Parker's Birth Story

Saturday, June 21, 2008 – Parker’s "Due Date" (Thanks Emilie & Rebecca)

David came home from work and we decided it was time to start organizing some stuff in the master bedroom and master bathroom closets. We were going through boxes and reorganizing, condensing and tossing the junk. We had been doing this for probably 1.5-2 hours. My mom had called and we talked for a while. The conversation ended with
Mom: “Ok, I will be waiting here patiently.”
Me: “Yep, me too.”
Mom: “Well, not patiently”
Me: “Me neither”
About 2 minutes after I got off the phone, I had what I thought was a really bad and really long contraction. Later I realized it was 2 contractions in a row. YOWZA! A couple of minutes later, I sat down on the bedroom floor to go through another box when I felt the pop… my water broke. I got up and said “Um, I think my water just broke” David looked at me like ‘you’re kidding right?’ I went to the bathroom – it was confirmed – my water DID in fact break! 6:15pm – just 15 minutes later than it was with Graycen.
I called my mom and said, “You’re not going to believe this.” she said, “Your water broke?” I said “Yep” She told me she was waiting for her food to get there (she had just ordered pizza) and would leave as soon as her food got there. No big deal. I made a grilled cheese and some other food for Graycen, called Ma, called the birth center at Unity, got dressed and wrapped up a few tiny last minute things. My mom got there, we went over some things with her, said good bye to Graycen (which she didn’t even care that we were leaving) I said, “Ok sweetie. I have to go. I love you.” and kissed her. She looked up at me and said “Byyyyee” and waved. I cried. How could I not?
David and I left. We were on our way to the hospital. I was sad. David asked me if I was excited. I could only answer with a no. I was having a really hard time letting myself be excited because I was so sad that I had to leave Graycen.
We got to Unity, checked in and got settled. The nurse, Becky, came in, checked me out and asked how sure I was that my water broke. I told her I was 100% positive. She said she still had to do the test to make sure it was for sure my water that broke. She swabbed really quick (instead of the standard 1 minute) and put the swab in the container. It tested positive. My water broke. DUH! She checked me and I was about 4cm. I got hooked up to the monitors (the one to track my contractions and the one to track Parker’s heart rate) She went and got the IV and the Penicillin that I needed. My contractions were coming every 2-4 minutes. I didn’t even know it sometimes.
Probably a good half an hour later, my contractions were getting pretty strong. I tried to keep my mind off of them but it didn’t work so well. We were watching the Food Network – Unwrapped, to be exact! I got to a point where the contractions were so strong and painful I decided it was time to call the nurse to get the anesthesiologist for the epidural. She called for him and he got there pretty quick! YAY!!
Right before he was administering the epidural, Saturday Night Live was on. The parody that was happening at that time was a “Bret Michael’s Rock of Love” parody. It was hilarious! I kept laughing up until the time that I had to turn it down because I didn’t want to laugh while I was getting a catheter in my spine! As he was giving me my epidural, he walked me through everything. I knew what was going to happen and how it was going to feel each step of the way. I can’t even tell you how thankful I was for that. A few minutes later, I felt the warm, tingly legs. It was working! The pain from the contractions was gone. YAHOO! It was time for rest.
The nurse shut the lights down and left the room. We were able to rest now. David fell asleep so fast. I had a little bit of a harder time falling asleep but I eventually did! I woke up to the nurse coming in to readjust Parker’s monitor and check me. I was now 7-8cm. She also wanted me to switch sides (since you can only stay on your sides when you get the epidural) so, we did it. I had a really hard time helping her switch me to the other side. I was extremely numb – all the way up my back. It was crazy. She left and I lay there trying to go back to sleep. I had a couple of contractions when one of them felt really different. I can’t really describe it in words. A couple seconds after the different contraction, Parker’s heart rate started to drop – FAST! I heard the door handle and thought “Oh crap, what’s wrong?” My nurse came in and started frantically adjusting parker’s monitor and nothing was changing. She pressed the call button on my bed, when the nurse on the other end answered she said, “You can have Becky come in here please?!” She ran over to the other side of my bed and started checking for Parker’s head. When the other nurse came in, she asked her to “get her a lead” She started apologizing to me saying, “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want this done, but we have to.” It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. They were going to hook up internal fetal monitoring. (This was something I didn’t want, unless it was absolutely necessary) She got everything all hooked up, found Parker’s heart rate and sighed. She said, “OK, that Parker is a little troublemaker.” And she laughed. All was good.
The nurse said, “ You know, let me check you. I bet you’re complete” Sure enough, she checked me and I was complete. It was time to push. She was pretty sure I wasn’t going to push for very long and called the nurse’s station to ask them to wake my doctor. Everything was set up and ready for the doctor and ready for me to push.
I was finding that I wasn’t able to feel my contractions to push. I told the nurse, she asked how far up I was numb (from the epidural) I was telling her I was definitely numb up to at least my bra line. She asked me to squeeze her hands, I did so and she said my arms and hands weren’t affected by it. I started coughing and was having a hard time producing a really, good cough. It was because I was so numb. I told her this and she said she was going to turn my epidural off. It would take a while for it to completely wear off but she needed me to be able to feel when to push.
I was pushing and they could see Parker wasn’t coming down within the minutes for the doctor to even need to stay there, so he left. My nurse, David and I were left in the room. I kept pushing with each contraction. Some contractions I had to be told to push, some I could feel to push. That was a weird feeling – not always knowing when I needed to push. I started to feel sick and started to get the shakes. This was from the epidural and being in the transition stage. I threw up a few times. That really wasn’t fun. I remembered that with Graycen, too. Some more pushing……
My nurse pressed the call button, asked for the doctor and the other nurse to “Come join the party!” They got there and waited while I pushed. I was really starting to feel the pressure of Parker and the pain was starting to kick in a little, too. We thought it was my last contraction. I pushed and kept pushing, more than the 2-3 times during a contraction. The contraction was long over. I wasn’t doing anything when I pushed. I stopped pushing. Parker’s head was partly out and I had to hold it there until the next contraction. Let me tell you, this hurt A LOT since my epidural was not in full force anymore. Finally, the next contraction came and I pushed… I kept pushing… so hard I pushed. Parker Thomas was born. 3:13am on Sunday, June 22, 2008. He was placed on my chest right away. No crying right away just ‘looking’ around. They started cleaning him off and rubbing him down, he cried. Oh, his cry was adorable! The nurse started checking him and doing her stuff with him and told me “When you’re ready, I will take him to weigh and measure him” Like I was ever going to be ready. I gave him up so he could be checked. He weighed in at 8 pounds 15ounces and measured 21 inches long. He was a BIG GUY!
Heard the doctor say “Oh. I didn’t think she tore at all” and then he started to work… fun, I tore again. It was just about 1.5 hours of pushing and it felt like it this time. I was exhausted. Total time for labor and delivery was 9 hours. Not too shabby! The doctor left and the nurses left. We sat there and admired our little Parker for a while and talked. Our nurse came back in and said we were going to change rooms in about an hour and a half, so if we wanted to rest, we could. David was able to lie down and he went to sleep. I tried and eventually was able to drift off. The nurse came in at about 6:00am and we switched rooms.