Friday, October 11, 2013

Zhenna Lee Williams is born <3


Birth story: I had been in early labor since Saturday, October 5th at around 8pm at night when the hospital sent me home and tried giving me a shot of morphine and ambien (glad I declined otherwise this story would have not ended the same).

2:30am
I woke up Monday, October 7th early morning and I was groaning and rolling around on... 

6:00am 
I get in the tub because it was so intense, I look down and five huge blood clots float by, I get out of the tub and I'm panicking (Zach was awoke by me yelling) he tells me to call the doctor, he didn't want to go back to the hospital over a little blood. So to prove to the hospital they should care, I put on one of the adult diapers. (Good thing for my carpet...)

7:10am
I wait for the on call doctor to call me back, I tell him contractions are two minutes or less apart, but with the low lying placenta I'm worried because I'm bleeding like a period. He suggests to go to the hospital or his office. Zach and I discuss going to the hospital, me missing work, all to be sent home again.  Zach proceeds to take the dogs outside and within 5 minutes everything went from tolerable to intolerable fast.

7:14am 
I tell Zach that he needs drive me to the college so I can direct my students for my 9am class. He says to me, "you are yelling... How are you going to teach a class? We are going to the hospital, try calling Sally to come get Nina."

7:15am
I call my friend, Sally, she answers with "are you in labor? I haven't slept all night and I've been dreaming about you in labor, at one point I delivered the baby?!?!" I'm having trouble formulating sentences (without yelling at this point) so I say I'm bleeding, so yes I'm going to the hospital.
I wasn't off the phone 3 seconds and I have this massive contraction (I'm screaming bloody murder, takes me from standing to my knees and it’s followed by two coughs while simultaneously two gushes)... My water had broke… labor was already going on very fast now.

7:25am 
Zach comes in and I'm screaming "we need to go my waters gone... It wasn’t a little either, it was a huge gush of water and blood. If we aren't at the hospital ASAP you will be delivering a baby in the car." (Thankful for that diaper.) So he's on the move, we make it outside Sally arrives running into the house and we go. 
 
7:27am
Frankly the 20-min drive felt like eternity... I was screaming bloody murder the whole way. Zach keeps telling me to breathe. (He did like 100 the whole way, shared that after... Even commented I knew you weren't cohesive or you would have been pissed. But I did not want that baby coming out in the car.)

Arrive at the hospital 
7:38am
So they force me into this dinky children's wheelchair (no adult size?) and are wheeling me up stat. I'm screaming the whole way and Zach says to the nurse, "yeah you want to take the short cut... She isn't a screamer, normally..." By this point my legs are buckling and I'm crying for an epidural.

7:40am 
Nurse says she has to check my cervix and I'm still demanding an epidural... Nurse says I'm 9cm and she says the epidural specialist is in an ER c-section ... So there’s no I'm almost done anyway. I was so mad. They run to call my midwife.

8:15am
I'm screaming I want an epidural, my midwife rushes in and checks me "girl you are already at 10cm you are having a baby there is NO time... YOU can do this!" 

8:45am
She's saying it’s time to push, you can do this and I'm still screaming I can't do this. I hesitated twice but finally in a chanting fury I gave everything I had and she says, ok her head is right there... One big one you got this...

9:02am 
Zhenna Lee Williams was born at 9:02am on 10/7/13... The midwife let us do delayed cord clamping (hooray!) 
 
Unfortunately, I lost about 1/2+ liter of blood. Zach said it was messy; my prior doctor would have sectioned me for sure. 

She was born weighing 5lbs 15oz, 19 1/2 inches, she's beautiful.  I will say I would have never thought I was strong enough to do it without medicine.  We are elated with our family of four. J