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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

In The Pursuit Of Happiness #2

Today is Ella's birthday. 'Nuff said.

5 years ago

5 years ago I was awake at 3:09 AM and delivered my first child. Elizabeth Diana came into this world after many prayers, and much pain.


I’d developed high blood pressure over my first pregnancy. It had gotten to the point that my LDS Nurse-Midwives group wanted me to come back to LDS Hospital (in the Avenues in SLC) 2x every week for fetal-non-stress tests. This is where you get strapped to a machine to hang out as your baby gets monitored for a while, then you get an ultrasound to measure the amount of fluid in the uterus –to ensure the baby’s overall health. I was about 2 weeks early and had come to my standard appointment on May 12th. They had a doctor review my results in a different room after the ultrasound, who reviewed the whole picture –to which his direct words were: “It’s time to put you out of your misery.” YAY!!! They escorted me to my room and had me change. I lost my super cute silver hoop earrings at the hospital over that visit, but that’s small potatoes. I remember sitting down in that bed still thinking to myself that I’ll believe it when I see it. Of course I knew there was a baby inside, but the reality of holding this individual and actually caring for it was foreign. I did ask the folks in charge if I could ease my vehicle out of the 2-hour parking, to which I got a firm “no”. I’d even tried to see if I could possibly come back that afternoon after I moved the half-finished laundry and again received a firm “no”.

Out came the cell phone! I was on pitocin and was 2cm dilated. I called EVERYBODY. I had some family come down from Logan and at one point or another most all of my family members spent some labor time with me.Labor was ROUGH!!! I had back-labor and had contractions every 2 minutes or less for hours and hours. The crappy anesthesiologist was SUCH a jerk! Ok, I have a hyper sensitive back, and when folks poke at it, it makes me jump –it’s excruciating. *My current doctor (bless her HEART) tells me that I just have more nerves in my lower back than most people, she sees it often, and it is fixable with some happy-meds that can be administered before the epidural procedure ever starts –NOW I know. So this jerk from LDS Hospital was mean to me about the process “if I can’t push on your back like this I won’t be able to get the epidural in” –Lance almost decked him, as I’d waited WAY TOO long to have this done. I waited because of my mom’s high-pressure sales in “natural” childbirth as she magically had 5 for 6 kids drug-free, and I was sobbing.Epidural in, no relief! ½ of one leg was numb, and my only option was to wait some more until the next anesthesiologist came on duty. I’d gone over some Lamaze breathing techniques with my mom and was simply holding it together and breathing through this excruciating pain, so I don’t feel like people really understood what I was going through! GRRR.

14 hours of pitocin-induced back-labor with no relief was enough to do me in, I remember thinking there was no way I’d survive another contraction. The next anesthesiologist came in and saved my life. I remember telling Lance to give him a kiss for me as I drifted off to sleep with some actual relief. 3 hours later at 3AM I was pushing Ella out with numb legs and a bit of a smile on my face. My sweet late-working sister Mary had stuck around for the birth but had dozed off in the corner of some waiting room and no one could find her in time to witness the messy miracle. :) After I’d delivered her, Ella was a bit lethargic. I don’t remember her apgar score or anything like that, but she perked up after a few moments. When they placed her in my hands and I looked down at her, I remember thinking to myself; “that’s my face” –the first and last time I saw myself in the way she looks!

Ladies, we all know we don’t forget the pain (HUGE wives-tail), however, there is absolutely nothing we wouldn’t have done in order to bring these angels in our lives. Happy birthday, Ella.