This is something that would have been a LOT easier to type out weeks ago.  At least in terms of memory.  As far as time, it would have been pretty much impossible.  So I begin typing this now, as my daughter is nearing 9 weeks old.  Some parts of my memory are hazy, but, in a lot of ways, the experience was a blur anyway.  Since my memories are a little bit unorganized, I’ll probably wait a few days to actually post this so I can add to it as more pops into my head. [Finished now that she’s almost 10 weeks old.]

OK here comes a novel.

On February 22nd, I went for my 39 week OB appointment.  It was the usual stuff.  It was the first time MY doctor checked my cervix, and geez it hurt.  I was sort of embarrassed because I wanted to be all tough about it.  But I couldn’t keep from crawling up the table.  I did notice some things that were different about it, other than just being even more uncomfortable, but I didn’t think that much of it.  I don’t even remember how dilated I was.  It was a little more than prior, maybe 2.5 cm?  Not sure.  My doctor told me that she would be on call again over the weekend, so that would be a good time to have a baby.  I told her I’d have a conversation with the baby and we’d see what we could do.  My doctor was like, let me know if you figure out a way to make that actually work. 🙂

Later that evening, my doula stopped by to drop off her birthing ball.  She asked me then if I felt like I was in labor.  I remember thinking…noo….

Even though I didn’t sleep well the night before, I stayed up entirely too late that night.  I think I went to bed around 12:30 am, maybe a little before.  I really felt like that baby was going to wait a while longer, so whatever.  I woke up at 2:30 am feeling slightly crampy, but that had happened many times before, so I didn’t think anything of it.  I had to pee, so I got up to pee and went back to bed.  This time, I could NOT get back to sleep.  An hour went by, and I think I was somewhat aware of becoming more uncomfortable, but I was pretty groggy.  By 3:30, I was REALLY uncomfortable, so I decided to get up, move around, pull some things together, and decide if this was really labor.

I didn’t take long at all in deciding that this was definitely labor.  Or probably definitely labor, haha.  If I had been having contractions before, they weren’t really recognizable as contractions until right before I got out of bed or maybe shortly thereafter.  They didn’t start the way I expected they would.  My pregnancy had been like the textbook easy pregnancy, so I figured I’d have infrequent contractions first and then they would gradually get longer and stronger and closer together, then I’d go to the hospital when I met the 511 rule (contractions every 5 minutes, lasting for a minute, for an hour).  I was pretty sure these contractions were closer together than every 5 minutes.  I had saved a link to a website that times contractions, so I tried using that.  They were already 2-3 minutes apart, but they were relatively short, maybe 20 to 40 seconds?  I didn’t know what to think since my body wasn’t playing by the rules.

When I got up, Pete had asked me if I wanted him to get up with me, and I told him to stay in bed until I figured out for sure what was going on. A few minutes later, he was getting up anyway because it was pretty that apparent that something was going on. We worked on finishing packing (toiletries and last-minute items) and getting dressed and ready for the hospital. I took a while though because every 2-3 minutes I was leaned over on the couch, on the birthing ball, or on my hands and knees working through a contraction.  I had heard from a number of moms that contractions feel like reeaaallllly bad period cramps or reeaallllly bad poop cramps.  For me, it didn’t feel like either.  It was definitely its own feeling.  I don’t know what I could possibly compare it to.  It just felt like labor!  Around this time, I was already thinking I might end up having an epidural after all….  I think I would have been a lot calmer if I had more of my stuff together so I could focus more on laboring and less on gotta do this, gotta do that.

Since I’m too vain, I was also attempting to put my makeup on in between contractions.  Haha, that was a challenge.  Especially the eyeliner. =P  But hey, if I’m going be having a baby, that means that there will be pictures after.  Can’t lose sight of that. 😉

While I was packing or putting makeup on or whatever I felt I needed to be doing, Pete called the doula.  She asked if we wanted her to meet us at home or at the hospital. I said home, but a few minutes later I said nevermind I need to get to the hospital, so Pete called her back. =)

I regret not getting one last prego picture before leaving for the hospital.  It’s something I had planned to do (especially since, toward the end, I had procrastinated taking belly pics).  However, since it all started happening faster than I had expected or mentally prepared for, it wasn’t really at the top of my to-do list.  And I certainly didn’t feel like taking a picture by the time we were AT the hospital.

