I don't remember much about the drive to the hospital except hanging onto the handle during contractions. I had my eyes closed most of the time. We pulled into the hospital and Brandon pulled up to the door to let me out, at which point, I said, "YOU'RE LEAVING ME?????" and we decided that I could walk the short distance from the parking lot.
We parked and walked in. The only person in the lobby was the security guard. He asked if we wanted a wheelchair, but I just wanted to keep moving, so we said no. He called up to the maternity floor to let them know we were on our way.
When we got to the third floor, the nurses met us, took our information and showed us into a delivery room. I got into a hospital gown and they put me in bed, strapping me up with the fetal monitors and so on. I think Brandon gave the nurses our birth plan, but things were happening so fast I'm not sure anyone had time to read it. I was pretty much just concentrating on getting through the contractions at that point.
My main nurse checked me to see how far I was dilated—and then she asked the baby nurse to check me too. I think she couldn't quite believe what she found, because they announced I was already 8 centimeters dilated. I was relieved; I had been hoping I would be at 5 centimeters when we got to the hospital.
Just a few minutes after that, my water broke. All the books and stuff console women that most of the time, you'll just feel a little trickle (so they don't have to worry about their water breaking in public and being embarrassing). No tiny trickle for me. WOOSH and there was no question what was happening.
The next while is a little bit of a blur. I know Brandon called Whitney and our parents to let them know that we were at the hospital and the nurses brought in the doctor. My contractions were getting closer together and incredibly intense. Brandon was awesome, getting in my face to help me focus and keep me breathing.
I think I was starting to panic a little bit because we were actually at the hospital and they weren't sending me home saying I was in false labor—that's right: I still wasn't 100 percent sure this was actually happening.
At some point, one of the nurses said, "OK, honey, looks like we're having this baby naturally!" To which I replied, "No. No, no, no, no, no, no..." (ad nauseum).
Afterward, someone said, "I thought that's what you wanted?" Sort of? Maybe? I guess? To be honest, I didn't think I could do it naturally. I thought I would want the epidural by the time I was ready to push.
And that wasn't going to happen.
Even if they had called the anesthesiologist the second we walked through the door, I'm not sure we would have had time for an epidural. We got to the hospital around 3:30am. Devyn was born at 4:22am, less than an hour later.
The idea of pushing really freaked me out and I definitely panicked a little bit when I started feeling the urge to push and they put my legs up in the stirrups. I was starting to hyperventilate. They gave me oxygen and everyone kept yelling at me to slow down and breathe. When they actually started telling me to push, I was—quite literally—screaming at the top of my lungs. The doctor told me, "You're wasting energy screaming," and I wanted to tell her where she could shove her wasted energy, but I didn't have the energy. ;)
They kept telling me to push, and I thought I was, but apparently I wasn't. They would say, "PUSH!" and I would say, "I DON'T KNOW HOW!" But eventually, I guess I figured it out.
Pushing wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be, all things considered. It was ridiculously weird to be able to feel the baby moving down the birth canal. And that "ring of fire" sensation I had read about was definitely unpleasant, but not nearly as painful as the contractions had been.
As Devyn was crowning, the doctor asked, "Do you want to touch your baby's head?" And I said "NOOOO!" Ha! I think they assumed, since they thought I wanted to do it all naturally, that I was super crunchy granola, but I was pretty freaked out by the whole thing. Thank god no one offered me a mirror! Brandon looked, even though he swore he wouldn't, and he said it didn't look much like a head at that point.
And then, suddenly, they were telling me I had a baby. My response? "It's over?!?" That made everyone laugh.
They barely cleaned her off before they laid her on my stomach. She cried two or three times and then she was quiet and contemplative. I couldn't believe it. It was totally surreal. But she was perfect and tiny and so amazing.
And that's about when Whitney got to the hospital. She drove as fast as she could, but Devyn was just a little bit faster. She stayed with us for an hour or so, helping me try to breastfeed, answering questions, and generally being a nice calming force in the room.
Brandon barely remembered to call our parents back to let them know we had a baby. I think everyone was completely shocked that it had happened so fast. We didn't even have a camera with us, as we'd just grabbed my labor bag out of the car—which we didn't even end up using at all.
The labor I had and the labor I'd thought I would have were completely different. All my planning and thinking and preparations went out the window with the reality of the situation. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a pretty good metaphor for parenting in general.
We stayed in the labor room for three or four hours. We weren't in any hurry to move, and the nurses were doing their shift change. We sat and stared at our daughter and watched the sun come up on her first day.
Our daughter. Devyn Fae. Welcome to the world, my darling.
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