A long road...The Beginning.

I travelled a long and hard road to becoming a mommy. I really started desiring this role for myself around the age of 18. So young. And really, I'm glad I never got pregnant so young - I don't think I would have been mature enough to handle it. When I got married at 22, I was desperate to have a baby. We started trying immediately. After 3 years of trying unsuccessfully, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. The Dr I saw was hopeful. She put me on the pill for a year and said after that, I should be able to get pregnant. We tried for 6 more heartbreaking years - and no baby. We got divorced and I went to a Dr because I'd heard of some new treatments for PCOS. I wanted to get reproductively healthy should I find someone else... That Dr was flabbergasted that I had been diagnosed with PCOS, as I didn't fit the profile. Blood tests concluded that I did not have PCOS... So all that time, most likely I didn't have a problem, other than not being able to get pregnant. And of course my X wasn't as into trying to have a baby as I was, so he refused to go to a Dr... By the time I had met and married my current husband I had pretty much given up on getting pregnant. Although it was still lingering in the back of my mind.


I was totally surprised when a mere 2 mos after we gave up the birth control I got pregnant.


It's just amazing how things never go quite as planned, or at least not the way you imagine them. Especially with your first baby. No matter what anyone tells you, you just really have no clue about the whole labor thing and how much it really hurts. You see all these women screaming their heads off in the movies, but you think Well, I have a high tolerance for pain... haha!! And you go into the labor process all idealistic with all these romantic notions of how it's going to go.


My sister in law had hers all planned out (with our first babies she was due 2mos after us). She had everything completely planned out... she would get the shot when she was 3cm and get the epidural when she was 5... and it would all go smoothly. She ended up not progressing and having an emergency C section.



With my first one, everyone had convinced me that I was going to go early. So I was pretty much counting on that. And the Dr had estimated the baby to weigh around 8lbs if I carried to term. I got hung up on that and the fact that I had bought a bunch of newborn clothes that only went up to 8lbs! I thought I HAD to have that baby early!! Towards the end of that pregnancy my blood pressure shot up. The Dr sent me in for an ultrasound, and found that my fluid level was pretty low. At my last Dr's appointment before my due date my blood pressure was still up there so I went in that night for a prostiglandin gel insert, which was supposed to help the progress. If I didn't go into labor that night I was to go in the next morning. Of course the next morning the prostiglandin insert had done nothing and I was given the choice of either going home and waiting to go into labor on my own or being induced. I was bound and determined to have that baby so I chose to be induced. (Later I was assured by several Dr's that I had made the right decision with the blood pressure issue and the fluid level). But afterwards, when I heard from other people that when you are induced it is a much harder labor, I swore that I would never be induced again.


My first labor was 23 hours of living hell ;) Most of it was spent in hard labor. There were several complications. My blood pressure went way up, the baby monitor (the kind they stick to the baby's head) was malfunctioning, which scared the crap out of us for a little while. They had me getting into all these crazy positions and every time I would have a contraction we would lose the baby's heartbeat. But once they got the monitor on good everything was fine with the baby. But by that point I was begging for a c-section under the pretense of the issues with baby, but it was also due to the unbearable pain. I had the shot probably early on, and after a short while it had completely worn off. I sat in a warm bath, sat on the ball, and did all sorts of things to try to make things more bearable, but of course there is pretty much nothing that really helps much. I had been completely unprepared for how much it would really hurt. And I probably did one of the worst things - I tried to control that pain. If I would have been able to relax I'm sure that things probably would have progressed faster, but instead I fought it with everything I had.


I begged for the epidural when I was probably 4 or 5cm dilated. My husband and I fought about it. His first wife got an epidural with their baby and it slowed down the labor and she ended up in emergency C-section, so my husband was completely against my getting one. So under much duress I decided against it.


The next complication was when they couldn't get any urine out with a catheter. I think I was dangerously close to having my bladder burst. They kept putting the catheter in and taking it out... that was pretty awful...


Then came the biggest complication. A lip of my cervix was not dilating all the way. My Dr called in a bunch of other Dr's to check it out and see what they thought. This went on for at least a couple of hours if not more. That's when my Dr recommended an epidural. And luckily my husband agreed. They decided to go ahead and push that lip of my cervix over the baby's head. Thank God I had the epidural for that. (The same thing happened with Lazy Baby - luckily my Dr (different one) decided to just push that lip over right away, but this time I had no meds. Let me just say it was some wicked pain.)


Unfortunately the epidural slowed down my contractions too much and they had to give me some pitocin... and by that point I was pretty done and the epidural had already worn off - regardless I pushed for almost 2 hours before I said I just couldn't anymore.


That was when they tried the forceps. Oh my holy hell, I think that was the worst pain I have ever experienced. It was awful to say the least. The worst thing was that they couldn't seem to get a good grip and tried two or three times!

By this time there were at least 20 Doctors, interns, nurses etc...in the room. It was at a big University (teaching) hospital. It was the home of one of the big 10 football teams and this was all happening on the brink of the season opener game! So all the Dr's and nurses had to leave at different points to go move their cars. The stadium was right across the street from the hospital.

The forceps weren't working, so they tried the vacuum, which after a couple of tries worked and my first baby boy was finally out!

The best thing about labor is the relief you feel when it is finally over and your baby is there :)

It's really one of the most emotional and physical things that a woman goes through. At the end of it I was flooded with emotions. In a way I felt humiliated and felt like I didn't handle it very well. It was not at all what I expected.

But on the other hand, there was my beautiful baby. I had romanticized and idealised that moment forever. The one thing I never expected was that it would be so much better than I had imagined. I was so completely and totally in love with him from the moment saw him and held him in my arms. I wasn't prepared for how taken I would be with him.

Over the past 4 years I have found myself in moments looking at him, reminded of that moment, and still am completely taken with him. I couldn't have imagined anything better than what he was and still is. He's mine, and he's beautiful. He's one of my life's most miraculous accomplishments.

Little Man turned 4 yesterday!! It's hard to believe that 4 years have passed. It seems like just yesterday he was my little baby boy.