Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Introductions

Well, it's been over a week since our little man entered the world and I really wanted to find the time to take and to write out our birth story before it get's any blurrier then it already has. So without further ado...

Our birth plan went completely out the window. Seriously, pretty much none of it went as anticipated or hoped for but when all is said and done I am still perfectly happy with our labor and delivery, even if it wasn't the textbook natural birth with the soft music in the background and serenity that I might of been planning on.

We went to the hospital Monday morning at about 5AM, we were running late and I think both of us were a bundle of nerves about what to anticipate that day. We arrived to labor and delivery to be admitted. Our first nurse was Christine, she was super nice, only problem was even after I warned her of my small rolling veins she insisted on taking a IV needle to my hand and dig around for about 10 minutes before going and getting another nurse with more experience. We ran into the same problem when it came to draw blood and it took 3 nurses to find a viable vein to draw from. They checked my dilation and I was 2 cm and 85-95% effancement. It wasn't until 7 that the pitocin was started at 2ml an hour, but 7 happened to be the nurse shift change so the 2ml was bumped to 4ml within maybe 5 minutes. This is where it got boring to me, waiting for contractions to start. I waited and waited and felt nothing, so in boredom I grabbed my makeup bag and proceeded to do my makeup and hair. Then I sat there texting away waiting to feel anything. The nurses would come in about every 15 - 30 minutes and ask if I felt anything and I would say no and then they would proceed to bump up the pitocin by 2ml. It was just before 9 when the nurse came in and suggested I roll over to my left side and the pitocin was pushed to 10ml an hour. Within minutes I felt my first labor contraction, the best way to explain it was just a really heavy menstrual cramp that came and went. by 9:15 I was having these heavy cramps were 2 minutes apart for about 47 seconds at a time. At first it really wasn't that bad. I held Mr. W's hand as they reached peaks and he would talk me through them. They had checked my dilation and I was at about 3 - 3 1/2 cm and had thinned out little. I hated the cervical check, it was worse then the contractions at that point. Within an hour my contractions went from heavy menstrual cramps to much being much more intense, I was still joking and talking in between contractions though and able to work through them as Mr. W counted down the last 10 seconds of each one for me. They would do cervical checks every hour, unfortunately TWICE because there was a nursing student there that had to do it as well. I went from 3cm to 5 cm in an hour, then 5cm to 8 - It was that time of the rapid increase of 5 to 8 that I started asking Mr. W if he would be disappointed in me if I used pain medication. I was gripping the rails and asking Mr. W not to touch me as politely as possible... I was just trying to work through it by myself in silence. The pain was excruciating but I was so committed in not using an epidural that I asked the nurse what other pain management I could use and they suggested demoral. I agreed to take the demoral to take the edge off and they brought a bag and connected it to my IV, one contraction in I realized I needed more then just the edge taken off and asked my husband for the epidural as the contraction was peaking, with my breathing I would take my big inhale and exhale the word 'epidural' to him. He called the nursing station and let them know I wanted the epidural, of course it was my luck that the anesthesiologist was about to head into a c-section and she was going to try to get to me before the surgery. Yeah, that didn't happen so they told me I had a good hour and a half that I had to get through before she would be available. At this point the dang small amount of demoral I had received had kicked in and I started falling asleep in between my contractions. They slowed the pitocin down significantly to ease the pain but at that point I was too far gone. I had another cervical check and I was at 9cm and the urge to push was vaguely starting to happen during each contraction. I didn't want to tell them because I was afraid that doing so would mean I couldn't get an epidural and I was sure I could resist the urge, but of course it was pretty evident where I was at in labor. I knew they were thinking i probably wouldn't be able to get the epidural come 1PM because I was 9cm and the anesthesiologist was still out, but thank GOD that close to 2 they said those magical words, she was here. They asked if I was able to stay still while they put the epidural in, sane Randi would have said no because these contractions felt like someone was ripping out my intestines, but desperate pain stricken Randi said I would figure out a way. I had 8 off the chart contractions while they were putting the epidural in I grasped on to Mr, W's hands and stared straight into his eyes to focus on remaining still - I still don't know how I did it considering my contractions were less then a minute apart and were one on top of the other. Once the epidural was in I felt about 10 more contractions before everything went numb from the waist down. From that point forward I would consider the rest of labor to be pretty pleasant. The two nurses and Mr. W coached me through about an hour of pushing and holding my legs up. The pushing was weird because I honestly didn't feel anything and I was never quite sure if I was pushing, I just kept focusing on pushing with my abdomen and from all the "Good Jobs!" and "You're doing great  each time I pushed I figure I did it somehow, at one point they said that I had birthed his hair, I was confused and then they had me reach down and feel the top of his head and all that hair - it was surreal to say the least. Then the OBGYN came and finished the job with some more instructing of pushing and a small episiotomy. When researching labor and delivery the thought of an episiotomy scared the hell out of me but looking back I know it was either going to be an episiotomy or a tear. It was shortly after that small incision that my little man came into the world. It was crazy to see my stomach deflate as the doctor pulled him out and there he was, I didn't expect to cry but the tears came flowing the second I put eyes on him, with a quick wipe down from the doctor's hands to the nurse in just a couple seconds my son was placed on my chest and I just stared in awe. I will never be able to accurately explain the feelings and emotions that swirled through me in that moment.

And then there were 3...


Introducing Raiden Jensen Williams, 
he came in to this world on March 25, 2013 at 4:01PM 
weighing 8lb 13oz and measuring 21 1/2 inches long.







Being treated for jaundice 2 days after being released from the hospital