My Birth Stories

I gave birth to 2 children, so I have 2 birth stories.  My son was born in 2010. I had planned to give birth at the Pioneer Valley Hospital because it was close to where I lived at the time. I went to all my appointments there until my last month and then was told that they no longer took my insurance. I was then on the hunt for a new doctor and a hospital that took my insurance. I decided on the new Riverton Hospital since it was brand new and it was close to my mother. The day that I went into labor was actually the day I had my first appointment to meet with the doctor, so I had never actually met with her before. My water ended up breaking in the middle of the night, midnight to be exact. Luckily the day before I gave birth, I had my best friend take some maternity pictures of me. Since the moment I got to the hospital they had been talking about a c-section. My water had broken but I was not experiencing any contractions. They had to start them with Pitocin.  I was told that if I didn't start pushing by noon that they would do a c-section. At about 3:30-4pm I finally reached a 10 and started pushing. I was then told that they would not allow me to push for more than 5 hours or they'd do a c-section. I pushed for more than a little over 7 hours. By that time since my water had broken, they told me I had developed a fever. Every time I stopped pushing, my son would go back up the birth canal. They wanted to use a vacuum to pull him out, but I had heard horror stories about them being used and instead of calming my fears they said OKAY.  I did not have the birth that I see on television or read in books. I was confined to my bed the whole time, I was not allowed to walk around. My doctor ended up being yelled out by me because she went to check me and shoved her hand up my, you know what, and was all, "I ripped her to a 2." Like whom the heck says that, especially with someone's first child? They finally asked me at a few minutes before midnight if I wanted to keep pushing or have a c-section. At that moment I was tired and I had been hearing all day that I would be having a c-section anyways. I told them just to get him out. Like 10 minutes later I was wheeled in, cut open and he was out. I was so, terribly sore after. I could barely move, let alone walk. My stepfather had to bring down a rocker for me to sleep on in the living room because I could not even lay down on a bed, let alone walk up the stairs. I know TMI, but that first poop you have after birth, no one can prepare you for that, even taking laxatives. 

My second child was much easier! I of course switched hospitals. I will never go back to Riverton, even if my life depended on it! I ended up going to Alta View, which is by far the best hospital I've gone to. My doctor was simply amazing! He's name was Dr. Kenneth Larson, and I can't tell you enough how much I loved having him as a doctor! Since I had a c-section with my son, we decided another c-section was best with my daughter, since you have a chance of ripping after the first one.  My kids were only a year and a half apart, so it was fairly fresh. We set her eviction date, and I went in and she was evicted as scheduled. The only hiccup I had was when they were doing the spinal block, the anesthesiologist kept messing up and grabbing different needles and poking me over and over again. Putting it in and then removing it and putting it in again just to remove it again. By the time I was in recovery, my back hurt worse than my c-section and it looked worse than my c-section. To this day I think he messed it up because I'll be walking and have a sharp pain shoot all the way up and almost make my knees buckle. If I bend wrong, it hurts. If I stand or sit too long, it hurts. If I walk too long, it hurts.  My back is just messed up now. On a good note, though I was able to walk around and sleep in a bed because my c-section didn't hurt at all. I was actually back to work by 3 weeks post-partum. Also, the first poop didn't hurt at all, I guess that's only when you push or in my case, try to push a baby out. 

I also wanted to talk about how I knew I was pregnant. Wish my son I swear I experienced implantation bleeding because I only had a few hours of bleeding around the time I expected my period. The next period was MIA and the next day I took a test and it was positive. With my daughter I just had a feeling. I felt pregnant. Sure enough, when my period didn't show the test was positive. With both of them I found out pretty early. I was about 4-5 weeks with each. I think the pregnancy feels longer when you find out that early.