He's here!!

I've been struggling to find time to share that my sweet baby boy has made his grand entrance! I wanted to share my birth story and later share my hospital experience as well. But what a better time to share than Mother's Day!

Monday May 4, 2015 at 1:40pm baby Eli James Bernas made his entrance into the world! I am the 1% that delivers on their due date! How absolutely insane!

On Thursday April 30th I began having contractions that carried over into the next morning then dissipated. Sunday May 3rd the contractions began again at about 6am, ironically enough that day my parents were supposed to come into town for a little visit through Monday. Since my previous contractions hadn't stuck around, we spent the day out with my family. I had given up timing my contractions after they broke their pattern and just went on with spending time with the family. That night after we got back to the house, I noticed my contractions seeming to be coming closer together. We ordered pizza and by the time it got here, my contractions were getting stronger and about 4-5min apart. Hell, I could hardly eat they were bothering me so much (and this girl LOVES her food lol). They broke pattern and lengthened out so I figured I should atleast try to sleep, it was about midnight. At 3am (on my due date) I woke up thinking I needed to pee and feeling like my body was sore from the previous day's contractions. After laying back in bed I realized the back pain was coming and going and it was so uncomfortable I couldn't bare to be laying down. So, I got up and started walking around the house. They were coming about 2.5-4 min apart and hurt bad enough I was tuckering over to breathe through them. I spent about 45min attempting to cut strawberries to go in yogurt for breakfast. I eventually succeeded and frankly wish I had eaten much more! About 4am my husband's alarm went off to get up for PT. He quickly realized I wasn't in bed and found me frantically timing contractions. He asked me over and over as he he drank his coffee and got dressed if we should go to the hospital and I kept finding reasons why it "just wasn't time." Well really I had one big reason, I kept having a random contraction at 5-6min apart after a series of 2.5min apart contractions. After standing on the porch together as my husband was preparing to leave for the day, I had a good three contractions and he told me to get my things, we were going to the hospital whether I wanted to or not. I grumbled and put clothes on while he grabbed my bag. About 5am we made it to the hospital.
While signing into labor and delivery, the desk nurse giggled as I breathed through contractions and said she highly doubted I would be leaving any time soon. I didn't believe her. In the triage room I was checked and to my surprise I was 5cm 100% effaced and my blood pressure was 138/92. Granted that is a high BP for me, I didn't really think it was high enough to be concerning, but the hospital did. So, they went ahead and admitted me and started blood work and a saline lock. My BP got better but the contractions sure didn't! The pain was getting harder and harder to breath through and when they would come back to back with what felt like just few seconds between them. That's where I really started to get frustrated. It turned out I was at about 6cm. My husband was telling me that I should get the epidural if I was in this much pain but I was still saying no. I walked, I tried other positions, he rubbed my back, I just kept trying to relax and work through them. Next check I was 7cm and an hour after that I was still 7cm. I felt defeated. I was crying with almost every series of contractions. All I could think about was why is this so miserable? It wasn't fair. This was supposed to be magical.  That was it, I told them to get the anesthesiologist. About this time my parents arrived. At that point I didn't care if they came in the room, after all it was my mom's birthday! When the anesthesiologist  came in I immediately just felt regret. My body was supposed to just be able to do this, why was I giving in? I was fine when he began then of course when the important part came, so did the contractions. He had to stick me two times and double up the numbing meds. With the first stick I could feel this awful pinching pain, so of course he stuck me again after the second round of numbing meds. yayyy. After he finished and my legs began to tingle just the slightest bit, my nurse decided to check me. I was 8cm and then my water ruptured. The next contractions after that were a special type of horrible horrible pain. I completely lost control....and my parents got to see it, oops. The epidural was doing nothing but making my legs numbish and leaving all the pain for me to feel. The nurse literally yelled at me and all I could do was wimpier and cry. Time was passing and the pain wasn't getting any better. The anesthesiologist came back and topped me off. Apparently what was happening was that I was progressing faster than the epidural could work. Eventually I was only able to feel pain in one "hot-spot" (from the way little man's head was wedged) which gave me the ability to still know when I was contracting when it came to pushing. What I didn't ever feel was the urge to push. At this time though, I was just exhausted. I wasn't excited, I was numb in more ways than one. Next check I was 10cm and you could see his hair, but I felt no need to push so they just decided to wait. I have no idea how long passed but eventually they came in and started prepping the room and told me it was time to push. I was so nervous. My husband tells me I pushed for less than an hour.

Little Eli finally arrived at 1:40pm weighing 7lbs and 1oz, at 19 1/2 inches long. He was immediately placed on my chest where I stared at him in utter disbelief. I didn't cry like I thought I would. Instead I just couldn't get over that he was really mine. I made him, carried him and finally delivered him. I got to take him home. I got to care for him forever. I was now a mom and solely responsible for this slimy little creature.
My husband cut the cord and they soon took him from me. I just so happened to hear them ask my husband if he wanted to see the placenta and remembered-Holy shit I forgot to call the doula. Yup, my birth plan was in a trashcan somewhere since my husband lost it, I had to make a phone call while being stiched up to make sure my placenta got saved and picked up to be encapsulated. Magical, right? Thank god I got that taken care of but the doctor was taking what felt like forever. She had told me I tore a little and I could see her doing the stitches (how weird). She kept saying she was "just checking" over and over and finally decided to let me know I was still bleeding and she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Luckily it was just a constant trickle, but mentally I still freaked out. They called another doctor in and it somehow just quit after tieing off the stitches.
I finally got my skin to skin time but was very displeased that the "goo" was already in his eyes when I was told it was procedure not to apply it until after that initial hour (plus it was in my plan not to have it at all).
Overall, labor was hard and some things didn't go the way I had hoped (because well its easy to forget whats on the birth plan when you think you're dying), but my precious little man is here and hes healthy!!! He has a beautiful head FULL of hair and huge hands and feet! He's literally perfect.
I'll go into detail about our traumatic hospital stay later, it's a doozy! So for now, Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there! We did it!!!