chapter 2 : delivery

the nurse said we were going to start pushing at 4pm and some women push for only 20 minutes while some push for well over 2 hours. i had to push for 3 intervals of 10 seconds with every contraction. due to the epidural, i really didn't feel like i was pushing very hard. however, the nurse and doctor said i was doing a good job so i guess i was pushing pretty hard. what i find amazing is that in between the contractions, the doctor and nurse was having a conversation about philosophies on vaccinations and people / parents who are against vaccinations. i was thinking...hello, shouldn't we be focused on me here? after an hour of pushing, we were informed that they were unsure of whether the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. because of this, they had to prepare to vacuum pull out the baby. they then called for more nurses into our room just in case there was going to be complications from the umbilical cord. s was great - counting for me at times when the nurse and doctor were preparing the table of equipment. i was actually surprised that s was so engaged and actually looked down at where the baby was coming out of! so after another half an hour of pushing, my dear sweet angel got suctioned out and s cut the umbilical cord!

so my experience of labor was somewhat different than what i had imagined. after watching all those episodes of baby story on tlc, i really thought i'd have this sweaty and emotional labor but it really wasn't. pushing wasn't that difficult and i certainly wasn't sweating. once i saw my sweet angel, i really thought i'd be overwhelmed with emotions and start crying but no such luck. i mean, don't get me wrong, it was definitely an amazing feeling of seeing this little being that has been growing inside of me for the last 9 months and the anticipation of meeting him but i just didn't cry.

we were in the labor room for another hour or so before we were finally transfered to our recovery room. i was still in minimal pain since the epidural hadn't worn off yet. once we settled into our recovery room, we ordered dinner since we hadn't eaten all day! we also decided to have aj in the nursery overnight. as much as i'd love to have our newborn in our room, we had been up since 2am so we knew it was best for us to try to get some sleep and utilize the help of the nurses while we were in the hospital. i was also starting to feel some pain so the nurses gave me a dosage of motrin. i decided not to take the vicodin because the pain was not that bad but did decide to keep the catheter in overnight as i didn't want to deal with having to get up to use the restroom.