My husband and I had an amazing wedding. It was outside on the top of a slope that was filled with rows and rows of lavender in full bloom. One of the greenest Junes in the Texas Hill Country I can remember. It was perfect. Amazingly, I wound up pregnant just over a month later. Well that was easy, but I was uneasy. I just didn't feel like everything was okay. I was measuring behind and my doctor ordered several ultrasounds. We found out at thirteen weeks that what we were experiencing was a blighted ovum. The fetal pole we had seen early on never developed and I was going to miscarry. My doctor gave me the choice to miscarry naturally or have a D&C, a procedure where they go in and remove the tissue. I opted to go the natural route. It was an uneasy week or so, I didn't know when it would happen, just that it would. I was alone because my husband was at work and it was over before he could get home. I had called my doctor to ask him how much percocet I could take because it hurt like hell and then I wouldn't stop bleeding. My husband took me to the hospital and they managed to get the bleeding under control and I opted to be transported to my Doctor's hospital because he wanted me to stay over night. Five hundred dollars later, I was at the hospital I'd had my surgery in and much less anxious. They put me on pitocin and saline and gave me plenty of drugs and my Doctor saw me in the morning and let me go. He told us to start trying as soon as we felt like it. I conceived 5 weeks later and was terrified.
This time we kept our mouths shut. I didn't want to tell anyone about the pregnancy until we had seen that little heart pounding away at 12 weeks. Of course everyone knew from my behavior and kept trying to ply it out of me which was exceedingly painful. I'd had a miscarriage at 13 weeks, just a couple of months ago for God's sake, if it's obvious I don't want to discuss it then leave it alone. The pregnancy was normal. I did experience a lot of pain now and then from the adhesions stretching but otherwise... it was fine. I ate cheesecake everyday and blew up like a balloon, gained almost 70lbs. And I also went through my last trimester in June, July and August in the hot, hot South, which made me swell even more. But I made it. I hated every minute of the pregnancy, your body does really strange things when you're pregnant, except for feeling her move and I couldn't wait to see her. When I got stuck in the recliner, I knew she'd be there soon but hopefully not while I was stuck in the recliner. The women in my family labor very quickly, my brother was born in the car, my sister had no clue she was in labor, and I was terrified. We made two unnecessary trips to labor and delivery (which was another three hundred dollars) And then one Sunday morning as I ate my oatmeal, my stomach hurt. So I went upstairs and watched Space Cowboys and started getting more uncomfortable. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for two weeks so I was not as worried as I probably should have been. I opted for skipping the end of the movie to take a shower and these stomach pains just kept comin'. I yelled down to my husband, "If you want a shower, you better get one NOW." His response, "Oh shit." I also told him to bring me some water. While he was in the shower, I drank the water, laid on my left side, switched to the right side, back to the left side and then I got the watch. They were coming every for minutes and getting stronger. Me, "Let's go, let's go, let's go!!!!" And OH MY GOD did it hurt. The first half of the drive I was okay. I kept telling my husband, "We're okay, don't run any lights yet." Then my contractions were coming every two minutes and becoming really, really strong. "Run it. RUN THE LIGHT!" I had him drop me of at the entrance to the Hospital and told him to meet me upstairs. The receptionist took one look at me and said, "Honey, do you need a wheelchair?". My reply, "I don't have time for a wheelchair." Her frantic plea, "Don't be havin' no baby in my lobby." "Yes Ma'am", as I leaned on the wall to breathe through another whopper. I get upstairs and get all hooked up to the baby monitors and an IV and all that crap. My husband had arrived by then thank God. Originally, I had planned to try this au natural, then I realized "why?" and asked for an epidural. I had one of those nurses you just want to slap, she told me I was ill prepared for natural childbirth and when I asked for water she gave me apple juice. I just wanted some water, I'll never drink apple juice again. I was dehydrated and I had a fever. I also had the crazy chills and shakes, which is perfectly normal but annoying as hell. And in 45 minutes I want from 3cm to 8cm. My contractions were one on top of the other and exceptionally hard to deal with. They were wheeling me down to delivery and that foul apple juice decided it didn't like me either. The only reprieve I had from the pain was when I stood up and just held on to hubs. I had a contraction and it was manageable. But I had a fever and they gave me the epidural I had asked for out of necessity. Had I been hydrated with no fever, there isn't a hospital in the Country that would have given me an epi at 9cm. The anaesthesiologist was awesome and had the epidural in within minutes and a couple of minutes later, I couldn't feel a damn thing. He did make fun of the way my skin looked, it was all mottled like when I'm really cold, it was bizarre. So the nurse comes in and says to me, we don't like how baby's heartbeat is reacting to your labor so if this baby isn't born in 15 minutes, we're going to have to do a c-section. C-section my ass. That baby was in this world fifteen minutes later. The OB walked in and told me to stop pushing, which I wasn't, and basically caught her. My little Monkey #1 was here! And they had to suck out her nose and mouth with the skinny little tube that I wouldn't want shoved down my throat, and she started crying. They put me on massive amounts of antibiotics and took us to recovery. I had my little one in my arms at last and I was in Heaven. Then the lactation consultant gave me a massive cold and ruined my ability to feed my baby for the the next five months. That tomorrow, until then....
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