#anyways the epidural only numbed one of her legs and eventually they had to cut my mom open and pop me out the other end

[not-actually-italian]

considering i almost killed both my mom and myself on the way out WITH the help of modern medicine (induction, cesarean)? yeah no way we would’ve made it.

*this is just about having medical needs that would have meant death without modern medicine, so no ‘I’d probably die from not being able to distinguish the blur as a lion’ we have a healthy caveman squad who cares for each other, we just also dont have, yknow, penicilin. etcetera.

pls reblog for sample size etc

follow for more occasional useless polls :)

[thunderdog73]

Oh Danny Boy

The birth of Daniel Charles Hernalsteen

On Friday, January 18th, contractions began that evening with consistency through the night about every 15-20 minutes. The pain wasn’t horrible yet, but enough of a discomfort to keep me awake through the night. I let Brian sleep as long as possible before alerting him of our upcoming day. THIS was the final countdown! At around 5:00am, I woke him and calmly said, “Honey, I think it’s time to have our baby today” to which he said, “Ok! Let’s do this” and immediately went into busy daddy preparation mode. I asked him to make breakfast, but he said he couldn’t spend his time cooking when there was much to be done. Who am I to argue with an Eagle Scout? He knew how to prepare, so I let him. We both took showers, he packed the car and we headed to the hospital.

We checked in around 8:00am at which point they checked my progress and I was only dilated to a 2. The L&D nurse, Jessika (I’ll get to her in a minute), said we could either leave and go home, since it could be a while before I’m ready, or stay there and wait it out. Of course choosing the latter would mean I’d be denied food, because hospitals. And unfortunately, my doctor wasn’t on shift that day so I had another doctor (I’ll also get to her in a second) see me and say that I should probably stay since this was my second child and things could progress quickly. Um, I get that, but if I stayed I wouldn’t have been fed and I knew I needed the strength. So we signed an AMA (against medical advice) and left to go get some breakfast tacos. Because y’all, priorities. Rosa’s to the rescue!

We drive to Rosa’s, order our food, and proceeded to sit in the car and shove tacos in my face for energy I knew I would need. After all, who knew how long I’d have to push and work to get this boy out. It hurt like hell by the way, pausing between bites to grit my teeth and drop a few F-bombs while contracting, but I knew I needed food so damnit, I got those tacos down! Then we decided to just drive around for a bit and see how I progressed. Big fat nope! 10 minutes later I was hating everything and told him to take me back to the hospital. I wanted ALL THE DRUGS.

When we returned just an hour later, Jessika said, “wow that was fast!” I told her I felt like things were progressing quickly and sure enough, she checked and said I was now at a 6 and 90% effaced. She smiled and said, “Guess those tacos did the trick!” She wasn’t wrong. By this point I was in a lot of pain and since I had done the drug free thing with Olivia, I reeeallly wanted to get an epidural this time around. You know, for research. So I did right away. However, it only worked on the left side of my body at first so it was strange to continue feeling contractions only on one side. You’d think it would cut the pain in “half”, but hell no. Still hurt like a bitch and I wanted to punch all the things. It was equally as weird to be numb from the waist down and not being able to move my legs. It was oddly foreign, like it was someone else’s legs in the bed with me. Eventually my right side caught up and once it completely numbed me, I closed my eyes and took a much needed 90 minute nap. Heaven.

When Jessika woke me to check me again, I was 100% effaced, dilated to a 9 and when they looked, he was already crowning. They paged the doctor and told us it was time to have our son! As they put one of my legs up, a nurse said, “Don’t put her other leg up yet or the baby will fall out”.... as the doctor was still putting on her gloves and getting prepared. Once she was ready, Dr. Spurdon lifted my other leg and asked me to push. I basically gave one push with the force of a cough and he slipped right out. Just like that, at 3:18 pm, he was born, a mere 6 minutes after waking from a nap, placed on my chest and absolutely perfect. It was love at first sight.

We were well taken care of for the next 24 hours by a team of amazing nurses. Jessika, my labor & delivery nurse, was absolutely amazing. She was kind and tentative and explained everything really well. And my on-call doctor who delivered? Her name was Dr. Spurdon and she so happened to be an OBGYN legend as the first female doctor to work at HEB hospital and has so for over 30 years. She was amazing and a little eccentric, and I’m lucky to have had her.

Once we were transferred to a postpartum room, we had a few other amazing nurses that also took great care of us and kept me in a steady supply of Ibuprofen and Pepsi. My only complaint was how often they woke us during the night. Goodness, I understand monitoring me and baby is important but I feel like there should be a slight emphasis on sleep....it’s so precious and we got very little of it. Luckily, Daniel got a nice 4 hour stretch!

When we were checking out to leave the next afternoon, the staff was impressed that he wasn’t crying or upset about being in the car seat. Apparently most babies hate it. Danny loves car rides which will come in super handy for those trips around the block when he won’t stop crying. Our first night home was equally just as awesome. We have truly loved every moment of this new world with him. When we take shifts between sleeping and being on baby duty, we each end up saying to the other, “How’s our boy? I missed him so much while I was sleeping! Did he do anything new?!” Not even joking. He’s been such a good baby, really only crying when he needs something specific and not just to hear himself scream. He’s still acclimating to the difference between night and day, but we’re getting there. Last night he slept for 3 hours in one stretch, fed, then went back to sleep for another 4 hours. He gets it from his daddy.

Eleven days later, I’m feeling great. I’ve already lost 27 lbs and wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans! Thanks breastfeeding! Which by the way, I just have to honestly say what a giant bitch of a painful hot mess breastfeeding can be. What a joyous, frustrating, rewarding, complicated, perseverance testing, ultimate bonding thing that has the capabilities of completely breaking you. It’s been tough and we’ve had to work really hard, me feeding him the first week every 2 hours around the clock. He’s a very sleepy nurser and it would take us 45 minutes to complete a feeding. Talk about exhausting! But now, we’re getting on a better schedule and if I get him naked (which he hates) and annoy him awake enough, he’ll eat. Anyway, breastfeeding is not all glitter rainbows and heart eye emojis but I’m loving figuring it out with my little guy who never gives up.

Brian was the epitome of supportive during the entire process. Not that I expected anything less, but he has stepped up in ways I couldn’t have anticipated and I’m so thankful. He is an equally amazing father who has surprised me in a hundred ways as to his devotion and true love towards our son. It’s enchanting to watch and I’ve loved every moment we’ve had alone as a family. Olivia has also acclimated well and is very smitten with Danny. They’re going to be best friends one day and I’m super grateful to be their mom. We are a very lucky little mixed family :)