A 28 hour anniversary

i had joked all throughout my pregnancy about baby gilbert coming a little early on our anniversary... ha. guess i jinxed it! june 16, 2009 was mine and opie's 2 year anniversary. i had worked the day before and was pooped and opie had worked a 14 hour day at his new job. i went to bed that night with a feeling that something big was gonna happen. duh, probably a baby!
4 a.m. i sat straight up in bed with the same pains i'd been having for weeks. only this time, they were more regular. now, just some background info... i've never had a baby (just in case you weren't aware) and my biggest fear towards the end of pregnancy was that i wouldn't know when i was in labor. of course everyone kept telling me, "oh, honey, you'll know" and "what you're feeling now are just normal pains... blah blah blah". well, this time at 4 a.m., i knew. for sure. there was no doubt. i sat straight up. took a shower and peed until i couldn't pee anymore. all the while, trying to count each contraction and trying not to wake opie before his alarm went off.

his alarm went off about 5 and i was sitting straight up in bed, wet from taking a shower and staring intently at the clock. he's like "candle, what's wrong? you having pains again, why are you wet?" holding my huge, watermelon belly and breathing a little more breathy i'm like "i'm pretty sure i'm having a baby today... on OUR FREAKIN ANNIVERSARY! WHAT DID I TELL YOU?! HA!" of course he's wanting to know why i haven't woken him up and my explanation was "i wanted you to get all the rest you could before work". he quickly assured me of how idiotic of an explanation that was seeing as how i was in labor and we were clearly going to the hospital. we counted the contractions for another hour until they were 5 minutes a part and then left for the hospital. now, remember, i delivered in anderson, so we had a good 30 minute drive ahead of us.

we get to the hospital and i get all hooked up to this crazy monitor that keeps track of me and baby. the coolest thing about the monitor is watching the contraction numbers go up and down each time you feel one. when i first got there, my contractions were every 2-3 minutes a part, i was dilated to 3 cm, and 80% effaced. so, in the beginning the contractions were very bareable. i could feel one coming and it was actually kinda fun to look at the numbers and see how high they would go. when you're not contracting the little number reads anywhere from 0 to 20 something. mild contractions would be from the 30's to 60's and then the big WHOPPER contractions (felt like your tummy was being squeezed by a blood pressure cuff) would read from the 70's all the way up to about 130! oh what fun to watch. this went on for hours. they decided to let me labor on my own. oh, and apparently every other pregnant woman due in june decided to have a baby that day too. therefore, slowing my process down. women were showing up after me and popping out babies right away and stealing my doctor to do it... that was frustrating. i'd look at the little screen (which monitored all the rooms on my floor by my nurse) and another graph would fall off the page, meaning yay another baby is born! but, never mine. i just waited and waited!

the doctor finally came in and broke my water after he was done playing superman down the hall delivering 5 babies back to back. okay, so the water breaking experience... weirdest experience of all i think. so, you're fully awake, fully aware, no drugs yet and still trying to remain bubbly and happy and pretty... then the doctor puts your legs in this weird position and sticks this long thing in "there" (which is really really really uncomfortable) and pulls it out and then water swooshes everywhere and then you just have to lay in it. yep. just lay there. until someone decides to come and change your bedding... what fun.

after breaking my water they tell me to go ahead and get my epidural because the pain gets bad very fast after they break your water. so, i listened like a good girl... even though i hadn't had any pain yet, i wasn't going to try and be wonderwoman without the drugs cause i knew i'd fail miserably. next thing i know i look up and this kid walks in my room dressed in scrubs and calls himself doctor. i'm like what? DOCTOR? seriously? he's like "i'm going to be your anesthesiologist today"... and then i freaked. he didn't look any older than 18 and he was about to stick a needle the size of ruler in my back!?! and i couldn't have anyone in the room with me when he did it... no way. the nurse assured me he was the best and he turned out to be really super cool and nice and went to clemson for undergrad too and kept me calm. never even felt a sting and he got the epidural in with one try. super cool guy. (can you request the same anesthesiologist everytime?)

so, the next step: lay there. let the squeezes get tighter around your tummy and try and rest... yeah right. my tummy was growling and starving (FYI: you can't eat when you're in labor, just so you know). so, what possessed everyone to eat 1 million times that day and do it in my room? and also, were they serving the best gourmet food in all the world that day? why did everyone feel the need to eat it where i could practically taste it. i was becoming ill by the moment. somewhere in the evening, my drugs saved me. i hit a one or two hour spell where everything i said was extremely funny and made no sense and i could just look at everyone's face and see that i was hugely comical. i finally wore myself out. i started to feel pain eventually and went to press my cool epidural pump and it beeped really loud. OUCH! much to my surprise, my pump was broken... oh yeah, these things weren't supposed to happen... and NOT TO ME! after a 30 minute break with no drugs, some dude came and fixed my pump and boy, it never worked right again. midnight on our anniversary came, with still no baby :( i was exhausted.

about 4 a.m. the next morning june 17, the nurse came in and checked me and said "hey, you're 10 cm let's do this thing". so, as exhausted and hungry as i was i slid myself down, put my feet in the stirrups, held opie's hand and with every contraction i pushed like a freakin champ! i pushed and pushed and pushed and the nurse said i was such an amazing pusher and was doing everything so text book! yay me! i was so proud. i would fall asleep between contractions and then opie would wake me up to push with each one. then, wouldn't you know... my dang epidural was gone. done for. no more pushies left on my pump. and there ain't a thing you can do when you're in the middle of pushing. that's it. so, i felt it. i felt it all. and i have to say, it wasn't really that bad, but that's probably because i was so ready to get the baby out!!! the nurse kept checking me after every big push and the baby wasn't moving down. she was in position still and HUGE, but she wasn't moving. the nurse determined that the baby had turned her head sideways (for what? to look at my other ovary? i don't get it!) and wasn't turning it back. she wasn't moving down because her head turn was causing her to hit my pelvic bone. so, the dark gloomy cloud loomed overhead. i knew it. i knew what was next and i swore i wouldn't have to have it come down to this. i had worked so hard... dangit!

dr. parker came in and said, "so, the next step is a c-section. you can push for another hour, but there's no guarantee she's coming out..." so, i sucked back some tears and they had me on the operating table by 8:00 a.m. and baby out by 8:15 a.m. and i wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. it was perfect! my little story to tell my little annabelle one day. annabelle doesn't share our anniversaray, she was born on june 17 instead. but, she does get to share her birthday with her grandaddy (my daddy) and he couldn't be happier to share it with her!
heck, c-sections are a piece of cake and didn't cause my baby's head to come out all mishapen. so yay that she is here and yay that she is healthy and yay that i got to experience labor on my own, even if it did last 28 hours and leave me with a little scar... it's a very small price to pay for such a big, beautiful, chunky BUNDLE OF JOY!