Monday, November 14, 2011

A normal day with an unexpected ending

Okay, I can admit, I did fall behind on blogging once again. Its harder than I thought. Especially when you are too busy to even shave your legs at times. I am going to try harder to set aside each day for some me time. While I was away a lot has happened. In my previous blog I talked a little about myself and about my boyfriend and our soon to be family. We were just waiting on our precious bundle to arrive. Her due date was November 14th, 2011. Notice how I said "was;" as in past tense. Our precious bundle arrived a whole 5 weeks early. It was a bittersweet feeling when my doctor told me I was going to be having my baby soon. It was an ordinary day; nothing odd or out of the norm happened.

While driving home, I called my mom to let her know I choose a different stroller/carseat combo. After I got off the phone I was about 10 minutes from home on the back roads from Clackamas when I felt a warm sensation. It felt like I peed my pants. I honesty thought that was what happened. It made me think back to my last appointment with my doctor had asked if I was leaking any fluids. He explained that its normal and because little miss was so low, her head could be pressing on my bladder making urine leak out. (TMI, I know) As my first thought was I peed my pants, I just kept thinking "I'm almost home. I'm almost home." Then, it happened again. It did cross my mind that maybe, just maybe, my water broke but it was a little over a month until my due date so I was a little skeptical.  I finally made it home and I ran to the bathroom. It was a little embarrassing because Zach had company over and all I did was say hi from the door and headed straight the bathroom.

After using the bathroom, I stood up to get a change of clothes, liquid leaked out again. "Hmm maybe it did break," I thought to myself. I felt a little scared because it was too early. In our childbirth class they said that in your amniotic fluid at times you can see little black hairs and that is an indication that your water did indeed break. I didn't see any of that. It was clear fluid yes but none of the indicators they talked in our lass or from the doctor. I called Zach into the bathroom and he automatically asked what was going on and if my water broke. I told him the story of my journey home and that I needed to call the doctor.

Once I had explained to the nurse what was going on, they urged me to come in but I could not go to the hospital I planned on giving birth at because I was considered preterm. I had 2 choices, SW Washington or St. Vincent. I had no idea where either of those were but St. Vincent seemed closest. We started packing our bags and figuring out what we were going to do with our puppies. Zach was a nervous wreak, and I was the calm one. I always thought ot would be the other way around. LOL He started packing things we didn't even need and pacing back and forth like any soon-to-be father would when they might be having their child early. I knew everything would be okay. He wanted to call our parents but I told him not to until we knew what was going on. It was hard for me not to start calling people but I did not want to freak anyone out just in case it was a false alarm. I wanted to be sure.

Lets just say that St. Vincent is a hospital that you need directions for before you go. I have Kaiser insurance so I figured it was a Kaiser hospital. I got directions on my phone and we were on our way. We ended up at a doctors office not a hospital and I started to loose my patience. We had to ask for directions to the hospital. Luckily, it was just 10 minutes down the way. You would think that a hospital would have it clearly labelled labor and delivery so the people would know where to go but it wasn't. Granted I was not having contractions of any sort but it looked like I peed my pants due to the liquid still leaking and even through a pad. I had to walk across the entire hospital like that.

We checked in around 5:20pm and they showed me to the intake room. We had to talk to the doctor run some tests and waited almost 2 hours until we found out my water did break. Once your water break the admit you. There was talk about how I could possibly be there for a couple days or possibly a couple weeks. They were not going to try to speed the process of labor due to the fact that she would be 5 weeks early. I didn't even have contractions yet so I wasn't too worried about it. I was only worried about the fact I still was on the work schedule and I do not  like being away from home for so long. This could be a very long process.

Getting into my room was easy, They wheeled me in there. They wouldn't let me walk anywhere. The room seemed cozy and I got settled in for the night. I got my iv and they started antibiotics because my water broke; the barrier between my little girl and the world was open. We did not want anything happening to her. It wasn't until about 9pm when I started feeling contractions. Zach was gone; he had to leave to take the dogs to my sisters house. So, I was alone just for a bit. We had let everyone know that needed to know that I was in the hospital, then an hour later had to start telling them I was starting my labor.

The contractions were subtle but then grew more intense. When entering this process I had opted to no pain killers. I have a high pain tolerance so i thought I would be okay. BIG MISTAKE! My contractions were so intense, I ended  opting for an epidural/spinal block(her solution to fast pain relief). After talking with the lady who would be giving me the epidural, her explaining the process and me asking her a million questions including how long has she been doing this, she began the procedure. I always thought it would hurt when getting it but I didn't feel a thing. It was just that within minutes I didn't feel anything. It was a weird experience not feeling any pain after feeling so much. My doctor was keeping tabs on me throughout the night and checking how dilated I was. It went from 4cm to 7cm to 9cm then 10cm. That's when they had me start pushing. Luckily it only took about 45 minutes of pushing and she arrived. My precious little girl.
Mackenzie Cheryl Fresquez 
5lb 12oz
19in
Arrived at 7:27am on 10/10/2011