The Wit and Wisdom of Whitney: Eva's birth

Sat night (Dec 5th) I started having contractions but I wasn't going in to the hospital again (yeah, a few false alarms) until they were A. super regular and B. really painful.

At about 2 am we decided they were both. Ricardo got all our stuff ready and got Ellie out of bed and took her to my parents' house, and then came back for me. (I didn't want Ellie to see me writhing in pain all the way to Grandma's house).

So to Mercy we went. And the contractions continued. When I got there I was admitted and they checked me and I was at 3 cm. I had a sweet nurse named Beth. When the on-call doc came in, he was a total jerk and acted like I was not ready to be there or be in labor. He addressed only Ricardo, not me! I sat up in bed and told him I was NOT GOING HOME. So if he didn't think I was dilated enough, someone was going to have to MAKE me dilate more. Yes, I was a peach :)

So he left and then Beth let me soak in the whirlpool tub to help me dilate more, conveniently until the end of jerk-face doctor's shift. Told you she was awesome! And then she checked me and said I was at a 4, and therefore I was in active labor and staying :) Loved her!

So after that I got my epidural and then they broke my water and gave me pitocin. Except, here's the thing. With Ellie, they gave me the epidural and after that, I felt NOTHING. I couldn't move a single toe.

After this epidural, I could still move toes, and feel my legs a bit, but the anesthesiologist assured me that was how it was supposed to be.

Some hours later, I could feel my contractions. So he had to come back and somehow adjust the epidural. I could STILL feel toes and legs. But I trusted them that it was okay.

They kept checking me and I moved to a 5... then a 6 to 7... then an 8... That's about when I could feel the pains starting. Somewhere between 8 and 9 cm, I started to feel horribly painful pressures, that moved from my belly down to the nether regions. When I was at 9 cm, my body started pushing on its own with each contraction. It. Was. Excruciating. The nurse (at this point a lovely older lady named Dawn, who was also awesome. She gave me grape popsicles and wrote Happy Birthday on the sticks.) checked me and said the baby was too far up still to push. About this time there was a shift change and Beth came back (yay!) and said if I needed to push, I could. The doctors came in about this point and said the same, that baby was still too far up for me to push her out yet. So they left again. So it was just me, Ricardo and Beth, the awesome nurse.

Well, my body could not NOT push, so with each pain (and I should not understate how bad the PAIN was. I told you-- the epidural did NOT do its job.) I pushed. The docs called to check my progress and I heard Beth through my screaming tell the doc that she didn't think I was pushing effectively enough to bring the baby down any. Hah.

I thought I was going to die. I have NEVER experienced pain like that in all my life. Beth was calling the anesthesiologist and he was on his way, but taking forever, and interestingly never showed up again. Beth took matters into her own hands and turned up the epidural as high as it would go.

That took a little of the edge off the pain, though I still thought I was going to die. I kept pushing through the pain because I had to, and all of a sudden I felt a ripping. I knew this was it. Beth said to just keep pushing. So I did. All the sudden she started freaking out: "No more pushing! Whitney, don't push anymore! DON'T PUSH!"

But I wasn't pushing, my body was, and at this point there was no stopping it. I reached down and there was a head.

Ah, THAT was why she said no pushing. There were no doctors in the room to deliver the baby. Sorry guys, but I WAS pushing effectively!

Beth started frantically paging the doctors and they would not answer! She kept trying and trying, meanwhile baby Eva's head IS COMING OUT. And there was no stopping it.

Finally the docs showed up and I pushed out a 9 lb 11.6 oz, 21 1/2 inch-long baby girl-- my Eva.

Of course this is a shortened version and does not include the myriad of colorful things I said screamed during this whole process (never said a cuss word though, but I came da dang close to wanting to ;)

But the point is, baby Eva is here, she's big and beautiful and I adore her.

But, now I'm home. And she is not. And I am an emotional mess. Her bilirubin levels were above the 95th percentile. When they checked them again later, they were even higher. So, under the bili lights she went. She slept there last night (Monday night) and this morning, I was discharged but she had to stay. They offered to let me stay as a guest, and I was going to, but I felt bad for baby Ellie, who I had not seen in days. I didn't know what to do. A nurse pointed out that while Eva was little, she wasn't going to know/care/remember that I didn't stay with her for the night while she was in the hospital. And I couldn't hold her anyway, since she had to stay under the lights. And I can't nurse her yet because my milk still hasn't come in.

But, my baby Ellie on the other hand, is 3. She DOES get everything that's going on and she DID miss Mommy a lot.

So that helped me make my decision to go home and leave Eva in the hands of the nurses. Through my tears on the way out of the hospital, I peeked back into the nursery and saw a nurse holding her just like I would, and giving her a bottle. She was snuggling her and looking into her little fat face. That made me know that they would take great care of her, like I would if I were with her.

So tonight it's still just the 3 of us. I will call in a little while to see how her levels were at her last testing, and if we can take her home tomorrow. Because I miss her!!!!!!!