The car ride was hard because there’s no real way to try to get more comfortable.  I was trying to eat a little (a frozen microwave breakfast quesadilla thing …portable and it had protein…and it’s what we had) since I knew my diet would be ice chips for a while, but I just didn’t have an appetite.  We got to triage around 5:00 am.  Getting a triage room felt like it took forever because the contractions were getting more intense, and they were still 2-3 minutes apart.  Also, not surprisingly, it is HARD to fill out paperwork when you’re in labor!  Thank God I had pre-registered!  I was definitely questioning my ability to go without the epidural at this point because I knew I had a long way to go and it was getting much tougher getting through them.

My doula, Julie, arrived shortly after we got a room in triage.  Funny side-story before I get too entrenched in talking about labor: Julie is only about 3 years older than me.  And she’s one of those people who always looks good, even in comfy clothes.  But the old lady who goes around confirming your insurance information thought she was the grandma to be!  I was like…wait, what???  That lady obviously needed an eye exam. 😉  That story got all around that day.  The nurses really got a big kick out of it.

Anyway.  That morning was definitely the longest it ever took me to pee in a cup.  But finally I had my sample, I was in my hospital gown, and I made  it onto the table.  The triage nurse checked my cervix, and she said I was 3.5 cm dilated…I was like, you must be kidding me.  So I stayed a while longer while Julie and Pete helped me try to relax through the contractions.  I think it was an hour later when the nurse checked me again…STILL 3.5 cm.  She said she wasn’t going to report to the doctor on call yet because, by the way I was acting, she felt like I was really in labor.  But, if she reported to the doctor then, protocol would be to send me home because I wasn’t 4 cm.  I was thinking, if you send me home like this, I will just hang out in the lobby of the West Pavilion for a while then come right back.  Anyway, the nurse said she’d check me again before her shift was over (in a little less than an hour).  Julie thought I probably had changed, but the triage nurse was holding out so she could be the hero when she checked me again (or something like that).  She seemed pretty put out by it, and she took note of the nurse’s name.  But part of me wondered if Julie just wanted to make me feel better about not progressing in that hour. =)   During this time, I was having a really hard time relaxing and, though I was getting more excited, I still wasn’t feeling very confident.  At any rate, when I was checked again, I was 5 cm, so I was finally admitted and given a room in L&D.

First they had me use the restroom.  Then I got on the bed/table and got my IV.  I was surprised to get it in my wrist, but I guess that makes more sense for those circumstances.  Once I got settled into my room, I think I felt more at ease knowing things were finally moving along and I could finally settle in, make myself at home for a while, and do whatever I needed to do to handle the contractions better.  I think I remember thinking, wow, I am going to have my baby HERE!  Julie set out a fake candle to use as a focal point and a Bible verse I had printed and framed (2 Timothy 1:7 – For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind).

Being a little more relaxed, I started handling contractions a lot better.  In the background, we listened to a relaxing praise and worship mix CD that I had burned for this event.  (Side note: I really like all the music on that CD, but I haven’t cared to listen to it since!)  My hope was that it would be relaxing background music that would help me stay focused and help me remember to pray.  Maybe it helped a little, and I’m glad I had it, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to it.  I only ended up wanting it loud enough to hear something…seldom did I want it loud enough to really hear the words or even much of the melody.  But it was nice.

When my OB came in to see me, she told me she had swept my membranes at my appointment the day before.  NO WONDER I was crawling up that table when she checked my cervix.  I think I was in good enough spirits to laugh about that.  Part of me was a little annoyed that she did it without telling me what she was doing, but I didn’t really care.  She probably does it that way to keep us from playing mind games with ourselves or getting too disappointed if it doesn’t work.  I didn’t really care…though I would have made a point to go to bed earlier…just in case!  But one thing is for sure…if she tries that again next time, I’ll know what she has done!

I had no sense of time…it was a few hours later before I discovered the clock on the wall (was curious too if Julie blocked it deliberately or if she just happened to be right in my line of sight).  But at some point, my doctor came in and said they were going to break my water.  I asked if we had to do it then.  I remembered talking with Julie at one of our meetings about how it’s good to ask questions about why things were being done in order to understand more and make more educated decisions on whether or not I really want to proceed that way.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to leap right into a super medically augmented labor, not that just having one’s water broken is really a big deal.  But I liked the idea of giving my body a little more of a chance to see if it would break on its own, and I was nervous that labor would get more intense much more quickly.  (I had also heard that it hurt a lot, and I said something about that…which immediately made me feel silly since there I was attempting a medication-free labor and delivery, and I was worried if it would hurt to have my water broken.)  I was told that it didn’t hurt, and I should do it if I want her to be the one to deliver the baby (as opposed to whoever was on call after the business day was over).  I really did want my doctor to be the one to deliver her, if possible, so I agreed to let them do it.  It didn’t hurt at all.  It was a really strange feeling though, all that warm fluid gushing out at once.

