Johnny Cash Doesn't Know $h!t About The Ring of Fire

Note: I started this post shortly after giving birth...however, I've been a little bit busier than usual between figuring out this whole mom thing, finishing law school and studying for the bar exam (more on all that later). So rather than deleting, reworking, etc. I'm just going to go with it - adding a sentence here or there whenever I find the time. Hoping to post before Addy graduates from high school...or at least college.

You might have heard by now that I'm a mommy!! Addison Grace Robben was born on Sunday, October 16 at 10:45 a.m. She was a healthy 8 lb. 6 oz and 20 in long. Colt and I are absolutely smitten with the little bug. She is a good sleeper, eats well, and exceeds the minimum number of poops as required by the multitude of medical professionals who care about that kind of stuff.

Now for the birth story... let me start by saying Addison will be a very happy ONLY CHILD. I honestly question the mental stability of those women who voluntarily choose to go through labor and delivery a second time. I don't even know what to say about those who do it a third. It must be a case of temporary insanity. I say this with love of course, since I'm the third child and wouldn't be here if it weren't for my mom's questionable mental state in 1983... Anyway, people keep telling me I will forget the pain. I keep waiting... I'm not too optimistic, since many of those same people also told me child birth was a beautiful thing. Let me tell you - there was NOTHING beautiful about it. An out-of-body experience, yes. It was as if I was looking down on myself, the victim of a bloody crime, making the most inhumane sounds, while Colt leaned over me with tears streaming down his face and telling me in his best big-boy voice that it was almost over.

My due date was Saturday, October 15. In the last few weeks of pregnancy, I was diagnosed with pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH), a really fancy term for high blood pressure. At my 39 week appointment, my doctor decided she didn't want my pregnancy to go on much longer. Although the baby was doing fine, I was at risk for preeclampsia and that risk only increased as time went on. Unfortunately, my body wasn't ready to have a baby and baby wasn't ready to come out. We had made zero progress toward dilation, effacement, etc. So I was scheduled for a cervix ripening procedure on Friday, October 14.

Shortly after checking in to labor and delivery Friday night, the "fun" began. As it turns out, the birthing center we chose was a teaching hospital. This means that instead of experienced doctors you get cute and young medical students and residents eager to poke and prod you. Without going in to too much detail, cervical exams were VERY uncomfortable for me. This was probably because of its uncooperative nature and unfavorable position (high and tight for those of you who speak the lingo). Unfortunately, cervical exams are a common occurrence for someone about to push a watermelon through a grape-sized opening. Each cervical exam was preceded with the attending physician asking if I would mind letting the resident perform the exam. Each time, clearly not learning my lesson from the previous exam, I agreed. And each time, as I squirmed and squealed, squeezing the crap out of Colt's hand, the resident backed out claiming they couldn't reach the cervix (see the high and tight comment above) and asked the attending to complete the exam. So this meant I got TWO cervical exams for each one. BOGO. Awesome.



The McDreamy on call Friday night, who claimed to have long fingers, administered the Cervidil (cervix ripening agent). We were told to get some rest - that I might feel some cramping but that it shouldn't be too bad and with any luck, I would be dilated to some degree in the morning. My OB/GYN came in early Saturday morning to check on progress (yep, another cervical exam!) and found that the Cervidil wasn't even touching my cervix....making it difficult to ripen. So much for those long fingers... She repositioned the device and within 30 minutes I was experiencing intense, painful contractions.

The next 24 hours are a blur, so I won't attempt a play by play. Here is what I do remember... the contractions seemed to be getting progressively stronger and more frequent throughout the morning. I rocked in the rocking chair, bounced on the birthing ball, laid on top of the birthing ball, swayed back and forth, walked the halls and soaked in the bathtub. Colt was with me every step of the way - truly the best labor coach I could have asked for. I had planned on getting the epidural all along, but wanted to wait as long as possible to avoid stalling the labor and any progress we had made. Unfortunately, even with several hours of excruciating contractions radiating through my lower back and abdomen, I had made very little progress. (Colt would remember better than I do, but I think I was only dilated to a 2 at this point.)

As we were walking the halls sometime in the early afternoon, I realized I was feeling much better. I was happy to have found the coping mechanism that worked best for my pain... the birthing ball only worked for a short time and the bathtub was awful (despite everybody telling me it would be the best thing ever). My happiness quickly faded when the nurse came and found us in the hall to see how I was feeling. "Great!" I responded. "Yeah, well that's because your contractions have stopped." I was wearing a portable monitor so that she could keep an eye on the baby and my contractions. Unfortunately, the contractions had fallen off the grid. This put us in a pickle. I had already begun active labor, so they weren't in favor of sending me home (nor did I want to go home without a baby) but my body had basically called it quits long before it was done doing its part of producing a baby.

