The birth of Samuel Cary part 4 - the pushing

I am writing this post to try to remember all the details of our son's birth - maybe too many details.  Feel free to read along.

Once Casey came back she asked if Ian would like to cut the cord after the baby was born.  His reply was a solid, "NO!" Then she asked me if I wanted to cut the cord after the baby was born.  My reply was also a solid, "NO!" Our friend, Sara, was there and so Casey asked her and she was like, "Of course! That would be so cool!"

I told Casey that this was my first rodeo as far as giving birth and Ian and I had not attended any birthing classes or really had any idea what we were doing.  She assured us that this was okay and that she would just teach us her own method.

I was supposed to wait for a contraction (which I could not really feel all that much) and then hold my breathe and push. Casey would count to ten. I would exhale, inhale and repeat. And a third time. It sounded so easy.

On the second or third push Casey told us, "Your baby has hair!" I thought, "YES! This is working wootwoot!" and on the push after that, "He has long dark hair." I was encouraged.

Aunt Sara and Samuel

The story gets fairly boring for the next few hours.  I pushed and I pushed. I started throwing up about an hour or so into the pushing.  God Bless Sara and Ian.  Sara held the puke bag and helped me rinse me mouth out after I threw up each time.  Good thing the room was well stocked with puke bags. Ian was so great!  He held my leg and was so encouraging. (I kept waiting for him to pass out or something and he did not.  He hung in there for the entire process and was so great!) Actually everyone was encouraging.  I specifically remember asking Casey how I was doing at one point and she told me that 75 to 80% of my pushing was good.  The main thing I HATED was holding my breathe. I could rant about that for a long time. I don't think the person who proposed holding one's breathe while trying to push what feels like a bowling ball out of one's self did not had any experience in doing so.

Casey was SO GREAT! She was so encouraging and she did not give up on me. She was the slowest count-er to ten that I have ever met.  I would try to count to ten slowly in my mind and I would be at twenty and she would be at six.  One thing that I will always laugh about is my memory of pushing.  I told Ian later, "I know I pushed for three hours, but I was only pushing like every 10 or 15 minutes... so it wasn't really that much." He looked at me with a shocked face and said, "No. I was watching the monitor, you were pushing every 2 to 4 minutes." Hahaha - time can become a funny thing.

At one point after I had thrown up and was feeling exhausted, I pathetically asked Ian, "Once this is all done (and in my brain I added, "And I survive this ordeal alive...") can you please find me some Sprite." The only thing I want after throwing up is Sprite.  Of course I was restricted to ice chips. Ian agreed to find me some Sprite.

At one point I think they may have turned down my epidural so that I could feel the contractions so I would know when to push as it was not timing out correctly.  I can't really remember... it is part of the fog now.

I don't remember how far along we were, but at one point Casey asked me how much I had left in the tank.  I gave a pretty vague answer. I did not feel like I knew. At that point it felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life pushing as I was not really making any progress.  

Dr. Bozemann came in around the two and half or three hour mark of pushing.  He said that I had four options:

1. Turn the epidural off and let nature take its course - Um, NO, I was not about to do that.
2. Keep pushing - well I had not really progressed (in my opinion) in the last three hours, so I am not sure why this was an option
3. Try forceps or vacuum - I was not crazy about this option.
4. C-section - at that moment in time I thought, "I will do anything so that I do not have to have a c-section."

My only "birth plan" was: do whatever the trained people tell me to do. Unfortunately all the medically trained people were like, "What do you want to do?" and Ian and I were like, "Tell us what to do!" By order of elimination we decided to try forceps.

I don't remember a whole lot at this point - they had me put my legs in stirrups and my legs started shaking uncontrollably. They did a quick ultrasound to see what way the baby was facing.  A LOT of people started coming in the room. I think I tried to keep pushing through most of this because trying to breathe through a contraction and not push was WAY more painful than pushing.

Once everything was ready, they told me to push. Sweet Lord Jesus, Rapture Me Now. Pushing with forceps was hands down the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.  I was willing to do anything in that moment to not experience that pain again.  I screamed (from pain) and then started crying (because I knew I was going to have to have a c-section).