Birth Story: Presley

Thank you to amazing Mama, Shauna, for sharing her experience! I love Shauna’s sense of humor and the fact that she let nothing stand in the way of getting what she wanted: a beautiful, healthy baby! Happy Friday, everyone 🙂

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All of my life I dreamt of having a large family. I have been a “kid person” ever since I could remember. I got married at 23 and after about a year we really wanted to start a family. We tried for almost 4 years and nothing was happening. After changing my diet and all of the other crazy natural suggestions, my hot gyno (seriously, he was) whom I loved, diagnosed me with PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome). This was early July 2007. He put me on Metformin for fertility and told me he was positive I would be pregnant in 3 months. August came and we went on vacation to Ocean City, MD. We visited Ripleys Believe It or Not and believe it or not, they had a fertility statue with some legend that basically said if I rubbed it, I would become pregnant. I figured what the hell, I was also wearing my Kokopelli necklace, meaning the fertility deity. Yes at this point I was a believer in EVERYTHING!  So I rubbed the statue, wearing my Kokopelli, with Metformin running through my body.

September came and went, as did October with the only difference being October never brought me my monthly BFF. On November 1st 2007 I took the test and it was positive! Unbelievable! To this day I do not know what it was exactly that worked, but regardless, the hot doctor was right!

I didn’t have that horrible of a pregnancy, but I wasn’t exactly that glowing pregnant woman everyone talks about. I hated chicken, everything my husband ate made me nauseous and towards the end, I was plain miserable! I couldn’t sleep, I craved beer (badly) and June 19th couldn’t come fast enough. We knew we were having a girl, I had her name picked out for months, I had clothes bought and the room painted. I was ready to go, she was not! June 19th came and went, right along with June 20 and June 21. I called hot doctor and said I just cannot take this anymore, I pee every two seconds and my back is killing me with sharp pains every 7-10 minutes. He told me if my water didn’t break, [I should] be at the hospital at 7:00 am the following day and [he] would induce. (See why I loved this guy?) My husband and I had our asses at that hospital first thing [the next morning].

Now, we have amazing families. We love them to death but they are plain INSANE! They are involved in everything and worry about everything and of course they were all at the hospital by the time my hot doctor broke my water. They came into the labor room and set up camp while I lay in bed staring at my sister like I was sending her telepathic messages that would read something along the lines of, “What in the hell do these people think they are going to do in here? Eat some popcorn and enjoy the show?” Mind you, during this time the contractions were strong and of course I was going to die. What pain! All the while, select family members are going up to the computer monitor stating such facts as “Ooh, here comes a big one!” and “Ow I bet that hurts.” My wonderful, mind reader of a sister shot me one more look and voila, they all packed up their belongings and set up a new camp in the waiting room of Westmoreland Regional Hospital.

The only people I allowed in the room the entire day during both labor and delivery were my husband and my sister. I was never 100% decided on drugs or no drugs. My doctor came to check on me and gave me this huge vote of confidence, telling me I was handling the pain really well and although he was not trying to sway me in either direction, he thought I might just be able to handle natural birth. Of course I smiled a cocky smile and was all, “Take that!” By the time 1:00 pm arrived I would’ve run to the house of the doctor in charge of the epidural and dragged him out of bed to stick that damn needle in my back. They made me watch a video and sign a waiver or something about how epidurals work and what not. I didn’t care; I wanted that thing in my back pronto. They put it in, they then inserted my catheter and the happiness set in again. The three of us watched RV while the rest of the insane family sat in the waiting room. The only other people permitted in that room at any point were my Dad and stepmom. They drove all night from Georgia and I needed to give my dad a hug. Hours after that, I busted out laughing as I saw my Mom seriously trying to sneak into my room on her way to the “bathroom.” Apparently she did not see the one before she came through the secure doors.

Finally, at 7:00 that evening, after being checked for how many centimeters I was dilated, it was time to push. I immediately freaked out. Maybe she could stay in there just a little while longer. Things were going well for the last few hours and I was comfortable and for the first time in months didn’t have to run to the bathroom all day long. No turning back though; the baby I had dreamt of for years was finally ready to meet us. I asked hot doctor for a refill on the epidural because he told me it was getting low. I was in love with the stuff. I needed more. He made me promise that if he gave me a refill and I didn’t push the way he needed me to, then he would be able to turn it off. I agreed and away we went.

 

So the pushing…..not quite so easy, for me anyway. I had my husband pushing back one leg, my nurse pushing back the other and my sister in my ear cheering me on with words of encouragement while feeding me ice chips. It just wasn’t working. My doctor informed me that Presley was faced the wrong way and he would have to “turn her” while she was still inside me. I tried not to panic, but I was a woman in labor, gimmie a break. When he turned her, I wanted to scream. Even with the epidural, it hurt like hell. He was successful though and we went back to pushing for about 35 more minutes. It still was not going the way it should have. So they bring in this contraption as if I was supposed to do some gymnastics or something. It was this metal thing that went over top of my midsection. I then had to place one foot on each of the poles and grab onto this towel they wrapped around it. I had to pull myself forward at the same time I pushed. This went on for almost 5 minutes and at 8:13 pm, out she came. My beautiful 6 lb 14 ounce baby girl, Presley Savannah! I was immediately in love with her.

After the nurses took her to clean her up and what not, I all of a sudden remembered the placenta. Now blame it on the drugs or blame it on the exhaustion, but I never remembered reading about this part. How do I get this out? I felt pretty close with hot doctor, being as how I spent time with him constantly recently. I could ask him anything during my pregnancy, like “Can I eat shellfish? Just in case you say no, I ate some yesterday to get my last fix.” He would respond with a smile and a laugh and say, “Anything in moderation, but I wouldn’t suggest eating fish out of Lake Erie daily.” He also told my grandma once, when she was amazed at modern technology at one of my office visits, “It’s not like the old days when you had to chew off your baby’s umbilical cord and get back to the farm.” Again, see why I loved this guy? He made me laugh and he wasn’t crazy.

 

Back to the placenta, I figured I could ask him anything, so I looked at him and simply asked, “How does the placenta come out?” to which he responded with the smile and a laugh, “Out of the vagina, just like everything else!” I busted out laughing, said “No shit” and gave one last push and out it came. 

I did feel the pressure of the delivery, but I was not in pain. It was a good balance with the epidural. The one good thing is that I had no recollection of having an episiotomy until I had to do those dumb sits baths for days because of my stitches. 

We allowed our crazy families in the room to meet the newest member of our family after taking 30 minutes to just ourselves. She was perfect. Everything about her was and is a dream come true. She will be 4 in a little over a month and the time has flown by. I have never loved someone so much in my life. She has begun to ask for a sister – that she would like to name Jem – or a brother – named Diego – recently. Unfortunately if we decide to try again, I will have to commute to Ohio because that is where hot doctor moved to. I wonder if UPMC Advantage insurance would cover that…