"D Day"

This blog post is for all of you that are interested in "what really happens on delivery day?" (aka graphic detail)

Coming home from the exciting shower, I wasn't able to sleep very well. Around 2am, I went to the couch and started to watch TV. At around 4am, I needed to go #1. Sitting on the 'porcealin throne', I realized something was not right. I was done peeing but I wasn't. Oh oh

I called out to Bill and literally, in 30 seconds, he had his bags packed. I couldn't make it a few minutes without getting soaked. Bill grabbed the roll of paper towels in the kitchen... good idea. After a call to the hospital, I realized that I planned on making Carnitas and had to put the meat in the freezer. Yes, the things you think of when it's time...freezing meat.

We checked right in and they told me I was 4cm. Good thing I paid attention in childbirth class. The cervix goes from 1cm- 10cm dilated. You start pushing around 8-9 (I think). Then, the waiting game started. We arrived at the hospital around 6am. I didn't feel anything but was registering some mild contractions. Around 10-11am, I agreed to Pitocin which induces labor since there wasn't much going on. Then the contractions started up a little, nothing serious. Bill grabbed some lunch and we started to watch the Packers/ Jets game. Our nurse was really cool and a devout Packers fan. The game ended and the contractions started to hurt. What do they feel like? Just really bad PMS cramping.

I wanted to wait as long as I could before the epidural and this was the limit. Once the epidural kicked in, it was like a normal day. I probably could have done just about anything. More Pitocin was pumped to speed up labor. So around the end of the Packers game, I was probably in level 2 labor. Level 3 is when active pushing begins and that started around 1am. Bill and I thought it would be cool to have a baby on 1/23 since my birthday is on 10/23. Nope. Adzuki was going to do it his way.

30+minutes later, our precious little one was delivered. He started to cry right away and all was well. Bill was awesome - he was there for support and didn't do anything annoying. The staff was wonderful! I couldn't say better things about the nurses at Methodist. When our little Benjamin came out, it was a sigh of relief followed by overwhelming joy.

Then, there's the post-delivery "stuff". What I feared the most was tearing. However, I knew it would happen since my doctor said, 'most first time mom's will tear'. Lovely. Here's something really gross - I didn't feel it when it happened but I sensed a ripping, kind of like ripping a piece of paper. Anyways, I ended up with a level 2 tear (out of 4) and all was fixed in no time.

We don't really know why I went 5 weeks early. Some speculate it was the fibroids. After delivery, there was a huge 'roid', grapefruit size, sticking out of my belly. Weird. All in all, it went fairly smoothly, no trauma or horror stories here!