The contractions did become more intense, but I didn’t remember it happening terribly suddenly.  I was surprised that some of the things I really wanted the freedom to do–use the birthing ball or peanut, walk around, etc.–I didn’t care about doing any of those things at all.  I didn’t really even care about position changes, though they may have helped.  I just laid there on my back until some time later when I turned over on my side.  The thing that helped the most was when Julie applied pressure to my forehead.  There were other counter-pressure things Julie could do, among other things, but the forehead/face thing was best for me.  I didn’t care about food like I thought I might.  But I tore through those oh-so-delicious ice chips.

I’m not sure how much time passed…I still hadn’t discovered the wall clock…but it didn’t seem long before they checked my cervix again and I was already 8 cm!  At this point, I was asked about the epidural.  (It wasn’t inappropriate for them to ask…I had expressed my waning confidence when I was in triage.)  But since I was handling the contractions better, and I had gotten to 8 cm seemingly quickly, I declined.  Part of me wanted it, but I still really wanted to avoid it, too, and I felt like I might just be able to do it.  (I was also holding out hope that I would progress to 10 at the same rate I had gotten to 8, but no such luck ;))  Plus, I had learned in childbirth class that the “ideal” time to have the epidural was between 4 and 7 cm, so I thought it might be too late.  I was also still concerned about it making me too numb to push effectively, and I feared that getting it late-ish might make that even worse.

I labored naturally for a good while.  I think I handled it pretty well for a while, too.  The only medicine I got was something for some wicked heartburn I was having.  After a while, though, when the contractions were getting more intense, I started second-guessing my decision about the epidural.  I wasn’t prepared to ask for it though.  I kept hanging in there, but my confidence was waning as I was checked at least a couple more times and I was still at 8.  Somewhere deep down, the rational part of me knew that 8 was just a number.  My body was still getting ready to deliver a baby.  But even knowing that, I was still frustrated and a little discouraged.

The contractions continued to get more intense, often with no break between them at all.  Just as one was beginning to fade, it ramped right back up again.  I wasn’t even in transition yet…I think if I knew the time for pushing was near, I would have been encouraged.  But there was no evidence of any progress despite the intensity and duration.  Around this time, I think I sounded something like a moose being tortured.  Not loud, but definitely not silent.  I was pretty annoyed that I was making sounds, but not annoyed enough to do anything about it.  I even said something at the time about how I didn’t want to make any sounds (it’s something I had thought of ahead of time, haha), but it felt better to do it.  I must have been at least a little embarrassed about it though because I wasn’t doing much talking at this point and yet I managed to get out a full sentence about it.

Something that I didn’t get around to saying is how, when the contractions were at their most painful and most constant, the feeling of bearing down was very intense.  To the point that I was having to make a concerted effort to not push…since that would have been a very bad idea at only 8 cm.  It made it more difficult to relax, not that I was very good at relaxing at this point anyway.  I felt like I needed to relax for labor to progress, but I also felt like I couldn’t relax while avoiding involuntary pushing.  BTW–not relaxing doesn’t really do much to help with pain.  Quite the opposite.  So between that and scarcely getting a break between contractions, I kind of started beating myself up for not getting the epidural when I had the chance.  Probably not productive, but it was hard to get that thought out of my head.

After a while of that, the nurse came in and said that the doctor wanted to start me on pitocin to regulate my contractions since they weren’t as effective as they’d like.  She said I didn’t have to have it, but labor would likely take a lot longer before I would be ready to start pushing.  I got the impression that they kind of just wanted to get things moving along so my doctor could be there for the delivery before the end of the work day.  I was partially bummed out, but I still really liked the idea of having my doctor instead of whoever would be on call.  I was also told that the pitocin would likely make the contractions a lot more intense, so I was offered (respectfully, no pressure) the epidural again.

In my mind, well before labor really even began, pitocin was kind of my deal-breaker when it came to not having an epidural.  I was sort of relieved to have a second chance, since I still didn’t want to ask for an epidural even though I kind of wanted it.  I still had concerns about having it so late, but I was told it wasn’t too late, so ultimately I agreed to have it.  The pitocin probably had a lot to do with it, but I also felt that just being able to relax more would do a lot to help labor progress.

