Madison's Delivery... Not to be lost

I just realized I didn't have this on my blog, but don't want to ever forget it... so I'm putting it in here... 

Hello all! So many of you have asked how the whole delivery went and what happened, since I was 15 days early... so I figured, the best way to share our story is by blog. I'll warn you, I'm not going to leave out any details, so get ready!!

Ok... it started, I think Wednesday evening when Ryan went Jammin with his dad and cousin, I was debating going to the gym or not ( I hadn't gone that morning and was feeling guilty)... So I texted Michelle asking if she was going, and I'm very glad she encouraged me to go with her! We went to the gym and walked on the treadmill for a while, and although I didn't say anything, my back was hurting a good amount as I was walking. I thought it a bit strange, but wanted my workout in, so I kept walking. We didn't get to do weights because the gym was closing, so after our walk, I came home and took a nice hot shower. After Ryan came home, we went to bed around 11 ish... and at 1:45am I woke up to go to the bathroom... a pretty usual occurance this late in my pregnancy. I realized that something wasn't right, I had either broken into a pretty intense sweat or my water might have broken.
After going to the bathroom, I realized that there was some pink visable in the toilet... knowing that I don't usually pee pink pee, I realized something might be going on. I went out to the living room, grabbed my What to Expect Book and looked up "How to know if your Water Breaks"... basically it told me if I thought there was some blood to call the doctor.
So, I grabbed my cell phone and called my doctor's office. However, no one picked up. Not even an answering service. Wondering what the heck to do now, I thought that I might have a different number than their main number, so I googled my office and found the same number. I tried again, and this time, thank goodness, the answering service picked up. I told the poor woman who just wanted my name and date of birth everything that I was thinking and nervous about... and she told me the that the on-call doctor would call me back. As I was spilling my guts to the answering woman, Ryan woke up and called out to me. I went into the bedroom and explained what was going on, and jumped back into bed with my cell phone... (ok, I didn't jump, I couldn't have jumped if you paid me... I waddled my ass back into bed groaning the entire time!)
A few minutes later my phone rang and the on-call doctor listened to what I had gone through and said, "Ok, you know where Morton Hospital is, why don't you head here and we'll check you out to see what's going on." I asked him, "ok, should I rush?" and he said "No, no need to rush, take your time and we'll see you when you get here."
So Ryan and I got up, and we decided that even though this was probably a false alarm, we'd bring our bags. So we finished packing the bags, grabbed the GPS (because neither of us could remember how to get to the hospital despite our 4 previous trips!) and headed out the door. The whole way to the hospital, I kept saying, you don't have to go to work tomorrow on 3 hours of sleep, sorry if this is nothing... etc. about it not being the real thing.