Next came the word I had been dreading...pitocin. Ugh. For those of you not familiar, pitocin is a drug they administer to speed up the progress of labor. Unfortunately, it causes super intense contractions that come on quickly and progressively get worse. Ideally, pitocin should be coupled with an epidural. However, epidurals generally aren't given until you are dilated to a certain degree. Since I had barely dilated at all, the epidural wasn't an option yet. Instead, I was given a narcotic through my IV. It definitely helped with the pain, but it also knocked me out... for about 45 minutes. Once it wore off, the contractions came back with a vengeance. And still no dilation. So they gave me another dose of the narcotic...for another 45 minutes of oblivion. I figured I would just keep getting a narcotic boost until I was dilated enough for the epidural. That was until the nurse told me I was only allowed to have 3 doses of the narcotic. I had just gone through 2 in less than 2 hours. :(

Having only one narcotic dosage left in my arsenal, I decided to put my big girl panties on and deal with the pain...figuratively of course. Something I learned very quickly in this whole baby producing project is that modesty goes out the window. Not only were there no panties, I wasn't even afforded a gown that covered my entire body. I could choose to expose either my front, or my back. Neither seemed like a reasonable option to me, so I sacrificed my own nightgown and stubbornly kept it on until the very last minute (i.e. as long as the medical personnel would tolerate it). Not that a closing hospital gown would have helped protect my modesty anyway - the nurses, residents, and doctors barged in, pulled back my covers, lifted my nightgown and did what ever they darn well pleased. Every wince and cringe was met with, "Don't worry honey, we do this all the time. We've seen it all." That might be true. However, that doesn't mean I do this all the time nor have many seen my "all." Anyway, I digressed...I'm not sure exactly what time of day it was on Saturday when I learned that I had nearly used up my narcotic tokens, but I want to say it was mid-afternoon. The next several hours were a blur to me.

I was FINALLY granted the wish I had wished so earnestly for around midnight - the epidural!! The anesthesiologist came and as he was getting his magic cart set up, the night nurse was going through the rules with me. They went like this: "DO NOT MOVE." No problem, right? Um, did I mention I was having insanely intense contractions? About every 2 minutes? Radiating from my back to my abdomen to my groin? And the only way to cope was to writhe around in pain, while bitching and moaning about how much I hated being pregnant and was NEVER having sex EVER again? So the one rule standing between me and the epidural seemed an impossible feat. I think this was the second time that day I thought, "please just kill me." The first would have been during the bath, in case I didn't mention that already. I'll never look at a bathtub the same way again. I'm not sure how it happened, but the mission was accomplished. The anesthesiologist slipped the needle in between contractions and I was on my way to utopia... or so I thought. The nurse tucked me in and told me to get some rest - HaHaHa. In order to make sure the epidural was evenly distributed throughout my body, she would be coming in every half hour to rotate me from one side to the other. This is called modern medicine?!?! Right. So from midnight to 3 a.m., she came in every half hour to flip me like a burger on a charcoal grill. Even still, I was pretty happy. I couldn't feel the contractions any more and I thought in a few more hours the baby would just come sliding out. I could deal with being flipped from side to side while nature did its thing.

Turns out nature HATES me. The epidural worked for a whopping 3 hours. At 3 a.m. on the dot, I began feeling the contractions again. The nurse told me about the little magic button connected to the epidural machine that I could push every 15 minutes for an extra dose. I'm pretty sure this was a big fat lie, but my life passed by in precise 15 minute increments for the next hour and a half. I pushed the button with urgency at every 15 minute mark. The contractions were every bit as awful as they were pre-epidural, plus they were showing up in new locations. I now felt as though I was sitting on a butcher knife. Once I had finally convinced the night nurse that the epidural really wasn't working anymore, she agreed to check my progress. Lo and behold, I was nearly completely dilated. Problem was my cervix was still high. So the doctor came in and told me I needed to "labor down" for a while before trying to push. "What does that mean?" I asked, thinking I was going to get to try some cool new birthing method. No. It's just a stupid term for sitting there a while longer, in pain, waiting for the baby to drop. Oh joy.

The benefit of "laboring down" was that enough time passed and my nurse from the day before, Jennifer, came back on shift. She was awesome. The night nurse was nice enough, but she wasn't Jennifer. I was just about to start pushing when Jennifer arrived. During her check of my cervix, I winced in pain. She asked me why. I said because it hurt. She said I shouldn't be feeling anything - that's what the epidural was for. I said, "that's what I thought!!!" Knowing that I was about to start pushing, she quickly called the anesthesiologist to come check on things. I forgot to mention that the epidural machine malfunctioned sometime during the night. While I was trying to "rest," the machine started beeping obnoxiously. The anesthesiologist came in and switched the defective device out with a new one and assured me everything was fine. BS. Anyway, a different anesthesiologist came in when Jennifer called the next morning. He upped my dose, but said it might not take effect before I started pushing. It didn't. :(

