FINALLY the epidural nurse comes in and starts prepping me. She has me sign more papers and then finally tells me to sit up and she is going to insert the catheter. At this point, Richard is standing on the side of the bed helping me up and I am grabbing a hold of him because he's there and a contraction is starting. The nurse who first checked me when I got there (who is a sweet little lady by the way, probably late 50's) tells Richard that they need to switch places so I can hold on to her and he needed to sit down. He wasn't planning on doing that, he was OK standing next to me. Keep in mind that by this time I'm full on in the middle of a contraction. Richard takes my hands from his arms and puts them on the side of the bed while he switches places with the nurse and somehow my hand slips in the middle of all this and my hand goes flying and I hit this sweet little nurse right smack dab in the nose. I knock her glasses off her face, and I definitely dazed her. I of course immediately know what I did, I'm HORRIFIED!!! How could I hurt this sweet little lady who is doing her best to try to help me. I immediately start crying and hugging her and apologizing. And during this time when I am freaking out about punching her, the nurse gets the catheter in and I start to feel relief. The epidural works. The nurse I punched tells me that she is going to check me again since the epidural has worked, and she then tells me we're at 9 cm. HOLY CRAP!!!! 9 CM!!!! I look at Richard and we both say "We better start calling people" Its now 2:30 am on July 24th.
I dial my parent's number. My Dad answers the phone rather sleepy sounding of course. I ask him if they are ready to come to the hospital. He of course sounds like he is crying and says yes that they will start getting ready. I tell him that they should hurry because I'm already at 9, but the nurse (the one I hit) makes sure to have me tell them that it will still be a while. Meanwhile Richard calls his parents but because I'm on the phone with my parent's, I don't hear the conversation. That being over and done with (the families will take care of calling everyone else) The nurse tells us that we better get some sleep, that its going to be a long day, and I will need my rest. We turn off the lights and are just about asleep when my parent's come in. They made it. I'm so happy they did. And not 5 minutes after they walk in, here come Richard's parents.
We have pretty much given upon the thought of sleep by this point, but thankfully they leave the lights off and aren't making too much noise so we are at least able to relax a little. I'm no longer in pain thanks to the wonderful epidural, however I can still feel the pressure of every contraction. At 4:00 the nurse comes in again and wants to check me. 9.5 cm, my water hasn't broken yet, and is rightthere (according to the nurse). With each contraction I literally can feel the bag of water and try to push during each one hoping that I could make things go faster because I'm tired, I had been up about 25 hours straight at that point, and because of the epi, I can't move the lower half of my body, which makes for some very interesting requests on my part for other people to lift my leg and move it for me when my trying to wiggle my feet to get my legs to move fails LOL.
More conversation with the parents and trying to relax and move to get comfortable, and at 7:30 the nurse checks me again. 10 cm, my water still hasn't broken...she's going to get the doctor. However its not my doctor, its one of the others in the practice, which freaks me out because I have never seen any of the other doctors, so I'm not familiar with them. That quickly gets my attention and wakes me up. The doctor comes in, says he is going to break my water then we are ready to go. By this point my parents had gone downstairs to the cafeteria to get breakfast, but Richard's were still up in the room with us. As soon as they heard that I was getting ready to have the baby they rushed downstairs as fast as they could to find my parents to tell them. My Dad says he ate a sausage biscuit in 2 bites and my Mom was already finished with her breakfast and they rushed upstairs to tell us one last time that they love us, and off they head to the waiting room.
In walks the nurses with lights and blue towels, and trays of tools and stirrups. Things start happening so fast. The doctor comes in and breaks my water, and says he'll be right back that I'm about to find out why they call it labor. Of course me being me I start freaking out asking if my doctor had forwarded my birth plan and asking what will happen once the doctor breaks my water and possibly a whole more slew of questions that I can't remember and probably had no relevance at the time. I tell the nurses a little about my birth plan because with it being so early and my regular doctor being a no-show, there are some things that I had on it that were very important to me.
The other nurses were getting me ready and one was telling me to push, and telling me how while she was counting. I went through 2 contractions with just her before she told me that her head was right there and asked if I wanted to feel it....heck yeah!...LOL. It felt so weird. I could tell she had hair, but it was kinda slippery and just weird feeling. Anyway, they call the doctor, he comes in all masked up and everything and tells me to push. With the second push of the contraction, they try to get me to arch my back more (which is impossible) so I tell them to bring my leg closer to me and I can try to sit up more, I also have them move the back of my bed up a little to help with that. I finish off the contraction with 2 more pushes. Then one more contraction and 3 more pushes, and they yell out SHE'S HERE!!!!
I am beyond shocked, and I think that Richard is too. We expected there to be more drama. We though they would be yelling at me to push, and Richard would be feeding me ice chips the whole time and putting cold towels on my forehead and such, but all that he did was rub my neck, which felt so good by the way LOL. The first thing that comes out of my mouth after the doctor says that is "seriously?" He says, yeah, and asks if I can see her. I tell him that I can only see toes, so he puts her on my stomach. She is beautiful. Richard cuts the cord, which I am entirely proud of him by the way. This shocks me because all along he was adamant that he didn't want to do it, but when I told the nurses that I wanted him to be asked once and if he said no, then I wanted to, he piped up and said yeah he wanted to do it. They take her to the warmer to clean her up, she's not crying much, and I'm getting cleaned up as well. The placenta disintegrates upon delivery, so the doctor is having to make sure that all of it is out so I don't hemorrhage. I also suffer a 2nd degree tear, which isn't that bad, not as bad as I had feared it would be.
They finally give her back to me. I am in awe, she is BEAUTIFUL, and not just because she is my daughter, she really really is. She doesn't have as much hair as I thought she would, but she is absolutely perfect. I get to breast feed her for the first time which is awesome that I am able to do it, and Richard holds her for the first time. We are totally in love. At this time we ask the family to come back in since we are all clean and back to normal, they are in love, and everyone is crying and holding her. The best part...while my Dad was holding her she starts to make a noise....it literally sounds like a dog bark....I'm not joking, my daughter is barking like a dog. Turns out that is her cry. Its so sweet, however, it only lasted a couple of days. Sometimes she will let one out, but she has now found her voice.
So for now here are some pictures of her the day that she was born. I will be posting more tomorrow (you're saying yeah right I know LOL) but its her 1 month birthday, so I will plan on showing some, and maybe post a letter to her, who knows.
But here is Leigha Summer Hughes. Born 7/24/2011 at 7:51 a.m. 7 lbs, 14 oz, 21 1/4 inches long.
She's my little Beautiful girl
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