{"id":170,"date":"2012-01-21T17:36:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-21T23:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bethbrenneke.com\/?p=170"},"modified":"2012-02-01T20:04:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T02:04:14","slug":"sams-birth-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/?p=170","title":{"rendered":"Sam’s birth story"},"content":{"rendered":"

***Ye be warned- I will be talking about childbirth and some of the grossness that goes along with it.***<\/strong><\/p>\n

My date date (Sunday, November 20) came and went with absolutely nothing.\u00a0 Not that I minded, of course.\u00a0 I wasn’t ready yet mentally, and physically I still felt fine (barring some Braxton Hicks contractions on and off again).\u00a0 The next day I had a doctor’s appointment to see if I was dilated at all.\u00a0 It turns out that I was at 3cm, but not effaced.\u00a0 There was a brief discussion about induction, but I personally feel like induction should only happen if absolutely necessary.\u00a0 In my case, it wasn’t needed.<\/p>\n

Matt and I walked around Costco for a while, and I was getting a lot of the same Braxton Hicks contractions that I had been getting before (for those of you who don’t know what those are, they are simple practice contractions that don’t hurt at all- they feel like you’re doing crunches against your will).\u00a0 So, my body was gearing up for labor, but it wasn’t quite time yet.<\/p>\n

Tuesday the 21st was also uneventful.\u00a0 In fact, the only thing I remember about that day was that I went to bed WAAAY too late, as in 6am on the 22nd.\u00a0 That would come back to bite me in the ass.<\/p>\n

Less than 4 hours after going to bed, I am awaken by real contractions.\u00a0 They weren’t overly painful, but they sure as hell weren’t comfortable.\u00a0 Told Matt what was going on and that once they occurred every 5 minutes we should head to the hospital.\u00a0 I should also explain that Sam was face-up in the womb, which can make labor more difficult. The back of his head was hitting my spine, causing back labor.\u00a0 So most of the afternoon was spent slightly freaking out and Matt trying to convince me that we needed to go to the hospital.\u00a0 He nearly had me convinced when my contractions stopped.\u00a0 So, we decided to head over to Dan’s to hang out with friends for a bit.<\/p>\n

We head over to Dan’s house when the contractions start up again.\u00a0 We had the hospital bags in the car *just in case.*\u00a0 We pop in a movie (8mm) and during the whole time I am more or less in labor.\u00a0 Matt hovered and held my hand while I had contractions.\u00a0 They ended up getting pretty strong about 15 minutes before the movie ended (which was around 10:45pm).\u00a0 We didn’t stay too long as I was getting uncomfortable and some people had to go to work in the morning.<\/p>\n

As we were heading home in the truck, I commented to Matt that I didn’t think I was going to get much sleep that night.\u00a0 He suggested that we head to the hospital just to see how far along I was and if there was anything they could do to help me sleep.\u00a0 At this point I was so tired and uncomfortable that I agreed.<\/p>\n

We get to Progress West some time after 11p; the place was dead and slightly creepy.\u00a0 We had to go through the ER since the main entrance was closed.\u00a0 The poor lady had to push my fat ass in a wheelchair to L&D, although I offered to walk.\u00a0 We get into the triage room, where we go through the standard paperwork.\u00a0 The nurse, a lovely woman by the name of JoAnn, came in to check me out.\u00a0 I got into the standard (and oh so attractive) hospital gown, where she then hooked me up to an external monitor to see how both the baby and I were doing.\u00a0 I was only slightly more dilated than I was Monday (3-4cm), but I was starting to efface.\u00a0 She said there was about a 75-80% chance that I would be staying.\u00a0 It was around midnight at this point, and she wanted me to walk the halls for an hour to help speed things up, where she would check me again.<\/p>\n

So, Matt and I did multiple laps around the L&D floor.\u00a0 He called both sets of parents to let them know that I was in the hospital, but that there was no reason for them to show up yet (there was a chance that I would be sent home).\u00a0 My contractions quickly got intense, and I only walked 30 minutes before I was unable to continue.\u00a0 We headed back to triage where we let JoAnn know that I couldn’t go on.\u00a0 At this point the back labor was so painful that I was unable to sit in a chair or lay down on the bed.\u00a0 I hung onto Matt and dug my fingers into his shoulders when things got bad.\u00a0 Around 1 am JoAnn came back in to check for any progress.\u00a0 I was a 5cm dilated and 100% effaced, so I was in active labor and checked into the hospital.<\/p>\n