Despite the horrendous pain I was in, pushing actually felt good. I don't know why, but it did. At least the first few times. Then I became exhausted. Absolutely exhausted and unable to go on. Jennifer and Colt were by my side encouraging me to keep pushing and I just wanted to pass out. I was hot and sweaty and tired and weepy and really starting to get pissed off. The baby's heart rate was dropping so there was some urgency in getting her out. But I felt like I had just climbed a mountain, in high heels, with a sumo wrestler on my back and a strong down current of gushing water working against me. Between an oxygen mask and washcloth on my forehead, my claustrophobia began to set in. I foresaw this happening and even warned people about it. I do not deal well with crap on and around my face/head. (The story now popularly known as "Victoria's visit to the dentist" will be featured in an upcoming blog.) I kept pulling the oxygen mask off, but Jennifer kept putting it back on. I would shove the washcloth to the side and Colt would reapply it. I was losing control quickly. Finally, the only solution was to rip off my gown and the blanket protecting my modesty. Everything I had done previously in a stubborn effort to keep my privates private was moot. I lay there as naked as the day I was born, dutifully pushing with each contraction hoping I'd stay awake long enough to meet my little girl.

A couple hours in and I wasn't really getting anywhere, so Jennifer went on break. She sent in some chipper, older nurse with a sappy sweet high-pitched voice. Naturally, I wanted to punch her in the face. She stood at the foot of the bed, "watching progress" and kept talking to me about silver dollars. "What the hell?!?," I thought. I wanted to scream, "shut up!!!!!" but that would have taken too much energy. Energy I didn't have. A few more minutes of her silver dollar nonsense and she was pushing the intercom button, calling for the doctor. Word came back that the doctor was in the middle of another delivery. So she tells me to stop pushing. Riiiiight. Like that was going to happen. I was finally making progress! So I kept pushing...even when I pretended like I wasn't. She claimed she wasn't a "baby nurse" and that she "didn't do babies," but hell if I cared. This baby was coming out and she would figure out what to do with it when it happened. I was in control now and I wasn't waiting for any doctor to wrap things up in the next room. If I wasn't so exhausted and preoccupied with my current task of HAVING A BABY, I would have laughed at her when she frantically made a second call for the doctor. Within seconds, Jennifer came running back in, along with several other nurses, doctors, residents, med students and random people in scrubs. Party time!

I have no idea how many pushes it took after the doctor got there, but it didn't seem like very long. All of a sudden, it felt like someone lit a match and...well, you know. Holy crap. We learned about the "ring of fire" in birthing class, but there is no way words can describe the feeling I experienced. Completely torturous, intense, burning, ripping pain. I remember screaming something about the failed epidural, but witnesses to the main event say I never swore. Can you believe it? I think that's amazing. I guess I had some subconscious wish for Addison's first moments outside the nice, cozy womb to be as peaceful as possible and me screaming profanities didn't fit in to that scenario. Anyway, within a couple of minutes (I guess - I completely lost track of time at this point), Addison was being lifted up on to my chest. She was absolutely, 100% perfect. And such a gorgeous baby. My previous fears of a slimy, gooey, gross, wiggly baby touching me melted away as she started to squeak and struggled to open her eyes under the bright lights. I glanced up at Colt and saw tears in his eyes - he might kill me for writing this, but it was soooo sweet and really helped bring me back to earth and the precious moment we were having (despite the crowd of 20, bright lights, blood soaked linens, etc.) We just had a baby!! We're a little family of 3 now!

The feeling of love was overwhelming, and it continues to be. I never thought I could love someone as much as I love my sweet baby girl. I would do anything for her and I can easily spend hours dreaming about her future. What is she going to look like? What will her voice sound like? Will she like to sing? Dance? Play sports? Will she love to shop as much as I do? Will she be afraid of spiders, like me? Or will she talk as much as her daddy? Will she love to swim as much as we both do? What will she be when she grows up? Likewise, I can spend hours thinking of all the ways I can screw this up. And mentally making checklists of the things I need to make sure to teach/show her.

Being a parent is unreal. Fortunately, my body is mostly back to normal. But my mind and heart will never be the same. I'm so excited for the future, yet trying to savor each moment of each day because she's already growing up too fast. She's 3 months old today!! And in case you're wondering, I still remember the pain and horror of labor and delivery as if it was yesterday. People keep telling me I will forget and pop out a second one in no time. They also claim the second one is "so much easier." Call me crazy, but my baby making days are over for the foreseeable future. Some people (Michelle Duggar) are cut out for that kind of stuff; I'm not. Plus, Addison and I have a LOT to accomplish before she hates me (I hear that's coming in the joyful teenage years).

P.S. I'm available for "the talk" if you have an unruly teen who needs a reality check about the glory of making babies. Thinking back, I wish I would have agreed to video tape the birth. I could have made billions showing it at high school assemblies. Unfortunately, I wasn't planning ahead. As a consolation, I will include "Part 2: The Repairs and a Not-So-Hot Mess," which I have consciously omitted from this blog.