By the way, still stalled at 8 cm. 😉

I think it took about an hour, maybe 45 minutes?? for the anesthesiologist to arrive.  I think I was told it would be about an hour anyway.  I think I had discovered the clock on the wall by this point, but I still wouldn’t trust my sense of time, and I can’t quite remember anymore.  In a way, it felt like a long time, but it in a way it was easier waiting for him just because I knew he was coming.  The anesthesiologist was very nice.  And very good.  I wasn’t really afraid of an epidural hurting, but I was surprised that it didn’t really hurt at all.  Maybe it’s just all relative. 🙂  Relief came fairly quickly.  I was happy before it even fully kicked in…just having the contractions turned down a notch helped immensely.  I still sort of wish they did “weak” epidurals.  At any rate, having the epidural placed, I could finally get some rest.  I sort of hoped I’d be able to sleep, but I don’t think I ever actually slept.

After that, it didn’t take very long to get to 10.  Part of me thought, I should have done this sooner!! But really, I’m glad I waited.  This way, I was more comfortable with my decision instead of wondering if I should have held out.  It probably helped that I was able to rest up for the pushing, and I think it may have helped everything go more smoothly in general.

Finally, I was fully dilated and effaced, and it was time to start pushing.  There was something in my birth plan about not pushing until the baby’s head was on my perineum, and they gave me some extra time for that, but I never really cared about that.  What I really cared about was pushing when I felt the urge to push, but that was no longer relevant since I had the epidural.  The doctor still gave me some time, but ultimately she recommended I go ahead and get started, which was fine with me.  I think I was briefly nervous about pushing with the epidural, but mostly I was excited and ready to get this show on the road!  A new nurse had come on shortly before pushing began, and she was pretty spunky and fun.  I liked her.  Her style was the opposite of what I thought I would like.  She’s a loud counter. 🙂  But she was really helpful and encouraging.  Between Pete, Julie, and the nurse, I probably had the most amazing support possible. 🙂

To my relief, I could still tell when I was having a contraction enough to know when to push.  I just felt a some sort of bearing down sensation without it actually hurting.  I imagine it’s still easier to push when you can feel the contractions more, but I was also very focused on the task at hand rather than being in pain.  I was still afraid of pushing when I shouldn’t, though, so I kept asking the people who could see the monitor, “Now???”  And the answer was always yes. 🙂

I don’t know if it was before the pushing or shortly after it started, but I was offered a mirror so I could see my progress.  When I had thought about it before, I thought having a mirror might kind of weird me out.  I should have known better, though, because my mind has never worked that way.  I always want to know and see, if possible, all the gory details.  So I said yes to the mirror.  I really liked having it because it was encouraging actually seeing the progress we (baby and I) were making.

I pushed a couple of different ways.  First the more “traditional” way, I suppose.  Inhale, hold those legs back and puusshhh with all your might.  Shortly after this started, the nurse(s?) thought maybe they should have had me empty my bladder first.  I hadn’t peed since I first got to my room.  Or maybe I had, once…I have a vague memory of thinking it was a lot easier to move around without being hooked up to an IV, but I think I might just be making that up.  At any rate, they brought me a bedpan.  I tried to use it, but I don’t know if it was the epidural, or just general inability to switch gears.  No matter what, though, I just couldn’t pee.  I was so focused on trying to pee, I didn’t even notice that the nurse had turned the faucet on to try to help me along.  Julie thought I looked “pretty” on my bedpan, something about the way the light was on me, so she took a picture!  LOL, a picture of me trying to pee.  It’s not obvious in the photo what I’m doing (or not doing), but it still makes me laugh.  (Don’t worry, I won’t post that picture…though I might have considered it if it wasn’t already safely put away with all the other more personal pictures…more on that later.)  In the end, I had to have a catheter to empty my bladder before I resumed pushing.  Fortunately, I couldn’t feel it.

Back to the pushing.  It takes a couple turns to get the hang of the best way to do it, but then you find your groove.  I can’t remember what it was anymore, but there was something Julie kept telling me to do with each push, and I was confused because I thought I was doing it.  Maybe it was just part of her reminding me what to do instead of trying to correct me.  I wish I could remember what it was.  (I swear, next time they’re going to have to teach me everything all over again.)  FYI – pushing can be a lot of work!  After it was all over, I had sore muscles that I didn’t even know I’d been using.  Like in my neck.  Anyway, I felt I was getting pretty winded, and sometimes I felt like I was running out of steam before I should stop pushing.  They offered me an oxygen mask, which I took between contractions to use as needed, and it seemed to help.  I do remember thinking, “I wonder how much this is going to cost.”  Haha…but I didn’t really care.