We get into our room, and the first thing I do is ask for an epidural.\u00a0 I always knew that I would likely have one administered, but I was hoping to wait until the last possible minute.\u00a0 With the back labor, I couldn’t even lay in the bed comfortably, so I requested on as soon as possible.\u00a0 Matt calls our parents around 2am to let them know what was going on.\u00a0 Turns out Matt’s mom didn’t bother trying to sleep and my mom immediately left work to come to the hospital.\u00a0 While this is going on the anesthesiologist arrived to give me pain relief.\u00a0 It didn’t hurt getting it done, but the problem is that it really didn’t work that well.\u00a0 I was able to lay in bed, but the pain never really diminished. Oh, and since I had an epidural, I had to get a catheter inserted. That was…um…interesting.<\/p>\n

The nursing staff, meanwhile, was trying to get a hold of my OB Dr. Schuetz, to no luck.\u00a0 They kept trying, but the on-call physician came by to introduced himself in the event that she didn’t show up.\u00a0 Now, this should have upset me more than it did, but at that point, I just wanted it to be over.\u00a0 The actual time things were happening start to get a little fuzzy at this point- I was a little preoccupied. \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 Both sets of parents arrive, which was a welcomed distraction.\u00a0 We talk for a bit, but thankfully they all go to the waiting room to give us some privacy.\u00a0 I remember laying on my left side talking to Matt when out of nowhere my water broke.\u00a0 Now THAT was a weird feeling, but JoAnn was awesome and took care of everything.<\/p>\n

Sometime after my water breaking, I felt a definite need to push.<\/em>\u00a0 Called in JoAnn, who started to get everything ready for the actual delivery.\u00a0 Turns out that they had been able to get a hold of Dr. Schuetz (finally!), who was on her way.\u00a0 The warming bed\/station for the baby was set up in the corner, and the bottom 1\/3 of my bed broke away for delivery.\u00a0 They say that modesty gets thrown out the window when you have a baby, and I always said that I was going to maintain mine as long as possible, but honestly, you just don’t give a fuck.\u00a0 I had Matt go and get my mom to come in and watch, which was something I had opposed for a long time.\u00a0 I love my mom, but like I said, I’m modest.<\/p>\n

With the help of JoAnn, I start pushing, with no progress.\u00a0 Turns out the baby was stuck on my pubic bone.\u00a0 I also started to hurt again- my epidural was wearing off.\u00a0 The anesthesiologist was called in to top me off with pain meds, even though it could potentially stall labor.\u00a0 I was also forced to lay back a little to help get the baby off the pubic bone.\u00a0 After that, things progressed very quickly.\u00a0 JoAnn was helping me push while calmly asking the other nurses if Dr. Schuetz had arrived- she had and was scrubbing up.<\/p>\n

Dr. Schuetz finally arrived, and two pushes later I gave birth to a healthy baby boy.\u00a0 Samuel John Brenneke entered this world at 5:20am on November 23, 2011.\u00a0 He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 20 3\/4″ long.\u00a0 Dr. Schuetz bullied poor Matt into cutting the umbilical cord, and my first thought was how much Sam looked like his cousin Addison (who has been mistaken as Matt’s child many times).\u00a0 He screamed for a good hour while they cleaned him up, put junk in his eyes, and gave him a shot.\u00a0 Matt and Mom stayed with him while Dr. Schuetz patched me up (I won’t get into too many details, but the child tore me a new one).<\/p>\n

The whole pregnancy and labor can only be described as surreal and amazing.\u00a0 It hasn’t been easy; there have been some setbacks and difficulties, but we’re working through them.\u00a0 And believe me, when my son smiles at the sound of my voice, it’s totally worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

***Ye be warned- I will be talking about childbirth and some of the grossness that goes along with it.*** My date date (Sunday, November 20) came and went with absolutely nothing.\u00a0 Not that I minded, of course.\u00a0 I wasn’t ready … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,23],"tags":[26,25,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beth.unspunproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}