Illya Fay

Haven't updated my blog since I got engaged...haha. Well, we got married December 15th, 2013. I got a new job working as a receptionist at Microsoft for a year and a half, and as of the end of January, I quit my job and we've been living at home with mom and dad.

I was expecting Illya to be born early, possibly even late January, because I was already dilated to 3cm. As we got into February, I got to 4cm and was expecting her every single day.

My very first doctor appointment after finding out I was pregnant, they told me my due date was February 18th based on my last period, but then after getting the ultrasound, the technician said that based on her measurements it would likely be closer to the 15th.
After thinking she'd be born in late January, every day was filled with restlessness and anxiety. February 15th came and went, and I was sure any minute would be the minute labor started. Then the 18th came and went, and I felt like she would never come. I would just be pregnant forever. She would grow up and never come out. I would be the first documented case of a pregnancy that never ended.

Finally, on February 21st, I woke up around 2am with light contractions. For the past month, I had been constantly googling "what do contractions feel like?" I would always get cramps and think it was contractions, but they would be irregular and go away within a couple of hours, or I would fall asleep and wake up fine. Or I would toot and the pain would go away.
But when I woke up at 2am that day, I knew right away that they were real. But they weren't too painful and were 10 minutes apart, so I let Chris sleep. Even though they didn't hurt too bad, they were still really uncomfortable and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I just pulled out my phone and watched Netflix. Around 5am, I texted mom and told her that I was having contractions but they weren't strong enough to go to the hospital yet. Chris woke up around 7-7:30am and I told him we were having a baby today. He was surprised and excited and wanted to go to the hospital right away, but I knew we'd be turned away because they were still about 5 minutes apart.

Around 9am or so, the contractions were getting closer together and really intense where I had to clench my eyes closed and grab something and couldn't talk. Chris kept saying we needed to go to the hospital, but they still weren't quite 3 minutes apart yet. I ended up calling my doctor's office to give him peace of mind, and they said to wait until they were 3 minuets apart. I waited another half hour or so, and the contractions started getting really really painful. So even though I was still about 3 1/2 minutes apart, we decided to go.

We got to the hospital and they were out of triage rooms, so they put us straight into a birthing room. I got in my gown and got hooked up in the bed. The nurse had a hard time getting any of my contractions to register on the monitor, but they were getting extremely painful.
The doctor came in and said I was at 5cm and that my blood pressure was a little bit high, so they wanted to get things going. She broke my water and then left.

After a while, they asked if I wanted to epidural, and I responded with an emphatic yes. About an hour later, they got the anesthesiologist in and I got the needle in my back. It was pretty painful, but nothing compared to the pain of contractions. Within minutes, I started feeling warm and fuzzy starting in my feet and working its way up. It was such a nice feeling I just wanted to go to sleep (I had been up since 2am, I was exhausted). I was so comfortable and warm. After everything got to feeling nice, they put in a catheter so my bladder wouldn't explode. But despite the pain from contractions having gone away, I felt the catheter go in and cringed. I started cramping really badly and then I had a constant pain that got worse with each contraction. I got to enjoy the epidural for all of maybe half an hour. I told the nurse that the catheter really hurt, but she said it wasn't the catheter's fault and that they couldn't take it out or my bladder would explode. I wished they could have just put it in to empty it every couple of hours instead of leaving it in because it hurt so bad, but they had to leave it in.

I had been able to bear it through contractions up to that point, but after that catheter got put in, the contractions got extremely unbearable. I couldn't hold in the tears because it was the worst pain I had ever experienced. I had a cutton to push that gave more of the epidural, but it didn't help at all. They called the anesthesiologist to come back in "top me off", and that helped for a little while, but then I was back to crying in pain after not too long.

Around 5:30pm, the nurse felt bad for how much pain I was in and measured me. She said I was fully dilated and said that sometimes pushing helped relieve pain. So she took out the catheter and taught me the proper pushing technique and had me start trying. I texted my mom that I was starting to push. I thought that meant I would have a baby within an hour or two.

After pushing for a little while, my nurse's shift ended and I got a new one. She told the new nurse that I had been pushing, so the new nurse gave me another pushing lesson and had me keep trying with every single contraction.

Hours passed. I was getting exhausted. The baby wasn't moving anywhere. I felt like the tip of her head was out of my cervix a little bit, which was extremely uncomfortable. It made me scared because I felt like her being stuck like that for so long was going to squeeze her skull and brain and really hurt her. So I pushed as hard as I possibly could, hoping to get her out so she could be safe. But nothing was happening. The nurse said she was stuck behind my pelvic bone. I felt like my body just wasn't able to birth her. She was going to be stuck forever. She was never going to get past my pelvic bone. I would need a C-section. She told me to keep pushing. It had been hours of pushing with every contraction, and I was so tired, and now giving up hope. I started crying harder. I didn't want to push anymore. She was stuck. Hours of pushing had gotten us nowhere. Pushing wouldn't do anything. Through tears, I told her I was losing hope. Pushing wasn't working. I needed to rest. I wouldn't be having this baby. But she told me to keep pushing. Without any rest, I kept going. For hours more.