We left our bags in the car, knowing we'd be headed home in about an hour and went in to admitting. The on-call dr. had let them know we were coming, so our check-in process was very quick and smooth.
Once we got to the labor and delivery unit, two nurses (Janet and Debbie) met us and were so sweet! They explained everything they were doing and calmed us down!
They hooked me up to a fetal monitor (monitoring the baby's heartbeat) and a uterine monitor (measuring for contractions.) They they did a "dipstick test" to see if my water had actually broken. The test was basically inconclusive, the second line that was supposed to show if the water had broken was very faint and they just couldn't tell. So, they called the doctor and he came up and said that he needed to examine me in order to tell. This was at about 3:45am now.
This exam was traumatic, maybe more for Ryan than for me! Metal clamps??! Really, you can't tell me that there is no better way to check a woman's insides than metal clamps!! But, thats what happened... So he checked, and said, "Hmm... I'm not so sure your water broke. And your cervix is closed tight. Oh wait, I think I see hair." Then he stopped the exam checked again, and said, "I need to do another exam just to check." Great, I thought, two for the price of one! Hello again, metal clamps!
"Yes, that is baby's hair..." (he was Indian, I'm bad with accents, forgive me!)
The nurses then took over.
"Ok, your water broke, you're here for good. We'll probably start potocin in a bit to get you contracting. Lets get you back on a monitor."
If you're wondering what the baby's hair has to do with my water breaking, so did we, so I asked.
Janet explained that my cervix was closed, so they couldn't really see much, but that if the baby's hair had been pushed through the cervix than something, the fluid, had done that pushing... so it was still attached to her head, but it had been pushed through!
So, they hooked me back up to the monitor and said, "Oh, you're having contractions."
And, I thought, "this is great, if I'm having contractions and can't even feel them, this is going to be so easy!!" HAHAHAHA so wrong!!
At that point my contractions were about 5-8 minutes apart, and I couldn't feel them so much.
They moved us from a "Labor room" to a "Labor and Delivery Room"... and we just hung out watching Saved By the Bell episodes for a few hours. At about 7:30am, I sent Ryan to get himself some breakfast.
At about 8:30am, I could definitely feel all the contractions and they were about 4 minutes apart, so the nurse checked me and I was 3cm. dialted and 90% effaced. They came in and took some blood and put an IV in. If you know me, you know that I have a very bad history with IV's (including veins that collapsed and episodes of passing out when just seeing someone with an IV) so this was almost the worst part for me. They tried 3 times to find a good vein, bruising 2 in the process, and finally got it in. Well, as always, I felt like I was going to pass out, so they had me breathing slowly, drinking water, and trying to calm myself down. It worked, and I prayed the feeling away!
We decided we'd call our parents and Becky and just let them know what was going on, but not to head to the hospital until we had the baby (we wanted time to spend with our new one, without worrying about people waiting for us.)
We walked the hall outside the labor and delivery unit for about an hour until my contractions were getting too much to stand up.
Ryan reminded me now, that I was peeing every few minutes at this point. (I forgot!)
We went back into the LDR room, and they checked me again, this was at about 10 or 10:30 am. At that point, I was 8.5 cm dialated! We were pretty happy that we had gone 5.5 cm in just two hours! However, with that came wicked strong contractions. So, the new nurse, Darlene (I kept calling her Dolores by mistake!) got me a yoga ball to sit on and breathe out the contractions. Which, if you want advice, I strongly suggest the birthing ball, it was great!! I sat on that on the end of the bed and Ryan massaged my back through each contraction, which were about 2 minutes apart at this point and really getting stronger.
They offered me an epidural and some pain meds, but I was determined to do this o-naturale! I had a hard enough time with the IV, the epidural itself made me want to pass out, just the name!! So I declined all drugs! I was even pissed that I was getting fluid through the IV, I told them if they took it out I'd drink all the water they wanted me to, but that didn't work!
So... at one point, maybe about 11am, I really had to go to the bathroom, but the nurse said, "let me just check you before you do that, you may be more dialated than we think and it might not be that you have to go to the bathroom."
So, she did, and she said, "Yeah, you don't have to go to the bathroom, you're fully dialated, and you're ready to push!"
Ok, in all the movies, the women are so happy to be ready to push and so set to push the baby out... not in this movie! I was scared shitless and didn't know how to push...
It took a few tries to get the hang of pushing.. well, I don't know that I really got the hang of it... I know that it killed!!
Ryan was awesome! I can't even put into words how much his support meant to me and got me through the whole ordeal, especially without drugs!
From telling me how proud of me he was, to rubbing my face and head with ice cubes and giving me water after every contraction, to telling me to keep pushing when I just seriously wanted to give up...and praying outloud with me for the pain to ease and the birth to come quickly... he's seriously the most amazing husband I could have ever asked for. Not that I didn't know that already, but a situation like this completely reminds you how lucky you are!
Finally, I gave it my all, pushed until I saw stars (literally) and honestly thought I was killing myself, and out the baby came!!
From watching the movies and A Baby Story, I had expected it when they told me to stop pushing for a minute and just pant, but this was a lot different when they said that... But I did, I panted like crazy and then pushed when they said to, and she was completely out... (see below for how this is relavent!)
Ryan was crying, I was crying and in awe to the point where i couldn't really comprehend, but I heard the nurse say, "its a girl" and totally perked up!!! A GIRL!!! I so badly wanted a girl!!!

They put her on my chest and I instantly fell in love... I know, it sounds cheezy, but its so true. Then, I got to shower!!! While the nurse was helping me shower, I heard Ryan on the phone and I heard him say, "oh yeah, I don't know why, they didn't even ask me if I wanted to cut it."
So I asked the nurse, how come Ryan didn't cut the cord.
Darlene told me that the cord was wrapped very tightly around her neck that the dr. had to cut it from the neck, he couldn't even unwrap her!! There was no time to ask Ryan to cut it.
I was so glad they didnt' tell us that, he just told me to pant and not push, so he could cut it and clamp it. We would have freaked if we thought there was something wrong.

The parts they don't tell you is the after birth process. I mean, the birthing instructor went over it, saying, after you deliver the baby, they want your uterus to contract, so they'll push on it and give you some potocin to contract it... but they POUNDED on my stomach to get it to contract... well, the problem is that I was bleeding too much and they were afraid I was hemoraging, so they had to work quickly to get it to contract.

Either way, they got it to do what it was supposed to and they were just monitoring me for a few hours afterwards... I was too focused on Madison to even really care, other than the fact that I was really pale!

After about an hour or 2, my parents showed up with roses and tears! They moved us to the Maternity ward and we were in our room by 3pm. They made me eat some lunch before I could do much, but I just wasn't hungry, I wanted to be with my girl!

And, I think the rest is probably boring to you all... like my battle with breast feeding that I'm still waging! The size c/d boobs are great but the pain of engorgement is soooo much that it's not worth the looks!! Hahaha... seriously though, the recovery for a birth is so much more than I thought it would be! if you know other recovering moms... be good to them, they're in a lot of pain!!

Well, I think that's the gyst of my experience... and I wouldn't trade one piece of it for the world! My next child will be a drug free birth too, I now know I can do it!