before

“Do you know a cure for me?”
“Why yes,” he said, “I know a cure for everything. Salt water.”
“Salt water?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said, “in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the sea.”

~Isak Dinesen


The Birth of Colin Jacob Taylor, April 15th 2007
SO
I spent the second week of April miserable because I am in fake labor. I have regular contractions, am 4 cm dilated and 95% effaced and yet? STALLED. Full stop, no progress after that. I want to kill everyone, I weigh 200 pounds and have heartburn all the time.
On April 12th or so, after being stalled for a week, my doctor says: "no baby by Sunday? We'll induce ya!"
Not thrilled about this but really want the baby out.
Say okay.
On April 14th (Saturday - after my sister has come up and gone back down to Tucson twice and the day before my sister and brother in law leave for Texas until their wedding in November basically) the phone rings at 5 pm: "Hi! come to the hospital! Get an IV! Have a baby!"
It's a bit anticlimactic.
SO we do so.
At least the first two.
I labor.
I watch the beginning of "Young Frankenstein".
I say some funny things that Luke records.
The initial IV of penicilin (I am a Strep B positive kind of girl) pokes through my vein and I get a crazy bolus of water under my skin. They flush it.
The second IV burns like a mother. I'm told that's normal.
I forget to use my video camera.
The Pitocin kicks in.
ow ow ow.
Contractions, while less painful than I anticipated, still hurt. Like woah.
I ask for my epidural. Because God created drugs for a reason.
In the midst of my contractions they make me walk.
Yes walk.
to my L&D room.
I hobble down the corridor.
I curse Scottsdale Shea.
I sit on the bed.
The lovely epidural man comes in. I love him. Way more than Luke at this moment.
He stabs me in the back and I barely feel it...one contraction later...I feel nothing. BLISS!
The nurse hands me an oxygen mask because the baby's heart rate keeps dropping when I contract.
This makes me nervous but not a huge amount.
The same nurse checks my progress - I have not progressed.
Then she looks mildly alarmed.
She asks me about placenta previa.
I know I do not have this but being asked is not a calming thing.
I notice a rather large amount of blood on her glove.
They call my OB.
The Doctor comes in.
(I'm sure I spoke to my mom and my dad and sister and my in-laws but I have no recolelction of that - my mother has told me that they were in the hallway after the internal exam and the nurses were freaking out about the amount of blood and were rushing to call my OB)
She lays it out for me:
Baby in distress, lots of blood from me = C-Section.
I am not pleased.
Doctor reminds me that we could do it my way but if I don't progress and things continue that we'll be rushing down the hall with more of an emergency than we already have.
I say okay.
I cry.
I get little scrubs as does Luke.
I love him again. He is quite the rock at this point.

After this it gets hazy:
The OR was freezing.
I had a bad reaction to the drugs.
The baby's cord was wrapped around his throat, and I could feel them cauterizing my veins as they worked.
Unpleasant.
Right after they took Colin out they knocked me out because I was having a panic attack like woah.
I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing I was shaking uncontrollably.

Luke took pictures bless him.
He captured the 8 pounds 8 ounces on the scale.
We birthed a tiny tax refund at 3 in the morning April 15th.
They took us back to the room (which was massively huge) and tried to get me to breastfeed, as I am drugged out my skull this was not easy.
We give up.
I cry again.
I feel like a failure.
Then I fall asleep because failure or no I had just been working for quite a while also, major surgery.
Luke got to feed Colin his first meal outside of my body.
It was formula.
I assume he liked it.

The next 5 days were clearer.
And not as eventful (until our last night when Little Tiny decided to rip out his umbilical stump on the only night I was alone as I had sent Luke home to sleep on something comfortable. THANKS SON!) and finally we brought home our wee linebacker.

I have been told by several nurses after recounting my birth story that it sounds like I had undiagnosed previa. This was sort of confirmed this time around when I was sent back for another ultrasound because my placenta was lying a little low at 20 weeks. And when my current OB told me she would not use pit on me because I am high risk. FUN!
I left my old OB for a myriad reasons, not the least of which was the chaos of my first birth. This time around I have a doctor who listens to me and respects me. I also have a doula coming with me who is a dear friend who knows the medical lingo and will fight for what I want. Despite being high risk my OB considers me a very good candidate for a VBAC and I am looking forward to going into labor naturally and experiencing the delivery on my own terms.
That being said, I have no birth plan other than: Meet my healthy, strong child. This time around I have learned that more than anything else, everything is in God's control and so I have had an easier time preparing for labor and delivery. I know that everything that comes together is done for my good and that He will be with me no matter what. It's a comfort and strength. 2 weeks to go!