Labor Day Meme

So this is a different sort of "Labor" day that some bloggers are celebrating in blogland. It's fun, so I thought I'd join in. You can check out the other "Labors" at Rocks in my Dryer. http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/08/laborious.html



How Long Was Your Labor? 15 hours

How Did You Know You Were In Labor?
Well, since Camden was 7 days late, and my Dr. was leaving town on vacation, and there was room for me in the hospital, they started my labor with pitocin. I didn't originally want to have pitocin, but when you're a week overdue, you're just ready for that baby to come out!


Where did you deliver?
At Penrose Community Hospital.

Drugs?
Yes. I also didn't want an epidural, but after 7 hours of pitocin enduced contractions, and still only dilated to about 4, I gave up. I was already getting tired. I'm so thankful I did because I still had a long way to go. And with Camden having such a HUGE head, I needed to push for almost 2 hours. If I wouldn't have had the epidural, there's no way I would have had the energy to push his big head out!

Epidural story? (OK, I made that one up.)
My 1st epidural didn't work. I thought it did because it took away a lot of the pain. But after about 15 minutes I was having a lot of pain again. Well, the Dr. who does them was now in surgery, then he had an emergency c-section. So I had to wait another 1 1/2 hours for him to come back to do another one. THEN....here comes the good part (or not so good part, if you were me), he couldn't get them to work. Yes, I said "THEM". He poked me and "tried" 8 times before he finally got it to work. I heard him at one time say, "OK, I'll try one more time." That's when I wanted to turn around, grab him by the shirt collar, and scream in his face, "You better get it right then, Mr.!" But thankfully, I held my composure, and just continued to pray with all my heart that it worked. And praise God, it did. (Thankfully I didn't know till the next day how many times he tried. I looked in the mirror and saw all the "holes" then asked Renato how many times he tried to get it to work. My back was just a little bit sore for a few days.)

C-Section?
No. Praise God.

Who Delivered?
Dr. O'Connell. He was my Dr. and was on-call that weekend before he went on vacation. He also is a member of our church, so that made me feel very good about him from the beginning. Although he did have to wait a while for me to push Camden out. The nurse got him really early because I was pushing so well.....not well enough for the big head though. :)