Finally the doctor came back in, for the first time since she had broken my water hours before. She felt around and said that my contractions weren't anywhere near strong enough and asked the nurse why I hadn't been put on Pitocin, that I should have been on it from the get go. I was too exhausted to be angry, but looking back, I'm pretty mad that the nurse never thought to put me on Pitocin after pushing for hours, and that the doctor hadn't checked in at all since then.

I was put on Pitocin and kept pushing. Nothing was changing. Around 10:30pm, the nurse had to take a break (I wished I could have taken a break), and a relief nurse came in. She was filled in on the situation, and as soon as the old nurse walked out, the new nurse looked me straight in the eyes and said that the situation was ridiculous, that she had never heard of ANYONE pushing for 5 hours. She said that if she had been the nurse, I would have gone into surgery for a C-section a long time ago. I was still in so much pain and reached to hit the button for another dose of epidural, even though it barely did anything. Before I could push it, the nurse said that she couldn't legally stop me from pushing the button, but that I really shouldn't, because after pushing for so long, I really needed to get some results and I needed to really needed to feel each contraction so that I could push better. I wanted to tell her that I was already feeling every contraction, but she was scary and I didn't want to talk back to her. With her being tough and scaring me and telling me that if I didn't get her out soon that I would be given a C-section, and with the Pitocin starting to take effect, I found my second wind and started finally making some progress with pushing. After not too long with the new nurse, baby was far enough out that she sent for the doctor and birthing team to come in. I kept pushing with her for a while longer until the team came in. I was really feeling productive contractions at this point (what I guess they should have been like all along) and I HAD to push with each one. The team had to prepare something, I can't remember what, so the doctor told me to wait and not push for a minute, but I really couldn't help it. I tried my best to stop pushing, but she had to come out.

Once she gave me the go ahead, I started pushing with the contractions. The epidural had long since worn off and I felt every moment of it. I had never screamed in pain before, but I was yelling with every push. I could feel her moving out, feel the stretching, burning, tearing. Every push felt like it would be the last, it felt like she was already crowning, but then the doctor said she was just starting to come out. And when I thought I had already experienced the worst pain of my life, it got even worse.

But then she said one final push, and I pushed, and she pulled Illya out and I opened my eyes and saw her. They suctioned and cleaned her off and she cried, and all the pain seemed to go away. And they gave her to me to hold as I delivered the placenta, but I barely even noticed because she was finally here and she was perfect. But then the doctor started to stitch up my tear, and I had to stop her because she didn't realize the epidural hadn't worked and was stitching me without any numbing. I don't know how she didn't realize that when I had been screaming so much during the birth, haha.
She was born at 11:38pm and was 7lbs 15oz and 21 inches.

The nurse then started beating up my belly to break up any blood clots and get the blood flowing out, and it was excruciating. But then as she pushed down on it to try to force blood out, my bladder emptied and it was... a lot. A lot lot lot of pee. They hadn't thought during my six hours of pushing to take a break and empty my bladder. Glad it didn't explode...

After cuddling for an hour and learning to feed her, we were moved to the recovery room. I was hoping to get some sleep after an exhausting 20 hour labor, but there was no rest in sight. They told me to feed baby every 2-3 hours, but Illya seemed hungry constantly. And right away she did not want to be put down. She wouldn't last very long in her little hospital bassinet thing without crying, so sleeping between feedings was impossible. I got very little sleep that night.

The next day went by pretty quickly. Feeding her seemingly constantly, the hours flew by. And then the next night came and I was so tired, but Illya didn't want to sleep at all. After hearing her cry for a while, the nursery nurse came in and said that they don't usually have a nursery because she and one other person were the only nursery nurses, but since she was there, she could take her for the next two hours. Part of me was paranoid that she wasn't an actual nurse and that she was going to steal my baby. But the larger part of me was so incredibly tired after no sleep for two days, so I let her take her. And I finally slept. Only two hours, but it was something.

After she was brought back, I had gotten a taste of sleep and did not want to give it up again. So after she refused to sleep in the bassinet again, I just held her. And while holding her, she let me sleep in continuous two hour stretches.

Skipping to my first night at home, I held her all night while I slept and slept fairly well in those continuous two-hour stretches. But then I noticed that she was breathing really fast, so I felt her neck and she was really sweaty. Being swaddled in a sleep sack and cuddled next to me was way too hot for her. So starting the next night, I stopped sleeping with her and just had to put up with her continuous awakenings. And every night since, to this day, I wake up multiple times a night in a panic, thinking that I fell asleep while holding her, and frantically look and feel around the blankets, thinking she was covered and suffocating in the blankets somewhere.

Mom started taking her for a feeding every night. I would feed her around 8 or 9 and give her to mom while I went to bed. Illya would fall asleep around 10, wake up around midnight and mom would give her a bottle, and then sleep until 1 or 2am when she would bring her back down to me. The extra sleep was vital in not going completely crazy.
Then she started sleeping longer each night and she would sleep from midnight to 4am. With the longer stretches, I've started keeping her every night (I was spoiled with having mom keep her for so long). She usually sleeps four hours, from 9:30 - 1:30 or 2am. And then she'll usually sleep another three hours, then two, then one, and then be up for the day. One night she slept seven hours straight! But it was an isolated incident and I'll be surprised if/when it ever happens again!

Anyway, this post is getting REALLY long, so... I should end it here.