heymae

Rocky’s Arrival!!! Part 2-Ready or Not, Here I Come!

19
Nov 2009

**Just a Note: It took me 2 weeks to finally write this so I hurried through to make sure I got it done, I may have left stuff out so I may come back and edit it later!**

I spent most of Wednesday in bed resting, I was feeling a little better but still not back to normal. My body felt so achy and weak, it was hard to walk around. By late afternoon I was feeling a little bit better, and came out in the living room to hang out with my family for a while. I even sat on my birthing ball for a good 5 minutes. Zane was at a play-date with Carys, and Ian, my Mom, Whitney and I were just hanging around in the living room. I was tired of my birthing ball, and feeling pretty weak, so I went to my favorite Orange Chair to sit and rest. As I went to sit down, I raised my leg up so I could sit on it. As I did that I felt this gush of fluid. I totally froze. I immediately jumped up and told my family that I thought my water had just broke, and of course, they totally started freaking out. Everybody jumped out of their seats, they were all asking me if I was sure, and they all looked so excited! I was freaking out. I felt this instant sense of panic. I was not ready for this! I was still so weak and shaky, I had no confidence that I would be able to do this. I started pacing back and forth in the living room, saying I wasn’t totally sure. My mom had me try and sit back the way I had before, and when I went to sit down, another gush of fluid came out. Oh Crap. This was really it! My family started grabbing bags, calling Rachel to come watch Zane and Kaleb, Ian jumped in the car to go pick up Zane. I simply paced back and forth in the living room. I was seriously freaking out. I started grabbing all of this random stuff and putting it in my hospital bag. More clothes, Q-tips, Stuff I thought Rocky might need. My family was making sandwiches, telling jokes, they all seemed so excited, especially since they were not the ones that had to push this baby out!

My water broke at 6, at 7 my family was finally full of sandwiches and ready to go to the hospital. On the drive to Paradise, I started having some contractions. They were just painful enough for me to completely be freaking out. I was seriously as white as a ghost. I felt so not ready to do what I knew I was going to have to do. I had just spend the last few days barely able to get out of bed. My family was talking and laughing while I sat in the front seat totally silent. When we pulled up to the Birthing Center my family started to get out of the car but I made them stop. I asked them to say a prayer with me. Now, regardless of your personal religious beliefs, I am a huge believer in prayer. It makes me feel better. There have been times that I have doubted my beliefs, or organized religion in general, but I have ALWAYS believed in prayer. There is something so reassuring about asking God, or even just the universe to watch over you. I said a prayer asking for the ability to be strong, and not to freak out. I believe those were my exact words, Dear God, Do Not Let Me Freak Out!! Amen. I immediately felt better. As we walked down the hallway my contractions were already coming faster and harder. I told the lady at the desk that my water had broke, and she said she believed me, which I thought was a kind of weird thing to say. Maybe they get a lot of liars at this particular hospital?!

The took us into the delivery room and hooked me up to a bunch of machines. They have this awesome machine that they hook around my belly that shows a line graph of my contractions, with the spikes being higher depending on how hard the contraction is. It is pretty cool to see the line go all the way off the chart when you are having a really bad contraction. It kind of makes me feel like, see, this is a really big line, so I am allowed to be yelling like this!! My contractions were pretty painful at this point and coming every couple minutes, but I was in the zone. I was totally focused and my breathing was perfect and I was totally in control. The nurses kept saying how fast my labor was going to go, which I totally expected since Zane’s was only 4 hours. They called the midwife that was on duty, but for some reason she was not there, so they called the other midwife to come to the hospital, and I was so so happy because it was my favorite midwife!! The same midwife that delivered Zane. As soon as she came in the room I knew this was going to go well. We had already done this before, 6 years ago. I knew exactly what to expect from her, and she knew exactly what to expect from me and my body. She checked me and I was dilated 6 centimeters already. My contractions were coming fast and furious, and she reminded me again that this was probably going to go quickly. She also let me know that my entire bag of water had not completely ruptured yet, but as soon as it did, we were going to have to hurry because this baby was coming! I decided to get through the next hour of contractions in the shower in my room. It was seriously dejavu. Ian did exactly what he did when I was laboring with Zane and held the shower head on my back with the hottest water possible as I focused my way through the next phase of contractions. If you have the option, I highly recommend incorporating water into your birth. I cannot even explain what a difference it makes. I felt another large gush as my water broke again. The midwife was right, as soon as that happened the contractions came harder and faster. We moved back into the bed where I was now 8-9 cms. It was almost time. I had remained super focused and composed through all my contractions up to this point. Now it was getting bad. My sister Whitney recorded my voice as I was really struggling through my last phase of contractions. I seriously sounded like some sort of primal animal. My fever was creeping back up and I was beginning to get really nauseaus so they had an air mask for me to breath into in between contractions. It helped so much. Before I knew it, I had dilated to a 10 and it was time. I could absolutely feel the babys head making its way down the birth canal. Rocky came out in 2 pushes. It was so excruciatingly painful, but over so fast! I was in shock! I kept asking if that was seriously it?! I was done already?! The whole experience was so wonderful. There is this feeling after giving birth that I get that is so amazing, such a moment of pride, like I really did this?! I am Awesome! When the contractions got really bad I just kept repeating to myself, You Can Do This Heather. You did this once before and you can totally do this again. I really think having a calm, positive attitude once we got to the hospital made a huge difference.

As soon as Rocky was out they placed him on my chest, which honestly, if you had asked me I probably would of thought would of been gross, but at that instant I did not care. I was so relieved and happy and fell so instantly in love with this little guy. I was much more emotional this time than I was with Zane. I seriously was in a state of euphoria. I was so happy and so proud and so relieved to not be pregnant anymore. Rocky was finally here, and he was beautiful and healthy and everything I could of ever asked for.