I alternated between the “conventional” style of pushing and a kind of tug-of-war pushing.  Memory is hazy again, but I think for this one I put my feet in the stirrups and pulled on a blanket or something (the nurse had the other end) while I pushed.  I liked doing it this way, but my upper body strength is sort of…non-existent….  So I did that some, but ended up pushing the traditional way by the time I was nearing the end.

For a very brief moment during the pushing, maybe because it was taking a little longer than I thought it might, I was afraid of not being able to push effectively and needing a c-section.  That thought was fleeting, though, and I was focused again on the task at hand.  At last, the baby was crowning.  I could see the top of her head in the mirror.  She had hair!  They called for my doctor.  I had heard from various sources (including my childbirth class) that, even with the epidural, you still feel the baby crowning.  I really had no pain or discomfort whatsoever, which was fine with me.  I can see how feeling the contractions more could really help with pushing a baby out, but it seems that feeling the “ring of fire” is just a byproduct of being unmedicated.  For that part, I really didn’t feel like I was missing out. 😉

I was glad for the opportunity to take a break from pushing while she was crowning and we waited for my doctor to arrive.  It was something I had hoped for so things could stretch out better and reduce any tearing or risk of episiotomy.  Before that, it seemed that the nurse was taking some measures to help with that, too.  At one point, we were still waiting for my doctor to arrive before I started pushing again, and they told me not to push.  I told them that I wasn’t.  The contractions were just moving her down on their own.

When my doctor came, she started to ask how we were doing (or something like that), then she caught a glimpse of the state we were in, said something like, “Oh! Okay!” and got those gloves on in a hurry–ha!  We were definitely ready to continue!  Between pushes, the doctor styled the baby’s hair into a mohawk and curls.  That was fun. 🙂  (Later I learned that my parents sent my brother out around this time to put his ear to the door to see what was going on.  He heard, “A mohawk!”  Haha, awesome.  I was just relieved that that was the only time anyone snooped at the door.  I didn’t need anyone to hear me when I was channeling the tortured moose.)

I can’t remember when she started, but at some point prior to the actual delivery, Julie started taking pictures.  Of everything.  I had not wanted pictures of eeevverryyythinnnggg.  But at the time, I was too busy to care or say anything.  Now I’m actually pretty glad to have those pictures.  But they are not on the camera memory card or on my hard drive or anywhere easily accessible.  They are backed up to disk and locked away.

We discovered that it probably took longer to get baby girl to crown because her hand was up by her head (not that surprising…she liked having her hand by her face even at the 18 week ultrasound, and sometimes I could feel her little hands down there before she was born).

Finally, I pushed the head out and, at 3:31 pm, about 13 hours after I woke up early that morning to use the restroom, not yet realizing I was in labor…out she came.  I remember saying something like, “That’s it?”  I thought there would be a little more to it after pushing out the head, like another push for the shoulders and body.  My doctor was like…uhhh no, we don’t want to have any issues with the shoulders.  I just said something like, “Yeah, I guess not.”  But it’s not like I was talking about shoulder dystocia or something.  I had friends tell me about how they pushed their babies out in two pushes: one for the head and one for the shoulders.  So I just thought there might have been more to it.  After she was out, I remember thinking, “It is a girl, right?”  Haha.  But I soon saw for myself that she was.

Again, I was really happy I had the mirror because I got to actually watch her being born.  Well, sort of.  I missed part of her actually coming out because I wasn’t expecting it to happen yet.  But to me, it was cool to see her crowning, watch her get her hair styled, watch her head get closer to emerging, etc.  Because even though I was there (obviously), I would have felt like I missed out if I didn’t actually see it.

Pete originally thought he wouldn’t want to cut the cord, but after all that, he decided he could handle it after all.  I didn’t think I would care, but I was glad that he was the one to do it.

