The Epidural arrives...

I walked from the triage to my room, you know, grabbing the walls and hand rails along the way every two steps as a contraction came on and had me bending over grinding my teeth and squeezing something.

I must say when the doctor arrived I was elated! I was in so much pain I couldn't bare to even stand anymore. Of course standing still wasn't comfortable nor laying down, but I do know I couldn't "breath" away my pain or relax (or hypnotize myself). If you recall an earlier post of mine, I wanted to go natural, but there was no way I could NOT not  feel those contractions and the pain they were causing. Like Freddy Kruger grabbing my womb. My eyesight looked like everything had a tint of green over it, like my eyes had a Green filter. Similar to a movie, nothing seemed real right now. My body was shivering, and I still had to go to the bathroom...When I looked in the mirror at this point I looked like Emily Rose...

So I was really excited to get that damn epidural. Not going to lie. 

Once it was inserted it was immediate relief! Everything went away, and the colors in the room changed. From that ugly green filter to just bright colors. wow! It's amazing when you're having contractions and you don't know they're there!

So now...after the epi is done, then you aren't allowed to walk. Yes, there is the walking epi but you still feel pain, I wanted 100% pain relief! Now I lay there and they hook me up to the monitors. One for the baby's heart beat, one for contractions, blood pressure monitor, and a catheter. At this point I'm 6cm dilated, I was really hoping it was more, BUT I didn't think I had dilated so much since checking in. It had been three hours, and I'm only 4cm away from pushing! But we continue to wait... The nurse informs us my doc arrives to the hospital at 10am and at THAT time they'll check me again to see how far along I am. I lay there and relax my mind (now that I can finally relax) and visualize my cervix dilating, my body relaxing and bringing the baby closer to her exit.  

So let me reiterate, it's about 8:30 and I wasn't going to be checked until 10am. Well My doc arrived at 9:00am and her face said it all, "Oh my goodness YOU'RE 10CM, we're ready to push. You barely waited for me". Now comes the rush of the medical staff! Everyone piles in and starts setting up for baby. Remember my meconium, the NICU is also present in the room just in case the baby needs more medical attention because of it. 

We pray for a quick deliver once we got the green light.

Once everyone sets up, the nurse gets me ready to start pushing at about 10:05am, Just a simple push to get me going. I had no idea if I was pushing or not, the epidural had me completely numb. I even asked the nurse if I actually pushed, I couldn't tell.  The pushing was for 10 seconds for three rounds, and then rest and wait for the next contraction. So here we are, Jason counting me down from 10, the nurse looking at the monitors, and everyone else setting up for baby Martinez's arrival. This part usually takes a while, especially for a woman's first baby. 

Well at 10:20am the nurse freaked out and told me to QUICKLY STOP PUSHING, because the baby was about to come and the doc wasn't in the room! Again, they didn't expect THAT to happen so quickly. Well at this point the epidural had worn off a little and I could feel the contractions a bit , which I allowed to happen in order to feel the contractions so that I know when to push. Which also meant I couldn't just Stop pushing, I kept pushing with every contraction, it was only natural. I'm actively pushing and there's no doc in the room, which I really dgaf. I told the nurse I cannot and will not stop pushing...but the doc arrived in a minute or so. 

Again, she was impressed that it was all going down so fast! Now we are actively pushing to get Angelina out!

                                                             (part2)