[NOTE: First part of the story can be found here.]

It was almost 1:00am. By the time we arrived at the outpatient labor & delivery ward, filled out paperwork, and I was hooked up to fetal and belly monitors, my contractions were regular and 2 minutes apart…

But they still didn’t hurt very much.

Brandon and I spent some time on our cell phones trying to reach parents in the middle of the night to let them know what was going on. I was only dilated to 1cm (9 more to go!) and felt pretty calm and comfortable. The resident on-call that night was one of the nice women that — while I haven’t had the pleasure of working directly with her — is both competent and friendly. Perfect. She informed us that our regular doctor would be on her way as I progressed further.

The attending on-call that night poked his head in a little later. Once again I was relieved to see it was one of the doctors I not only trusted, but also liked and felt comfortable with.

“Hello,” the attending physician said after he knocked gently and waltzed into the room.

“Oh! Hello! How are you guys?” It was obvious he recognized us. Brandon had worked with him just last month, but I was surprised he recognized me from last year.

I smiled broadly and asked how he was doing. Not in any real pain to speak of, it was easy to be friendly and comfortable despite the fact that I was laying in a wet pool of amniotic fluid. Shortly after he left, we were admitted to a private in-patient delivery room. There was a hospital bed that could be broken down into a delivery bed, a super huge recliner for dad, a baby station, a bathroom, and several other amenities that we didn’t take advantage of. At this point it was about 2:00am and the intensity of the contractions was starting to pick up.

“Just let us know anytime you want the epidural,” everyone kept telling me over and over and over again. The resident, nurse, and attending had all said the same thing. Just let us know. Anytime. While I didn’t have any specific plan for or against an epidural, I just wanted the delivery to be safe and fast. In the end, it turns out getting an epidural from a nurse anesthetist that knows you and wants to BE VERY SURE you’re not in any pain doesn’t help with the “fast” part.

So yes. With Brandon’s encouragement and increasing pain (that wasn’t so bad on its own, but became unbearable by the fact that it was so repetitive! here! it! comes! again!), I opted for an epidural around 3:30am. The anesthetist wheeled his little spinal tap cart in and (after another “Hello! Fancy seeing you here!” exchange) and hooked me up to the good stuff in no time.

And it all went down my right side.

My left side felt… well, felt everything. If this was only half of the pain, then I was sure I’d made the right choice. The nurse turned up the pitocin IV drip (which helps makes contractions stronger and MORE PAINFUL) and assured me we would be well on our way soon.

When the anesthetist checked on me a little later, I told him that the epidural was great. But. I could still feel everything on the left side. He filled another syringe with something behind my back and let ‘er rip.

I dropped off to sleep again and a few minutes later the nurse came in to check my cervical progress.

“I can’t move my right leg,” my eyebrows shot up in surprise and I attempted to accommodate the nurse’s inspection.

Instead of taking this as any sort of distressing signal, the nurse interpreted my lack of feeling and movement to indicate that I was ready to have the pitocin drip increased and my labor taken to the next level.

So, to the next level we hopped. After being dilated to only 1 cm for hours on end, I progressed from 4 cm to 9 cm in less than 60 minutes. My doctor was paged stat. The attending poked his head in. Everyone asked my permission to let the resident on-call participate, but assured me it would be okay if I said “no” since I had to work with all of these people in the near future. I nodded my assent and was ready to get this show on the road.

I’ll leave out all of the gruesome details of the actual delivery. Mostly because Brandon would probably do a better job with the details, but partly because it was largely uneventful for several hours due to the fact that I had been given an Extra Strength Epidural and still couldn’t feel my right leg. If you can’t feel your leg, it stands to reason that your ability to feel the strength and location of your pushes would be greatly diminished as well.

But I pushed anyway. And everyone cheered me on even though I know most of my pushes were futile and seemed to be rushing blood to my head instead of down to my bottom.

As medical students, Brandon and I had curiously and carefully watched the fetal heart monitor all night. We knew the differences between early, late and variable decelerations and were slightly alarmed at the consistently variable decelerations of fetal heart activity that accompanied each one of my contractions. We knew this typically meant the umbilical cord was being compressed. Which, in turn, meant the baby wasn’t getting as much blood and oxygen at those times. Not good.

“Sometimes medical students know just enough to be dangerous,” the attending physician assured us. “Don’t worry about those variables. The baby is fine. We’ll get him out just fine. I’m not worried.”

Even so, they strapped an oxygen mask on me and told me to continue pushing with every other contraction. I did this for almost two hours, but lost track somewhere around 9:30 or 10:00am. I was instructed to take deep breaths during my “downtime” and since I couldn’t feel the contractions, I had to wait for them to tell me when one was coming based on the monitor. I remembered being curious as to why the attending physician stayed in the room the whole time. They usually leave all of the early dirty work to the residents and only waltz back into the room when the baby needs to be scooped up or if there is a complication. The baby was taking a long time… why wasn’t the attending out getting coffee or putting his feet up? Was there a complication?

Finally the Kiwi came out. We were all done with waiting for my Extra Strength Epidural to wear off and decided I needed a little vacuum assistance. Within the next three pushes, our brand new baby boy was welcomed into the world at 10:39am. The doctor put him on my stomach and his little flailing hand found Brandon’s finger. Brandon got to cut the umbilical cord while the attending physician and resident set to work delivering the placenta and sewing.

“How bad was the tear?” I asked. Again, being a medical student, the attending physician knew how much I knew.

“Oh, it’s not too bad. Second degree or so.” I immediately knew he was lying to make me feel better. Brandon said he thought he saw him put in at least 14 stitches.

They whisked the baby away to a nearby warmer and cleaned him up while checking all of the important things. His Apgar scores were good (8 and 9 at 1 and 5 minutes) and they wrapped him up and gave him back to me within minutes. Congratulations were shared all around.

“Well! I hate to admit I was a little worried there for a bit,” the attending physician admitted. “I thought for SURE he was going to come out with that cord wrapped around his neck. For sure.”

And yet, it didn’t. Despite the fact that all medical technology pointed to baby distress and the fact that our little guy stubbornly refused to come out in a safe and timely manner, he entered this world just perfectly. And perfectly healthy. Thank heaven.