Friday, October 7, 2011

Labor

For my human growth and development class we had a choice of different topics that we could write about.  One of those topics was to write about your labor and delivery story, if you have had a child.  That is what I chose to write about and wanted to share it here.  Enjoy!

     I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter on July 10, 2009.  We soon discovered that her due date was March 20, 2010, however my husband and I would have to wait a little bit past that date.  I scheduled and attended all of my prenatal appointments from day one, as I understood the importance of prenatal care with my previous experience as a LPN.  The pregnancy was about as smooth as I could ask for, until the last week arrived.
            On March 26, 2010, I still had not given birth to my daughter and was beginning to become worried.  I had scheduled an appointment to have a NST done as well as an ultrasound and some blood work to ensure that things were progressing positively.  When the nurse weighed me, she discovered that I had gained 12 pounds in 7 days which pointed to potential health problems for me and my baby.  I was retaining a lot of water which was evidenced by my swelling legs, hands, feet, and face.  My blood pressure was slightly elevated, although it was not too high and this could also affect the baby’s health.  The CNM decided that I was going to be induced the following morning (March 27, 2010). 
            My husband and I drove to the hospital at 5:00am the next day, eager to meet our little girl.  When we arrived at the hospital I was 1 cm dilated and the induction began!  At 10:00 a.m., we had all been checked in and I had been placed in a room and had to put up with an invasive catheter insertion into my cervix.  This was done to get my cervix to continue to dilate and by 2:00pm I was at 6cm and in quite a bit of pain.  Soon it became unbearable, so I requested to have an epidural placed to relieve the pain.  The anesthesiologist placed the epidural at 3:00pm and I instantly felt some relief from the excruciating contractions. Later at 6:00pm the CNM decided to start Pitocin, which is a drug that quickens contractions and increases dilation because I had not progressed as quickly as I should have given the treatments that had begun.  For the six hours following the epidural placement I was pain free and was able to relax while my body worked to deliver my daughter, but by 9:00pm I had not dilated further.
            At this time, my CNM was checking my dilation and I began to feel the contractions again and they had returned with a vengeance.  I asked to speak with the anesthesiologist who said that sometimes the epidural only lasts for a few hours so she removed the one previously placed and inserted a new one in an attempt to give me relief.  This second attempt gave me pain relief for only two more hours, and by midnight every contraction was excruciating and I was having horrible back labor.  At one point I screamed at the nurse to “cut her out of me” so that I would be out of pain.  At 3:00am I was dilated to 10cm but my daughter had not dropped all the way into the birth canal.  I spent about an hour trying to push, making little progress with no pain relief either despite numerous attempts.  During this time I became like a drug addict begging for any amount of pain relief.  The anesthesiologist did give me a dose of Fentanyl around 4:00am which allowed me to rest for about 30 minutes after I had been pushing.
            For the next two hours I was in the worst pain of my life.  At 6:00am the CNM came in and said that it was time to start to push.  She brought the team in and I pushed.  I pushed and pushed and finally my daughter began to emerge.  I heard the CNM say “nuchal cord x 1” and I knew exactly what that meant; my daughter’s umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck which could threaten her life.  I gave one last push and my daughter came out.  My husband said she just kind of plopped out and fell onto the table with a big whoosh. 
            Reagan Mackenzie Hudson was born at 6:28am on March 28, 2010.  She did have the cord wrapped around her neck once, and gave us quite a scare when she did not respond right away, but in the end she was born a healthy little girl.  After 20 hours of labor I swore that I would never go through that ordeal again.  Fast forward a year and a half later and my husband and I are expecting our second little girl, due on November 15, 2011.  We couldn’t be happier and I am prepared to do it all over again if need be.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Trust

Trust.  What an amazing word.  It truly can take years to build and only seconds to destroy it.  I used to be a very trusting person, to the point that I would basically set myself up to be hurt.  Circumstance, as it often does, forever changed how I would go about trusting people and in particular, men.  When I was 21 years old I entered into my first real relationship with a man who I will call Colorado.  It was the first time that I fell in love, the first time that I was intimate with anyone (sorry if that is TMI, but I really do have a good message to go with this little trip down memory lane).  For a year and a half I dated a man who I never really knew.  I gave my everything to him, and then my world crashed down on me when I found out that he had been married the entire time that we had been together.  Then, to add insult to injury, I looked back at the year and a half and with the perfect hindsight 20/20 vision that we often have and realized that there had been so many signs.  At one point he had actually called me by his wife's name and I brushed it off as just some stupid slip of the tongue.  I also never met any of his family and only very few of his friends.  I later learned that I had been the laughing stock of their conversations. 

After learning that Colorado was married I confronted him about it.  He did not deny any of it but just cried like the little boy that he was and told me how sorry he was (sorry for being caught, I am sure).  I told his wife and also made sure that she understood that I had no idea about her and that I ended the relationship immediately.  I later found out that despite all of Colorado's lies, his wife still stayed with him.  This is something that I have never been able to understand.

My relationship with Colorado began when I was 21 years old and ended when I was 22.  Fast forward to 2009 when I would have been 24 years old and also when I met the man who would become my husband.  I really did not even realize how much my heart had been damaged by Colorado.  Unfortunately, my husband is now paying for the mistakes that Colorado made. 

I am not going to use this blog to discuss details of my marriage as I do not think that is fair to my husband and family.  I will say that I have struggled with being able to trust my husband unconditionally.  Not because he has ever done something so terrible to have destroyed the trust in our relationship, but more because I never want to be hurt the way I was only a few years ago.  At almost 27 years old, I am finding myself in a position where I have to learn how to trust all over again.  Not all people are as deceitful as Colorado is and not everyone will make me the butt of their jokes.

For all of the women out there who have been scorned by a man, there is a prince charming out there for you.  Not all men will treat you badly, not even the majority of them.  There are men out there who will open doors, and their heart, to you.  There are men who will protect you, cuddle with you, and tell you that they love you every single day.  No relationship is a fairy tale; they all take work.  But, you can live happily ever after; I know that I am :)