The Day A Scar Was Born Part II

      Before I continue on with the story, I just wanted to log that Scarlett slept for 6 hours before sending the "FEED ME" signal for the last two nights.  4 weeks ago I would never have believed this was possible. I felt like so many other moms bragged about how great their babies slept through the night at such a young age, and sometimes our sleep habits made me feel like a sucker or a failure or a weird-o.  But now I see there is a light at the end of the sleepless tunnel.  Future self and other future mommies, you can do this!!!  Holy crap, I love my baby right now (and always, of course).

She often ends up naked after pooping on everything and cuddles with Dad.

I LOVE to watch her sleep. Glad no one watches me sleep.

IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL
       After we were lovingly sent home with frightening instructions to wait til it hurts a lot and for a long time, we decided to do what we do best: lounge on the couch and watch TV.  We recently discovered that an old academy-awarded TV series, Monk, was on Netflix.  We probably watched about 5 or 6 episodes until we decided we were hungry.  Contractions were still off and on at this point, but I didn't feel like wringing Brian's neck so we ignored them.
   We decided to go get pizza from Papa John's. When I was pregnant, "We decided" usually meant I got to choose what we eat, but since this could be Brian's second last meal before becoming a father we also went to Costco and got the big boy one of those big chicken bakes.  We like to celebrate happy times in our lives by going out to eat. We are little piggies.
   We dined inside the Papa John's slash gas station around 40th and Riverdale Road. Its actually quite fancy.  We watched some overweight pizza supervisor yell at his pizza minions because they were behind on orders, and we wondered out loud why he wasn't helping them make pizza instead of leaning on the counter watching football. We talked about us, and how this could be our last date without having to hire a babysitter. In the back of my mind, I still expected to be baby-less and home for a few more days. Low expectations never disappoint.
    When we filled out tummies, we drove home, watched Monk solve another murder, and decided to go on Walk #2.  It was about 8:00 PM, and the sun was close to setting.  It was sweet, walking with my love hand in hand, both excited to have a baby but happy to be just us for a minute. We hiked up 36th street and took a stretch around campus.  Happy contractions were coming back, teasing us with increasing regularity, but not much pain. A few of them stopped me in my tracks for a small minute, but mostly just because I wanted to feel it and convince myself it was real.  If only the rest of labor needed to convince me it was happening.
   When we got home, it was about 10:30 PM. It was probably the long walk that did me in.  I was starting to get pretty darn regular contractions, and they were starting to get quite ouch-y. This new phase was awesome and not awesome at the same time. We hopped in bed to see if sleep would happen;  for one of us it did. Laying down made contraction pain much worse.  The cramp-like onsets were pounding me every 3 to 4 minutes.  I think it was safe to say we could start our 3-hour climb to the hospital.  I tried and tried to sleep, but there was no sleeping through this, so I started to play on Facebook with Brian's new tablet, and of course started looking at pictures.  I'm obsessed with pictures, sometimes Brian mocks me for it. He woke up when I started looking at all the pictures of our dating and early marriage years (all two of them). And we cuties reminisced and smiled and laughed over them.  Its a rare thing for him to sit and look at zillions of pictures with me, so it was special and soothing.

How We Announced Baby Green. "I'm With Pregnant"

       Soon, that mushy time was over, and I started to pace around our front room.  Standing up made it seem easier to control the pain, so I'd just kinda take a deep breath and sighed and told myself "s'all good" when I got another contraction.  I was happy this was happening, but not letting myself get excited because I didn't want to go the hospital too early and be sent home again. I hopped in the shower, turned it to the hottest setting and just sat at the bottom like a dead seal.  Our apartment is not equipped with a bathtub. Note to self: it is not ideal to be pregnant and have no bathtub.  When the water was starting to get cold, I turned it off, got dressed, and prepared for war. I put my hair up, dressed in comfy clothes, and started pacing again.  Brian was awake again and we (he) starting timing contractions, I focused on not focusing on the pain.  

    It was about 1:30 AM on baby's due date Sunday 4/28 when we geared up and drove a mile and a half to the hospital.  When we entered the ER again they swooped us up to The Elevator, but not before we got to say hi to our friend Chancee.  Fun, we like that girl especially since she came on our trip to Las Vegas, and rode in the Vomit Van*.  When we checked in for the second time, they had room in triage, and it took me just a little less than FOREVER to get the hospital gown on the second time. They are tricky, what can I say?            *see Doing Spews post                                                           

  We got hooked up to the monitors and checked for dilation. The triage nurse complimented the intensity of my contractions and said the baby was doing great, but she said I was still only dilated to about 1 1/2 cm. Poo. She gave us the option to stay and walk around the unit for an hour or go home and wait out the contractions until they got worse.  Since we weren't exactly sure what worse was, we stayed and walked. The Triage nurse said 19 laps around the unit was equal to a mile.  One mile an hour? I'll take that challenge and raise you 3 laps.

   It was a long hour.  These contractions were hurting like a mother--maybe that's where the expression comes from--but I still tried to joke and laugh in between them...its my unhealthy way of dealing with stress.  I'd say this was the hardest test of physical endurance of my life, but the last 6 miles of running a full marathon was worse (I always have to say full marathon because Brian and I get slightly annoyed when people don't mention that the marathon they ran was actually a half marathon. Snobby, huh?). At least there was a small time to rest in between the intense pressure of each contraction.  These bad boys were stopping my gait and making me scream inside.  I was using some lamaze breathing to try to settle down and that seemed to work, but one of the nurses giggled at me and said, "Are you practicing your labor breaths?" I felt sheepish, and laughed it off; maybe I was doing it wrong.  But later Brian was like, "Uh, that was weird.  I believe you are in labor."  Its funny how sometimes that's all it takes for me to feel belittled, but I guess I was already in a vulnerable state, walking around in a blue tent in sock feet sucking on a Popsicle in the middle of the hospital floor.

Tired Smile. Proud that I figured out how to get that Blasted Gown on by myself.

    Back to triage we went. It was now 3 AM and I was still a 1 & 1/2 to a 2.  I think our nurse added a "two" in there to make me feel good. Ahhrrrg! All this work and no progress?!  I could hear nurses around me through the triage curtains saying, "you're a three...four...seven! Oh you're water broke! Let's get you in!"  I disliked those D.O.B.'s very much at that moment.  My nurse still liked my contractions (thank you) and the baby's heartbeat looked great, but they probably wouldn't keep me at just 2 cm.  Our nurse went to call "Swifty" Dr. Swift, and while we waited we knew we were getting sent home again.
   When she came back, my contractions were nearly unbearable and my whole body shook with pain.  I was not looking forward to the news, but she surprised us with: "Nope, Swifty wants you to stay.  He doesn't think its safe to send you home again.  We'll get your IV started and he'll come in later this morning and start you on pitocin."
     Woah.  Hello, Brian and Nat, you are having a baby today.