Sometimes Epidurals Don't Work?!?!?

Yes, I didn't know that either, and I found out the hard way!  On Monday night, July 25, Sam and I went to bed at 11:00 p.m. and I completely thought I would still be prego for a few more weeks (my due date was August 10).  Sam had only been back from a week long business trip to San Francisco for three days (and while I had been having contractions the week before, I hadn't had any for five days). 

Well.... at midnight I wake up to my water breaking!  No contractions -- in fact, I hadn't even dropped yet!  So, being the procrastinator that I am, I had planned on packing for the hospital once my contractions started....well, Sam barely let me grab a camera and change out of my pj's before we were out the door. I guess he was having visions of trying to deliver the baby on the way to the hospital.  And if you've ever been around my husband when he's stressed out... well, you let him have his way!

We get to the hospital, and they don't even have a room ready at first.  I guess they had delivered 12 babies the day before, which is A LOT for Parkwest in one day.  Anyways, so I get a room, and then I have another hurdle to overcome.  For those that don't know me well, I am TERRIFIED of needles.  I actually passed out at my first appointment with this pregnancy b/c I had to get a bunch of blood taken (yes, I thought I was over this fear after having Brylee, but apparently I'm not!).  Well, the nurse comes in to give me my IV.  When I got the IV with Brylee, I was having hard contractions so I had that to focus on, so at the time the IV was the least of my worries.  But this time I was having absolutely NO PAIN, so all I could focus on was getting the IV... which I ALMOST passed out during.  The blood pressure cuff was set to take my blood pressure every 10 minutes, and it went off right after they gave me the IV and my blood pressure was 90 over 40, so then they had to start fanning me b/c they thought I was going to pass out.

This sounds ridiculous, but I was really scared to move my hand and was always terrified the nurses were going to step on my IV cord when they came to check me.  Haha, I'm sure I'm one of the people they talk about on their "lunch breaks" especially after I may or may not have asked for a description of all things that can and can't go wrong with IV's at 2 in the morning when my bag started beeping b/c they had to add more fluid to it. =)

Finally at 4:45 a.m. I have my first contraction, and then at 5:05 it was game on.  Our little Emme was coming quite quickly.  At 8 a.m., they gave me pitosin even though I asked the nurse if I had to have it since I was progressing so quickly and my contractions were QUITE PAINFUL.  She said "Yes, I did" and told me it would probably be a good idea to get the epidural now.  She wasn't expecting me to have this baby until much later in the afternoon or early evening.  The epidural man comes, and I get the side effect of having a pain shoot down my leg and my leg jump.  I didn't even know there was such a side effect!  So then I immediately ask once it was completed "Am I past the part of paralyzation, death, and the other terrible side effects that were on that paper I just signed?"  The man tells me "yes" but I have since found out he was lying!  I read a news story a couple weeks ago of a teenager in England that is now paralyzed b/c they left her epidural in to long.  But anyways, it was probably good they lied to me, so then I could relax...OR NOT!

Because yep, due to my fear of needles, the EPIDURAL DIDN'T WORK!  I didn't even know that was possible?!?!  But yes, it is.  The nurse kept telling me, just wait another half hour and it will kick in...finally it was very evident to everyone that it wasn't working.  So the epidural man came in and gave it an adjustment (which once again I was terrified of that whole process, but in so much pain I couldn't object to it).  Well, the stupid "adjustment" didn't work (which who can really feel comfortable with someone wiggling something around in your spine anyways?), and I am in PAIN.  When they ask you your pain level, a 10 being the highest, it was definitely a 10.  And then the stupid pitocin (that I kept asking the nurse to turn off), was making it so I wasn't getting that nice three minute break inbetween contractions.  The nurse said I was a case of "progressing too quickly for the epidural to catch up" - Great.  I was chanting to myself "noone has ever been in labor for forever, noone has ever been in labor for forever..." over and over and over again.

So the nurse checks me at 10:20, and I'm 10 centimeters and ready to go.  She has epidural man come back in and give me a shot of novicane so I at least don't have to feel the baby come out.  And the doctor was there and it was time to push...and ACTUALLY I don't know why they didn't give me that novicane a LONG TIME AGO - I could definitely still feel the contractions, but it certainly knocked them down on the pain level to like a 5.

But anyways, the second Emerson "Emme" Grace Crass arrived, all of the pain left pretty much immediately.  All I could concentrate on was getting to hold my beautiful, wonderful, amazing little girl.  And the poor thing arrived with a black eye and bruised little nose...I will have to tell her when she's older how rough we were on each other day she was born =).

Emme arrived on July 26, 2011 at 11:08 a.m. weighing 7 pounds 1 ounce and 20 inches long.  She's two months old already (which shows how little sleep I've been getting that it's taken me this long to write this blog post)...but we're in a pretty good routine now, so expect more updates very soon!  I LOVE getting to be a mom to TWO children now! =)