The story of Sam

Here are the down and dirty details...

My water broke on Friday, the 25th around 8 in the morning. Tripp is usually already on the train to work by 8 but he had worked till 2:30am the night before so luckily, was going in a little later. I was laying in bed while Tripp showered and I kind of sort of thought maybe my water had broken, but I didn't want to get my hopes up so I just laid there for a while. When I finally got out of bed there was absolutely no confusing the ensuing waterfall for anything but my water breaking. So exciting! So I went in the bathroom and told Tripp he couldn't go to work that day.


Now something they don't tell you about your water breaking is that once it breaks it isn't just one gush and you're done. It doesn't stop until you're pushing the baby out! Once your water breaks there's pretty much a constant flow of some kind or another. Seeing as I hadn't had my period for about 10 months there were of course, no pads in the apartment, and we were both so excited and frantic that neither of us thought to go pick up some pads. So I spent a good deal of time on the toilet Friday morning, directing Tripp on what to pack/clean/do before we had to go to the hospital.


We spoke to my midwife around 9 and she told us to stop by the office at noon so she could see how much progress I was making. At our visit I was 2cm dilated (out of 10 total) and my contractions weren't very regular so she sent us home for a while with instructions to time the contractions and call her in a few hours. Despite what you might see on those shows like Baby Story, the hours did not go by slowly at all, they fleeeeew by. We stopped at Starbucks and Wholefoods and got a bunch of junk food and then put on a movie and Tripp took a nap (it was a chick flick). At 3:30 the midwife called wondering why we hadn't called her yet, I guess she expected us to be nervous and in a rush since it was our first time being in labor. We made a date to meet the midwife at the hospital at 5 and got ready to go.


On the car ride to the hospital the contractions finally started to get a little more regular, every 7 minutes, and more painful. Once we stepped foot in the hospital though, it was full on labor like a slap in the face! Seriously! I guess the baby knew it was safe to arrive at that point. We got the room where I would deliver and I had to get on my knees, for some reason that was the most comfortable position for me to be in when the contractions came. The midwife didn't get there till 6 and by that point I was in full-on labor and my contractions were way intense. Poor Tripp and my mom were trying to talk to me to give me encouragement and I demanded that no one speak to me, so they had to whisper to the nurse. Tripp would try to massage my back like we practiced in our birthing class and I of course demanded that no one touch me. So my poor husband and mom had to stand around staring silently at me since that was all I could stand. I pretty much could have gone off into the woods to give birth by myself.

When the midwife got there and checked me she may have mentioned the birthing tub since this had been my plan, but I had to concentrate so hard on surviving the contractions that I didn't hear or comprehend much of what anyone said. I tried a few different birthing positions I learned about but they all seemed to make the pain worse so I laid on my side the entire time, arms clenched around the rail on the side of the bed, thank god they attached those things really well cause I damn near ripped it off. By the time I got to 7cm dilated I couldn't take it anymore and asked for an epidural. They normally try to do the epidural in between contractions if possible, but mine were coming one minute apart so it was impossible. The anesthesiologist tried asking me on a scale of 1-10 what the pain was like and I shooshed him as well. My contractions were insane, you can see them on a computer screen and they were going off the charts, less than a minute apart, and lasting almost two minutes each. So not fun. Once the epidural was in I was completely transformed back to my normal self, I could hear, see, and speak again, and people in the room were once again allowed to talk and come near me.

Let me just say, "labor" with an epidural is SO not labor at all. It was a walk in the freaking park once that thing kicked in. I could deliver babies all day if I had an epidural in the whole time. Really. I was ready to push 30 minutes after the pain meds and pushing didn't even hurt! So at 9:30 we could see the baby's head and we knew that he/she had hair, big surprise to me! And the midwife said we'd meet the baby any minute. Well, nearly four hours later we still hadn't met the baby! I pushed like a mother, I mean, I'm impatient, I wanted to meet the damn kid already! But to no avail. Once we were nearing the four hour mark the midwife decided to call a doctor for assistance cause I was running out of energy after being in labor for so long and not eating. The doctor arrived and as soon as he looked at my lady parts which were displayed for all the world to see the first thing he said was, "Oh you poor thing, you've been pushing for a long time." Apparently that whole area looked about as haggard as my face.

It came down to trying to get the baby out with forceps and if that didn't work they were going to have to do a c-section. I immediately became hysterical and 10 more nurses poured into the room with tools and instruments of torture and extra lights. After inserting the largest speculum ever created and using the forceps, which I happily never saw, and three more pushes Samuel Oliver McCarty FINALLY entered the world at 1am on Saturday January 26th. The doctor said his head was in the right position so he wasn't sure why Sam wouldn't come out. Then a nurse yelled "8lbs. 2oz." and the doctor said, "Oh, well that's why." They all estimated he'd weigh 7lbs, but they didn't take into consideration how much ice cream mommy fed him while in the womb.

So my big, fat, pudgy man is finally here safe and sound and none the worse for wear despite being pulled out by giant salad tongs. I think I would have freaked if we had to go the c-section route. My days since arriving home consist of nursing, then pumping, then changing diapers, then feeding, pumping, some rocking, more feeding, more pumping, and almost no sleep. There are also many occasions for spontaneously bursting into tears. A side effect of hormonal fluctuations and a lack of sleep.

Today I blow dried my hair and shaved for the first time in ages, and so feel a little less like a beast, well, I still feel kind of like a cow with all the nursing and pumping, but I don't think that's going to change for a while. A well groomed cow, at least.