Labor and Delivery

It's been 21 days since I had my little one, and my brain is a little fuzzy and jumbled. I'm going to do my very best to remember what happened on those two very long - but rewarding days.

My due date was January 11, 2015. The Thursday before my due date at my appointment I had high blood pressure so they decided to set my induction date for my due date. I was scheduled to go to the hospital at 8 p.m. Sunday night. Unfortunately, since I wasn't considered high risk and I wasn't in active labor the hospital called and rescheduled for 12 that night. They were understaffed and figured that I would rather stay home and be comfortable instead of going in and waiting around for them to start me. At 11 they called again to reschedule for 7 a.m. Monday morning. Apparently a few women were in labor and went in. I was okay with putting it off until the next morning because I would actually be able to get one last good night's sleep.

At 7 a.m. we arrived at the hospital and got settled in to our room. At 8:30 they placed a dose of cytotec in my cervix to ripen it before they started pitocin. Three hours later, I had barely made any progress, so they gave me another dose of cytotec. The second one seemed to work, because contractions started and they started my pitocin. The contractions were bearable at this point. I wasn't really in a ton of pain. I was able to breathe through my contractions without any pain medication for awhile. I asked for pain medication through my IV, which if you've had you know it doesn't take the pain away but it relaxes you and kind of takes the edge off. I labored throughout the day and finally asked for a epidural as the pain got worse. Tolerable but worse. I didn't want to wait to the point of being in so much pain I wouldn't be able to sit still for them to place it.

I got my first epidural and as my luck would have it, it made my right leg numb, and that was it. I could still feel every contraction. They gave me a second epidural, and a third, with no such luck. I was terrified that I was going to have to deliver him naturally. I'm a total baby when it comes to pain. I felt helpless. I couldn't move my right leg, yet had full control over my left. It was the most annoying feeling in the world, and totally not worth it to not have function of one leg, and still be in pain. At 3 a.m. they broke my water, and that's when the pain got even worse! I kept begging for them to give me a C-Section. Then they had to kick my pitocin up because I wasn't progressing from a 6 for a couple hours.

My doctor came in to try talking me out of getting a C-Section. I just wanted him out. I was in so much pain, had gotten barely any sleep, and wanted it to be over with. She said if I didn't progress anymore in a couple hours then we would go ahead with it. When she came in to check me, I was finally at an 8, and I agreed to keep going with a vaginal delivery.

A new anesthesiologist came in after the two before completely failed. She had told me the same thing happened to her, that her epidural didn't work and she gave birth naturally. She felt my pain and understood, but wanted to give me relief. So she asked if she could do a spinal to just give me relief for about an hour and a half so I could sleep. I agreed, and she also placed a fourth epidural just to see if it worked. I could kiss her. The spinal was amazing, and the fourth epidural had worked!

When it came time to push, I was exhausted. I had been in labor for 39 hours and didn't know if I was going to be able to push. I tried my hardest to push through each contraction. My epidural wasn't working well. I had shooting pains in my back and lower stomach. I was getting rather frustrated, especially when the nurses told me they were going to turn the epidural down so I could feel my contractions more. Even when I could feel them just fine! I pretty much flat out told them no, I could feel them, there wasn't any need for that. I was as nice as I could be about it even though I wanted to punch them in the face.

The on-call doctor came in and told me we were going to try the vacuum, and if he wasn't out in three contractions we would have to do the c-section. I pushed with everything in me, and on that last contraction, I saw the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. My baby boy was finally here.

He was so alert. Staring (glaring) at everybody as if to say, "what the heck? Put me back!" The first words out of my mouth were, "he's so beautiful." I start to cry every time I think about it. I never believed it when other moms would say that you'd forget the pain, but it's so true. When they laid him on my chest, he just stared at me. It was honestly the most precious moment of my life.

On January 13, 2015, after 41 hours of labor, at 11:44 p.m. Hunter Michael Hampton was born at 8 lbs 3 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. He's absolutely perfect.


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