There were a lot of nurses around because they were worried about meconium, but baby girl cried right away, so we were good.  I was relieved about that because it meant we could still get our skin to skin time right away, and I got to try nursing almost immediately.  She was so alert and great at everything.  I loved having that time (about an hour or so) where it felt like it was just Pete, our baby, and me.  Julie was around taking pictures.  Nurses were around taking care of their business (which, in the first few minutes, included getting the Apgar scores, which were 8 and 9).  And the doctor was taking care of things that still needed to be done…

…like the placenta.  I could hardly even tell that the placenta was coming out, but she told me when it was coming.  The mirror was gone, and I couldn’t really see it.  That’s one of my regrets about the whole thing…not asking to see my placenta!  I don’t have an unusual fascination with placentas like some folks do (in my opinion, sorry if you’re a placenta worshiper ;)).  But I really wanted to see it.  It crossed my mind to ask, but really I was too distracted by the sweet baby in my arms to care very much.  Pete watched it being delivered, and Julie later told me that I had a good placenta.  A big one. 😉

Next the doctor worked on stitching up my tears.  Thankfully, I didn’t have an episiotomy.  I didn’t care about a couple of small tears.  I asked the doctor how bad they were, and she just said, “not bad.”  I really wanted to know…1st degree?  2nd degree?  But again, too much in awe of the baby on my chest to really care enough to ask further questions.  Maybe doctors just aren’t used to people like me who are less confused by scientific terms and more confused by simpler but vaguer terms.  Because similar things have happened before.

I was holding my baby and possibly nursing her by then.  Breastfeeding, by the way, does hurt at first.  Not like it does after three or four days…that makes your toes curl (it gets better).  But it’s amazing how strongly such a tiny, new thing can suck.  So I was mesmerized with the baby, Julie was taking pictures of all of us, and the doctor was still at the foot of the table.  I heard her ask for “more 4x4s,” but I didn’t really know what that meant.  Nor did I really care.  But apparently, 4x4s means gauze.  Because I was bleeding a lot…not scary a lot, but a lot enough that they didn’t have enough gauze in the room.  The doctor said that the baby nicked an artery on each side on her way out.  I was asked if I felt lightheaded or dizzy, but at that point I felt pretty good.  But I think I was also riding the rush I got from having a brand new baby! 🙂

Meanwhile, baby girl was taken to be weighed, measured, get her gentamicin ointment in her eyes, etc.  When I think about it, I think she might have pooped on me and that’s when they took her, haha.  Not really sure.  Maybe I really was bleeding a lot because this whole bit is kind of hazy for me, like trying to remember a dream.  But maybe that’s normal anyway.

Finally we were ready to go to our room.  The nurses asked me again a few times whether or not I felt too lightheaded…I wonder if they wondered if I would pass out.  I felt a little different, but not bad.  At that point, I got a glimpse of the monitor that I think had my blood pressure on it, and I remember thinking…ohh, that’s low.

Overall, I’d consider my labor and delivery story a good one.  Even though it wasn’t Plan A, I didn’t regret having the epidural.  I say didn’t because, as the memory of the pain fades away, it gets easier to try to regret it.  I start thinking silly things like…what if I made her have an IQ a point lower??  More than that–and this is entirely a personal problem and I know it–lately I’m hearing about more people who had their babies totally naturally (funny, since before I had my daughter, I knew of only a handful).  And I get really jealous.  I start feeling like they won and I lost.  Which, when I try to step back and think rationally, I know is a dumb way to think.  And it took several weeks, but finally a certain person who I was afraid of saying a certain kind of thing said the very thing I was afraid of her saying.  In front of a group of people, something like, “She was all I’m not going to have the epidural…and then she had the epidural.”  Was it necessary to point it out?  I want to think I was being overly sensitive, but when I think about it objectively, the tone was just not nice.  But I know she didn’t set out to mock me or be condescending, so I’m not angry about it.  But it’s that kind of stuff that almost made me not tell anyone what I was going to try to do (key word try–I was very careful not to say that I absolutely wouldn’t have it; I said I really wanted to make the effort to go without it since that was my desire both for myself and for my baby).  She later said that I used wisdom when I chose to have it.  That’s probably giving me too much credit, but whatever.  Point is, if there’s anything I don’t like, it’s having a goal and not achieving it.  So the last thing I needed was someone rubbing my nose in it when I didn’t achieve that goal.

But ya know what?  I did achieve my goal.  I gave birth to a perfect, healthy, beautiful baby girl.  None of my concerns actually happened.  I still felt the contractions enough to push (though I might have preferred feeling them just a little more).  I didn’t have a long L&D.  I didn’t have excessive tearing or an episiotomy.  I didn’t have to have a cesarean, which was my biggest fear.  My baby was absolutely alert after she was born, and she was awesome at breastfeeding right away.  Would I have the epidural again with my next kiddo?  For the first few weeks after the birth, I would have said absolutely.  Now, I’ll just say I don’ t know.  I’ll cross that bridge if I’m blessed enough to come to it.

For now I’ll just enjoy my baby girl, my most precious gift.