Happy Birthday!

I sit here tonight reminiscing about four years ago.  Four years ago, I was 39 weeks pregnant with my second baby and had a c-section scheduled for the next morning (10 am to be exact).  That afternoon, my parents had arrived in town to stay with my son, who was 3 1/2 at the time.  I was all showered and packed and ready to welcome our daughter.  It was all going according to plan.....until 3 am.  

But first, the back history.  I am not one of those women who enjoy being pregnant.  I ached, I complained, I gagged, and I gained a lot of weight.  And, with #2, I was even more exhausted since I was keeping up with the activities of my first child.  My first baby was born via c-section (scheduled) at 37 1/2 weeks.  He was breech and large.  Despite being 2 1/2 weeks early, he was a healthy 8 pounds 4 ounces.  So, the second time around, I opted for a repeat c-section, and assumed the delivery would be at around the same point.   Much to my absolute horror, my new practice said they would not deliver the baby until 39 weeks!  I balked.  That extra week and a half was going to kill me, I was sure.  Or worse, what if I went into labor before then!?  (Then you come in and we deliver the baby was the answer to that.)  However, my concern was that, with a scheduled c-section, I should not need to labor!

So, eventually, I was able to schedule my date for the c-section.  Wouldn't you know it, 39 weeks fell on a Monday.  I asked if we could do it on the Friday before since all of our family would be coming from NY and they could stay for the weekend before heading back to work.  A resounding, "No" was what I got.  Absolutely not before 39 weeks.  There was a chance the baby wouldn't be ready for the outside world before then.  Defeated, I scheduled it for the first day of the 39th week...Monday.

When I went for my last office visit on the Friday before D-day, I was getting really worried that I might go into labor.  I told them that I didn't think I was going to make it to Monday.  The doctor told me that I was sealed shut (TMI, I know), and she didn't foresee anything happening.  "But how will I even know what labor feels like if it starts?"  (Not having labored the first time around.)  She had the nerve to tell me that it's instinct....you just know.

So, fast forward to 3 am, the night before D-day.  I wake up.  My stomach hurts.  Wow, what a yucky feeling.  I get up, thinking I have to go to the bathroom.  My stomach feels crampy, but I feel like I need to make a #2 (again, TMI, I know).  I had been anemic this pregnancy, and had been taking iron pills, which led to some constipation.  I thought this was the problem, and tried to "go".  No luck.  Try to go back to bed.  Yucky feeling won't go away.  Turn on QVC.  Hmmm, cute Dorney & Bourke bags they're selling.  Need to go to the bathroom.  Go back in, push...nothing....just pee.  Go back to bed.  Hmm, another cute bag.  Back to bathroom.....damn, more pee, but I missed the toilet.  Think to myself I'm a sloppy, incontinent pregnant woman.  Sick of being pregnant, mutter, mutter.  This went on for quite some time.  My DH would occasionally wake up and ask if I was OK.  I told him I was just constipated and trying to "go".  After a couple of hours, I realized I was running to the bathroom trying to poo every 9 minutes, with no luck.  That's odd.  A pattern.  I woke DH to tell him of my need-to-poo pattern.  He wanted to know if I thought the baby was ok.  I told him the baby was fine, I felt like crap (literally).  By 6 am, he'd had enough of my every 5 minutes poo run.  He thought we should call the doctor.  I thought I could wait until we had to be in at our scheduled 8am prep time.  I ran to the bathroom to try one last time to push that poo out while he called the doctor... who said to come right away.  

When we got to the hospital, I refused to be dropped off at the door, and made him park the car and walk in with me.  I had to stop a number of times due to the pressure in my "lady parts".  Oh, and the crotch of my pants were soaked.  I'm not sure when in the last hour that it dawned on me what was going on, but at some point I did realize it wasn't poo.  My instincts, apparently took far too long to kick in though, and I didn't "just know".

We finally made it up to Labor & Delivery (third floor, mind you) and they checked me out.  I was 7 cm dilated, and did I know when my water had broken!  So I wasn't an incontinent, sloppy pregnant woman!  At this point I yell for drugs, because when you're not planning on laboring, you have no coping skills.  They can't give me any painkillers because they were were going to bring me right into the operating room for delivery, and they'll give me anesthesia there.  But, I got bumped.  Some laboring mom's baby's heart rate dropped, and she needed an emergency c-section....I'd have to wait my turn....without drugs.  I was so mad.  This was not how this birth was supposed to play out.  Finally, my turn.  I get the epidural, and relief.  Then, during the delivery, the doctor had the nerve to joke with me that, see, they got the day right, they were just off a little on the time.  Not funny.  

DD made her debut at 8:15 am, on the day that we, and nature, had picked for her to be born....at a whopping 9 pounds 13 ounces.  She's going to be 4 tomorrow.  And because her fiasco of a birth still seems like yesterday to me, my childbirthing days are so very over.  :)