Asher Reid

Once we got into the room to deliver Asher, it was S-L-O-W going.  We checked in at 10ish int eh mornings, and he was not born until 11:30 in the evening.  I endured a few hours, OK, 2 hours of labor without any pain medicine.  However, since my water had broken, they wanted to use pitocin to make things progress.  You only get about 24 hours to deliver a baby after that because of the risk of infection.  When the nurse came in around 1 to ask if I wanted more ice chips, or an epidural, I took the bait. 

The thing with pitocin, vs.natural contractions, is they are strong and sharp, and irregular. For me, anyway. 

The epidural part was not easy... sitting still enough through contractions to get a spinal injection.

After that, we pretty much watched the contractions on the monitor.  Mush less painful.

Here's the thing with an epidural.  You have to stay in bed. You have to get a catheter. Your legs go numb, or in my case, one does. 

We read magazines, talked on the phone, dozed, until about 8 cm.  That was a long day.  Lots of stamina and endurance to make it through without eating or drinking.  I got some more drugs for my side that was not numb, and was finally ready to start pushing.  So I did. Well, I thought I did.  For an hour and a half, I thought I was pushing. Not much was happening.  Except for the arrival of hemorrhoids of epic size.

Then I'm not quite sure what happened and the nurse and Dan both said, "OHHH!! Yes, do that again."  Which was not what I had been doing for the previous 90 minutes.  You see, pushing the baby out is more like having a BM than what you think it is.  Who knew?  After that, it took about 30 minutes, and Asher was born.  I found out later, he was born with the cord around his neck, which they bill you for undoing, by the way. It is a 'procedure', but I will save my rant for another time.

And there he was, slimy, screaming, wrinkly, cone headed and all mine.