So here is my account of Ethan's birth. I had my last doctor visit on August the 13th. My doctor and I decided on that day that Ethan was getting evicted on August the 19th. She said I would have to go in on August the 18th for some extra care. So I went to work on August the 15th, Ethan's due date, and when I got home chaos ensued. I had been having contractions since Wednesday but they were an hour apart on that day and Thursday they were 31 minutes apart. Well Friday I went into what I thought was the real deal but it turned out to be false labor. I was barely walking because of all the pain and Chris was freaking out. I had errands planned for the next day and laundry to do. I asked Chris to please let us eat dinner before we went to the hospital, so we ate then he helped me shower and I started laundry. All Chris kept saying was I don't think we should be eating, showering, and doing laundry right now. I laid down and had a big glass of water and before I knew it, it was Saturday. Saturday the 16th I ran my errands and finished laundry, all the while still having contractions but there was no pain this time. Since my contractions were three minutes apart we were trying to decide if we should go to the hospital. We ended up calling the hospital for advice and my friend Melanie. No hospital visit for that night. Same thing happened on Sunday but we didn't call anyone just decided on our own that it wasn't time. Monday we arrived at the hospital at 6pm like they told me. They hooked me up to a monitor for my contractions and a monitor for Ethan's heartbeat. At about 10pm they put a pill on my cervix to make it "ripen" as they put it. Well about 12am the nurse's kept coming in my room because the pill was making my contractions 2 minutes and I kept sitting forward in my bed to breath through the pain. The nurse told me I was not getting the other 3 doses of the pill they put on my cervix and she gave me demerol for my pain. I remember looking at the clock and thinking wow that clock is wavy. Chris called and I couldn't talk straight. He asked me what was wrong and I told him my speech was slurred because of the demerol. At 4am they started inducing labor and at 8am I was 3 cm dilated and they broke my water. I had to use the restroom and that was when we found out Ethan had pooped inside. They hooked me up to an uterus irrigation system and moved his heart rate monitor to the top of his head. At 12pm the contractions had gotten so close together it felt like I couldn't recover from the one before, before the next one came. At that point I was only a almost 5cm and then I asked for my epidural. They checked me a few more times and family started to arrive at about 5pm the epidural stopped working on my left side and I could feel everything plus they put an oxygen mask on me because Ethan's heartbeat kept dropping drastically. The nurse had all of the family go to the waiting area and the doctor came in and explained the situation to both Chris and I. She said that I wasn't progressing as I should, Ethan was still so far up in the birth canal that she could barely feel his head, she thought he was well over 8 pounds, that the umbilical cord was wrapped around him somewhere, and that he was face up. She then said we could do c-section now or wait and end up doing it by emergency at 12am. Chris and I decided it was best to do it then and so we notified the family and at 6pm they took me to the OR. They gave me a heavy dose of drugs through my epidural and made sure I couldn't feel it by poking me with a needle on my stomach all the way up to my chest. Chris came in and I closed my eyes and they said they were starting. I could smell the burning flesh from them cutting me open and then they were pushing. The anesthesiologist lifted my head and pulled the drape down and there was Ethan. He was perfect and everyone kept saying how beautiful he is. I couldn't take my eyes off of him as they cleaned him and Chris sat near and watched. Then from all of the movement on my stomach I began to throw up. Chris came close and tried to soothe me. They laid Ethan's cheek on my cheek and I remember thinking how hot he felt but he nuzzled me and I did the same back. They took him to the nursery and finished with me and wheeled me to the recovery.
