the cervical ripening began on wednesday night, july 11th with the first round of misoprostol late that night administered at the hospital to basically get the contractions going because my body wasn't producing them on its own (either that or baby zhao was just too comfortable in there). it did get the contractions going, and it sped up the dilation process too, i went from 1cm (where I had been for about two to three weeks) to about 3cms. And I went from thick to about 50% effaced. Thursday morning the second round came and we were told that we might not be able to deliver that day because the maternity ward was full of women in labor and that there was no room for us. we were already excited and anxious and the wave of emotions overtook me...i sobbed uncontrollably while my husband angrily tried to reason with the hospital staff (and all the while our OB tried to get us on the list despite the complications). and it turned out that three women gave birth that morning, freeing up space for us!
after the miso i started contracting pretty regularly and unfortunately, painfully. synthetic hormone pitocin was then administered to produce stronger and controlled contractions. and boy were they strong. i've never felt pain like that in my life! i was formally on pitocin starting at 5pm on thursday, and after a few hours i was 4cm dilated, and never needed an epidural more in my life. The anesthesiologist was simply amazing. It was because of the epidural that actually made the labor tolerable....enjoyable (i daresay!) even!
Active labor (4cm+ dilation) lasted about 5-6 hours and actual pushing began at 1:11am on early Friday morning. It was much calmer than I thought - it was just me, my husband, and our labor nurse. Funny thing is that just after midnight - after the nurses had commanded us to get some sleep after the epidural was administered since we needed our strength for the pushing process - I suddenly felt nauseous. I proceeded to uncontrollably throw up my lunch all over my gurney and in the space between my hospital bed and my husband's cot where he was snoozing. I called the nurses, apologized profusely, and was helplessly moved and shoved while they cleaned up my mess (and I looked on guiltily). One of the labor nurses had thought outloud - oh, we might as well check to see how dilated you are. And sure enough I was 10 cm dilated and was ready to push!
after some 20-30 minutes of pushing the labor nurse noticed that when i pushed the baby's heart rate dipped slightly, and when i stopped it rose. she called dr. davis who was on call that night, and the team took action to get the baby out more quickly. using a vacuum at the same time i pushed, the baby came out - and kudos to the quick thinking of the team, because the baby had the umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck. i would have never been able to push him out naturally if we had continued doing so. i have been counting my lucky stars ever since.
and yes what they say is true. pushing is akin to taking the biggest dump of your life!!!
of course the first week has been nothing but a whirlwind with not only complete sleep deprivation but new adjustments on every level. i ran on adrenaline and it finally caught up with me - i was happy to catch some Z's at random hours since my body needed to recover, too.
the funny thing is i've lost all modesty (haha!) and copious amounts of urine and pee and drool and projectile spit-up/breast milk vomit no longer bother me. it's funny how having a newborn will change your perspective on things!
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