LABOR OF LOVE

Ok, so I wanted to journal everything that I can remember about giving birth to Teegan before I forget. You can read this if you want but there will be some graphic moments. I was scheduled to go in at 10 pm on Saturday Aug 8th to get induced which I was not looking forward to because I knew there would be too much time to think. They called me on Saturday morning and asked if I could come in then. I was excited and thought the timing was better. We were saying that it would be our 8th kid on the 8th day of the 8th month. I immediatly got in the shower and what did Dustin do - finished cleaning the garage. Everyone who knows Dustin knows this is typical. On the way, Dustin made me commit to the name Teegan. When he was ready we went over to the hospital and got there at about 11:30 a.m. My first nurse was great. She was older and her name was Pam. She didn't really do anything to me until I had been there a couple hours and they put in needle for an IV and put in a little strip that had hormones on it and explained that they leave that in for 12 hours and then try something else if that doesn't jump start labor. She tried to tell me to keep an open mind about getting an epidural even though I said I was not getting one because of the risks and she said there are no risks - uh huh! My contractions were not painful but they were 5 minutes apart. I was dialated to a 3. At 7, I got a new nurse and saw the doctor once and she just basically said hi. I was walking around to try to get contractions to come on stronger. It didn't work. I asked my nurse to check me at 9 pm and she acted like I was psycho for wanted to know my progress. Keep in mind nobody had checked me since I was admitted. I wanted to get the ball rolling. At 3 am, after the strip had been in for 12 hours, they took it out and started giving me a pill. The pill is given in 4 doses every 4 hours. At 8 am, Dr. Giali (which I really like) came in and said they would start my group strep penicilin and then in 2 hours we could break my water. Well, after 3 hours, I decided I was patient enough and asked for the dr. This is when we were told there was an emergency c-section at the other hospital and the dr. needed to go to that and that I would have to wait. At this point, they started pitocin. They kept sending in random nurses to up my medication but nobody was checking me which didn't make any sense. After being at the hospital for a day with nobody doing anything, my mom, Dustin and I were pretty mad that I was always getting the short end of the stick. The 3 older kids kept texting us asking us about the baby. They sent in a nurse to deal with my concerns and she assured us that as soon as the dr got there we would break my water. At 4:30, the dr. broke my water and pretty much immediatly the hard contractions came. I was dialated to a 3.5 at that point (I think). I dealt with contractions for a while and then my sisters said that I could probably get nubaine if I wanted it. I told them to tell the nurse that I wanted it. (In the room was my Mom, Dustin, Tara, Melody, Toby and my Dad) This dr. prefers a different drug but they gave it to me and the room started spinning. In between contractions I was out of it. I would start to dream and say something and then stop because I realized I would sound crazy. All I remember is the nurse checked me and said I was at an 8. Sometime soon after that they could see the head and I started to push. I pushed for about 5 contractions, so maybe 15 minutes. I had a lot of encouragement and I was pushing my hardest. I was ready to be done after a day and a half in the hospital. Dustin and my mom were holding my legs and when I pushed the little guy out, my labia ripped because the cord was wrapped around his neck twice and his arm so he came out with his hand on his cheek. This grossed out Dustin because I saw some blood squirt and a little got on his shirt. The placenta wasn't coming out but I was still kind of out of it and looking at my little boy. The dr finally pulled it out and I was bleeding a lot. They opened me up to see if there was an internal tear and then sowed me up. Then, I swear the worst part was the nurse pushing very hard on my stomach and blood clots coming out. They were worried that my uterus was not gonna contract and just keep bleeding. They put an inducing pill up my butt to get it to contract and then gave me a shot in my leg. Meanwhile, the nurse kept pushing on my stomach. Teegan was getting cleaned up and my sisters were recording and taking pictures. I was so out of it but I knew that Teegan was cute and safe. Labor is definetly do-able without an epidural and I would do it again if I didn't already have 8 kids for the price of one.