Once I had my epidural around 7 I felt like a new woman. I'd pulled more muscles over the preceding few days down between my hips, so I was blissed out when the epidural dulled or removed the pain of that plus the ache in my sides from carrying our gigantic bun, plus the contractions. Renewed, I started to really feel excited by the fact that I was finally in labor (and with the epidural and sweet nurses hovering around I finally felt like I could do it--it was a long last month of pregnancy). By 10 I had had my water broken, watched some TV (an old episode of Psych on Netflix on my laptop) while Steve studied for his kidney test (scheduled for Friday, postponed for him because of this very event), taken a nap (Steve took one, too), and was dilated to a 5. Steve ran his errands and was back in about an hour, and luckily no baby was born (to me at least) while he was out.
Steve kept me well stocked in cold compresses to stay as comfy as possible.
My contractions started to get worse. I followed the nurse's directions and kept switching sides or sitting up to get gravity to move the medication to the side or place that hurt the worst. Rolling over was so much better with an epidural. :) At noon the nurse came in to check me again and lo and behold, I had magically jumped from a 5 to a 9! Steve got a little antsy then, both thinking he could come at any moment!!! But he was in no rush. Steve got some more studying done. I don't remember what I did, besides resting and switching sides, drinking water until I was forced onto ice chips, and waiting.
At some point--I don't remember at all when--the nurse asked us which baby this was for us, and when we responded, asked how long it had taken to push with Grace. When we told her (an hour and fifteen minutes), she told us it would probably take 1 to 10 minutes to push Charlie out. We both kind of dismissed this, thinking she must have meant 10 minutes less than Gracie--no one told us how fast second babies can come!
Posing with our cute nurse just before pushing time.
At 3:30 in the afternoon I was finally dilated to a ten and though I wasn't feeling that I needed to yet, the nurse was ready to have me push. But there was a problem--the doctor on call from our practice was at his office instead of at the hospital.
A side note about this doctor... The practice we went to has about ten different doctors, and any one of them could be on call to deliver your baby, so I made sure to see all of them. I liked every one--except the one on call the afternoon Charlie was born. In fact, I had joked with Steve for most of the pregnancy that he would probably be the one to deliver simply because I so didn't want him to. Though I was pretty sure he was a competent doctor, his bedside manner thus far had been lacking--at all our appointments he always seemed kind of spacey, like he wasn't listening to a word I said and was off in some other world. So when I heard he was on call when we were ready to deliver... Well... And then when he had left the hospital when I was ready to push... Well... Let's just say I wasn't overly enthused about him. And, as you will notice in the rest of the story, Heavenly Father took this opportunity to completely humble me.
A little after four our doctor finally made it up to our room. By then I was dying to push, and after adjusting my position, I finally got to. I pushed as hard as I could, breath held and following instructions, for two minutes. Four contractions, and Charlie's head was all the way out. I couldn't believe it. They told me to stop pushing, and I did. Here is where the cool-headed, overly focused doctor became apparent as a miraculous blessing.
While I lay calmly unaware of what was going on, he was battling the clock to get Charlie's shoulders out. I had no idea he was stuck or that anything was at all amiss until the doctor asked the nurse, "How long has it been?" That was the only thing that tipped me off that something was wrong, but my doctor still seemed so unshaken and unconcerned that I felt the same way--I had total faith that everything would be just fine.
One of the nurses got up on the bed beside me and pressed down on my stomach while the doctor maneuvered Charlie's arms and shoulders for 6 more minutes. And then at 4:22pm, he was born. He didn't make any noise right away, so they rushed him right over to the warming bed and rubbed him and cleared his lungs. That was the first time I felt panic, but after a few minutes (which may only have been seconds in real time) we finally heard his cry.
Charlie is born!
Then they let me hold him--he was so beautiful. I really thought he was one of the most beautiful newborns I had ever seen. Steve held him, too, and then, because they were concerned about his shoulder, which wasn't moving quite right after his crazy delivery, they took him down to the nursery for observation, and we were left alone in the delivery room to recover.
I had lost a lot of blood, and was worn out from no food and everything else that had gone on in the last 16 hours, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I threw up one last time after they had taken Charlie away, and then minutes later I couldn't remember if I had thrown up or not. My whole body was shaking, and kept shaking for almost an hour. Poor Steve was worried and I kept trying to stay awake for him but couldn't stop from dropping into sleep every few minutes. I slept while Steve made calls to the family to let them know we were parents again and everything and everyone was okay. Then at 6:30 they took me up to our new room, and Steve stopped off to check on Charlie at the nursery on his way to pick up Gracie. A little while later our sweet Charlie got to come up to my room, too.
Steve returned, bringing Gracie and Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwiches from Panera (yum), which we munched while Gracie drank my apple juice and inspected baby brother. Officially a family of four. ♥
