We (my mother and I) arrived at Flowers Hospital at 5:00 pm on Tuesday November 3rd. I was already having some contractions, and was still hopeful that maybe the Cervidil alone would throw me into full blown labor.
Mom snapped one last shot of my pregnant belly... and we were off!
Now I bet your thinking... Wait, where's Jaren? Jaren had the opportunity to take my dad to fly in the Blackhawk helicopter simulators with one of our friends, and Tuesday night at 5 was the only time they could do it. Having already had a practice run (see last post), I knew that nothing significant would be happening for quite some time... so Mom and I went to the hospital while the boys went to play.Labor officially began when they started Pitocin the next morning at 5:00 am. Wow! Isn't Pitocin fun? I managed for 5 1/2 hours before I couldn't breathe anymore. Jaren and I spent the time visualizing my favorite climbs. It was amazing for a long time, and it was really helping... but then it got to the point where I was sick of climbing (out of climbs to do), and couldn't focus because of the lack of a break (it was hurting ALOT in between contractions). I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that I couldn't do this naturally. I spent about an hour of that time beating myself up for not being able to do what every other woman in the world prior to modern medicine seems to be able to have done. I was actually thinking, 5 hours isn't very long... I should have been able to do this longer (Yes, I am incredibly hard on myself)! Then Jaren reminded me that all of those women of the ages weren't on Pitocin, and that I wasn't going to get any medals for not being able to breathe. Then I thought of my labor Mantra (given to me by my good friend Meghan): There is no right way, there is only my experience of bringing my daughter into this world. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life... and I got to think about it for the entire HOUR it took to get the anesthesiologist to my room.
After I got the epidural, I was able to breathe and relax some, but I still felt a lot surprisingly. I could still move my legs, and although the contractions were no longer painful - I could still feel them and their intensity.
Jaren then had to go study for his test the next day (because the Army was so generous in giving him one day off to even be at the birth of our daughter)... at that point I was extremely grateful to have had the epidural because there is NO way I could have done it without Jaren.
By the time I got to 9 1/2 the epidural had worn off quite a bit. Here's the interesting part. When you finally decide that you want one - you have made up your mind that you don't want to feel any more pain. So I wasn't really "thrilled" to be hurting again. They gave me a "bump" on my epidural (that had run dry), and it did nothing.
So I did my pushing being able to feel it. Now that it is over, I'm truly happy that this is how it happened... but at the time, I was a little frustrated and scared. I wasn't sure if I could do it.
Well as mentioned earlier - Alta is home... so I did do it! It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than any race, workout, or physical anything that I've ever done. And as for the question of which hurts worse - labor or a kidney stone? For me it is unequivocally LABOR. Maybe I've just had so many stones that I've gotten used to their pain... but dang - I could not have done months of labor like I did stones.
This is our beautiful daughter... her first picture! She looks so perfect!
Soon after, she was cleaned up... and Jaren got this cute picture.
And then my dad took this one. I love this picture because it tells so much of the story. I am so exhausted, Alta is so happy to be home, and Daddy is just so in love!
For some more photo's you can check out our Picasa web album of our little Peanut:
9 comments:
YAY!!!!!!!!!! I am so thrilled to be an aunt to a nephew and finally a niece too!!!!! I love my baby Alta soooo much!
I am so proud and impressed that you were able to go so long without an epidural. I truly do believe Pitocin makes the pain so much worse and amazed you lasted so long without drugs! It's cool that you still could feel a lot after the epidural because after mine with Spencer I couldn't feel a thing and it was a little frustrating. I didn't want to be in pain, but I also didn't want to feel blind either.
Alta is such a beautiful baby girl. I am so happy for you guys! Congratulations!!!!!!!
Congrats she is adoreable!
YAY!!! ...I love her so much... I would dive in front of a bus for that girl. (i'd probably do it for you too)
:-)
You did it! Congratulations to the new little family.
Brenna,
You did awesome. She is so cute. I am so happy for you and that you get to have beautiful Alta home with you. We miss you and can't wait to hopefully see you at Christmas and meet Alta. Kayden is so excited he can hardly stand it.
We love you,
Burtons
she's gorgeous! i love the pictures! i am so glad everything went well. you are such a strong incredible girl. i love you! good job doing the labor natural for 6 hours! lots of women have their baby by then! and pitocin... i heard its a KILLER! Congrats! you are amazing!
Brenna,
I'm with you that the women didn't have pitocin back in the ol' day. I did the same thing you did, and lasted about the same time. When they stuck the monitor in to monitor my contractions, the nurse was shocked that my contractions were so strong (they had me on the max dose of pitocin before I had the epidural). And I tell you what, I'm so glad I got that thing--19 hours of induced labor is ROUGH!!
As for ALTA, she's beautiful. I'm so happy for you!! Yeah!! Someone to be with you now while Jaren goes out and 'works'. :D I wish I was there to help out after you mom leaves. Do you need anything??
Welcome home Mom, Alta, and Daddy!!!!! Bren we are so much alike it scares me sometimes. I couldn't have written this myself about my own labor... including the dissapointment with myself. I was able to get rid of the dissapointmen by knowing that I did everything that was best for me and my baby. In fact, as it turned out, I was told by my nurse that if I had not had the epidural I most likely would have had to have a C-section because of the complications that we were having...
So you did a GREAT job! You and Alta are healthy and that is all that matters. When it gets to a point where you are not able to relax through contractions (OR BREATHE!!!!) it is time to use modern medicine to help you through it... and yes Jaren is totally right too. Being induced makes it all so much more difficult. They try to mimic the natural hormone levels of a woman's body during labor but it just doesn't work that way. So I just want to say how proud of you I am. I wish I could have come to visit you in the hospital!!!
That makes me so ticked off that Jaren had so little time off. Those JERKS!!! Even Greg with his hardest rotation in medical school got 3 days off! GEEEEZ!
I love all the pics - especially the one where Jaren is kissing little Alta and you are looking at Jaren saying "can you belive we made this miracle??" Love it!!! Love you all!!!!!!!!!!
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