never gave me my paper work to bring to the hospital, which supposedly happens quite often with this Dr. and we didn't call my Doc bc we knew she wasn't on call that night. Oh well! Cause it ended up working for us in the end. After 10 minutes of monitoring, I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. Thankfully a nurse helped me through a few contractions along with Scott pushing on my back...I just needed someone there telling me when they were at the peak and when it would be going away and telling me how to breath. It helped so much. After 10 more minutes of monitoring, they told me it was time to walk to my delivery room. So between my contractions that were about a minute apart, I made my way. (probably screaming) I remember thinking, "Get me my epidural! I'm only half way there, there is NO way I can finish this!" The young looking nurse looked scared for her life. :) She ran to get me a wheel chair and I refused it because I felt something that I had never felt before! Kind of like a large rope from my throat to my abdomen that was being pulled in both directions, very, very hard. :) That's the nice description. Got to the room, somehow climbed in bed as my water broke slowly, my mom arrived after and I asked the resident for some pain relief! She said, "Sometimes it's just easier to push the baby out, mama." I was in a lot of pain. But, something inside of me was keeping me internally calm and my mind was very focused and clear. I was SO thankful and excited that it was almost over and every minute between contractions felt like a vacation even though they were seconds apart. I literally slept between the contractions that last hour. So some random Dr. that I had never met came in and told me to push on the next contraction and viole! (A very dramatic, painful viole!) And Vivi (vee-vee) was here!
Vivienne Cenza Parmenter
Sunday, June 17, 2012
3:46am
7lbs. 4oz.
19.5 inches
This is my favorite moment/picture of Vivienne just a few hours after she was born. I placed her on the bed and her little legs just went straight up in the air! Those precious little newborns and their "in the womb" poses!
No comments:
Post a Comment