What a Day

By Cynthia Kinder

I was 34 weeks pregnant when my beautiful little boy was born. On September 4, 2004, at 7:30 p.m., my labor began. My contractions were four minutes apart. My husband said the contractions were probably false and so we waited.

Two hours later they started coming two minutes apart and we decided we better go to the hospital. My husband is in the air force and we live away from our families so we were by ourselves, and being a first-time mommy I wasn't sure what was going to happen and a little scared.

When we got to the hospital they admitted me but we had to wait for a delivery room. It seemed nine other women were in labor as well.

When I finally got my room they said I was dilated to 4 and called my doctor. They said, We're going to try to stop your labor, but you're probably going to have the baby tonight. They gave me a shot and we waited. It slowed my contractions down but didn't stop them. When they called my doctor again he said we were going to have a baby.

I had to wait for my epidural. The doctor was with another woman in a Cesarean section. By now my contractions were starting to really hurt.

I'm not sure the time periods in which things happened I was given pain medicine and was a little out of it, but at one point a nurse came in and said she was going to check to see how dilated I was. I was aware enough to know that this wasn't how the other nurse checked me. This nurse grabbed something and pulled hard, and when she let go it felt like a rubber band was snapping back in place, let me tell you, this was very painful.

After she left I got up to pee and discovered I was bleeding pretty badly. The other nurse and my husband helped me back into bed. Soon after my contractions became so painful I started to shake and I couldn't be comfortable on the bed. It seemed like I had to pee every five minutes and my contractions were one right after the other.

The nurse I called the evil one came back in to check me and although I didn't want her to touch me my husband said I didn't have a choice. So in she went again, jerking on what I can only guess was my cervix and meanwhile I was having two or three contractions. Finally I felt a gush of water and she informed me that my water had broken.

She left and was never seen again. Now I had to have an internal monitor because they couldn't get a good heart rate on the baby. Then they told me that every time I had a contraction the baby's heart rate was going down, and they were afraid there wasn't enough fluid, so they put a catheter in to give the baby more fluid. This plus my IV, causes me to have a catheter. I couldn't get up to pee any longer.

Finally at 6 a.m. on September 5, the doctor came to give me my epidural. I was dilated to 7. I would have married that man, he was a godsend.

An hour later I kept telling my husband it was time to push. He didn't believe me, of course. When the nurse came in and checked me she saw I was dilated to 10, and went for the doctor. At 7:30 we began to push, and at 7:56 a.m. Dylan was born. He was 6 pounds, 5 ounces and perfect.

They let me hold him for a few minutes, then took him off to be monitored. A couple of hours later they brought him back to me with a clean bill of health, and we went home the very next day.

There are things I would change about my first delivery if I could. I was 19 and away from home. My husband and I were very new and very nervous.

But my next child will be different. Next time I'll be more prepared, and I will never let a nurse do something to me without explaining it first.

The best advice I could give on delivery to a new mom would be to ask them what they are doing. Once they explain it, it won't be as frightening.