*****ALERT****** if you are squeamish about childbirth stories, you may not want to read. It's not a particularly graphic account, but it is certainly not for everyone. I'm just writing it down so that before my memories of that day totally fade, I've got a handle on what actually happened.
So I woke up on December 29, 2011 at about 6am. My new nurse, Natalie, came in and updated my whiteboard. In what would prove to be an accurate goal, she outlined our "goals" for the day- the first one being a safe delivery. I think they know that a lot of times VBAC deliveries just don't work, so they want everyone to be focused on what's really important, which is getting everyone through the experience in one piece.
Here I am in the room.
Once they hooked me up to the pitocin, they had to have me on the fetal and contraction monitors. That wasn't so bad- I could still move around. I am not a huge fan (who is) of IV lines but other than that, it was ok. At that point, I was allowed to have ice chips and popsicles. I've got to say, I don't think I've ever eaten anything more delicious than the cherry popsicles I had that day.
Taren got to our house at 7 and Eric came over to the hospital. I was having fairly regular contractions but the pain was pretty manageable. I was feeling good! And the really good news was that Dr. Hirata came to see me and I was dialated to five centimeters- I was thinking to myself, "Ok, I can totally do this." It had hurt a little bit to get to a five, but not too much.
So, Eric and I sat there. And sat and sat and sat and sat. About noon, Dr. Hirata came back and examined me again. Still a 5. Ooof. That was NOT what I wanted to hear. So she broke the bag of water and OH MY GOODNESS. I am here to tell you that it was NOT AT ALL the same in terms of pain. All of a sudden, the contractions were really really painful.
Now in some ways, I was sort of heartened by this, because I thought we might be making more progress. We went through basically another 2 hours of these contractions. At this point, it was about 2 pm and Natalie, the nurse, asked if I wanted to consider some pain medication. I think poor Eric was bored out of his skull because it was basically watching the contraction monitor and giving me ice chips. I was well beyond the popsicle phase at this point.
I REALLY wanted to try to tough it out- so I asked Natalie if she could just check my progress at 2:30 or so and then let me know where I was- I just knew I was going to be almost done. At 2:30 Natalie checked again- still a 5. Ugh.
At this point, I knew I wasn't getting anywhere fast- and I thought, hmmm. I could probably get through another hour of this, but I cannot do another 5 hours. So at that point, it seemed to make sense to get an epidural (spoiler alert) which was a GREAT call for reasons that will become clear.
The anesthesiologist came in and administered the epidural- which is actually really cool- you can still feel your legs, you just cannot feel anything painful- totally different from the spinal that I had with Vake where your legs are completely numb. He was really nice- his last comment to us was, "I hope this VBAC thing works out for you, but if it doesn't, there will be another anesthesiologist on call to help you if you wind up needing a c-section."
So after the epidural was administered, Anne Monroe came into the room- she brought a DVD and some other stuff to do- I think we were all settled in for the duration. After the epidural, I was able to rest and it was wonderful.
Dr. Hirata came back into the room at 3:30 and did another exam. Still a 5. AARGH. She was great but also wanted to start having the conversation about moving to a c-section. She asked me to roll left and then right to see if we could get the baby's head into a better position.
All of a sudden, the fetal monitor started dropping (I couldn't see this) and Dr. Hirata looked up and asked the nurse if the change was caused by my rolling. Then she looked up and said to Natalie, "No, I've got a cord."
In that instant, her demeanor totally changed. She was all business and all of a sudden, so was Natalie. Natalie put an oxygen mask on me. I didn't really understand what was happening but I think that either she or Natalie told me that there was something wrong and they had to get the baby out NOW. (It's funny how quickly you go from just eating popsicles.)
Poor Eric and Anne- they were just stuck waiting in the room- but not before Anne asked Dr. Hirata, "Prolapse?" and Dr. Hirata told her that it was.
The next set of events are pretty hazy. Dr. Hirata sat on my bed with her hand positioned to take pressure off the cord and I was rolled down the hallway like that into the emergency room. When I got there, I could tell that things were not routine. There were three surgeons and three people in charge of anesthesia and what seemed like 15 other people. They put up a surgical curtain really fast and Dr. Hirata introduced me to one of the other surgeons- Dr. Overstreet, who was a really big, tall, athletic looking guy (or at least from my perspective on the table he was tall).
It was surreal- one of the nurses came over and asked me if I was Mrs. Foster and what procedure was being done- I am sure that's a requirement- and Dr. Hirata said, "Her name's Monroe. Monroe. Monroe." And I was trying to explain that I wasn't Mrs. Foster.
They increased the pain medication through the epidural, and then I felt nauseated and then I THINK I passed out briefly on the table. I came to pretty quickly and saw the bright operating room lights above me and thought, "Oh, what an odd dream." And then I realized that Gil was being born and I NEEDED to stay conscious. Eric was not in the room with me, which was pretty scary.
There was an enormous feeling of pressure and tugging and then I remember people saying "Oh, he's a big one." Which I thought was so funny because they had told me how much smaller than his brother he was going to be. And then I DID NOT hear him cry. And I was really really scared. It was 3:45 in the afternoon. They began the surgery at 3:38.
I asked the doctor who was standing next to my head if my baby was ok. His reply to me was "They're trying to get him to pink up." Gil must have just looked awful- at 1 minute, his Apgar was a 3. They had nurses and doctors in from the NICU looking at him but by 5 minutes, his Apgar was up to an eight. I think that's when they let Eric in to see us.
And then the nurse brought him over to see me- and then they took him away. He looked JUST like Vake to me. I think that he needed a little extra oxygen and they checked him out in the nursery but he was just fine. They took him away and Eric followed the nurses to the nursery to see how Gil was doing. I have no idea where Anne was during all of this- sorry Anne. And this shows you how prepared the hospital was- after they stitched me up (and this was done not by Dr. Hirata, who had ANOTHER birth progressing normally- the poor woman was dying to push while she was trying to deliver Gil), they kept me on the table and brought someone in from radiology to do an xray to make sure there were no surgical instruments inadvertently left inside of me- there had literally been no time to do a sponge and instrument count. That was a little surreal (as if the rest of it hadn't been!!!)
They took me back into the recovery room- good old Room 5- and then they told me that he was 10 pounds 4 ounces. What a miracle.
Of course, poor Mom was at home watching Vake and had no idea that any of this was happening- in fact, she tried to call Anne at about 3:30. But she was able to bring Vake over to St. Mary's that night. I actually felt a LOT better and a lot less nauseated than I had felt with the spinal (although the pain on subsequent days was much more intense).
After a bit, they wheeled me down the hall to the maternity ward- and I got to stop and see my my pumpkin in the nursery. Eric said specifically to me- THERE'S YOUR BABY. Mostly because I hadn't really remembered much about Vake's birthday.
Then Vake came to the hospital with his Grandmary, who had watched him all day like a champ. Gil knew the way to his big brother's heart- TRAINS.
What a prize. Totally worth every second.
We take a quick break from all this cuteness to ask you to consider attending Twilight Carniball at the Children's Museum on February 25. What a GREAT event- and the chair of the Development Committee is yours truly! 
Needed a little help from Daddio to get it open.
The difference that I see in myself is that I am more confident in my abilities as a parent and a caregiver- I'm less concerned (or at least a little less concerned) about my ability to feed this child and to respond to his needs. (I found myself thinking, "Ok, whatever..." when our sweet young pediatrician was telling me that we needed to wake Gil up to feed him every three hours. I mean, does the child look like he's starving to you?)
Here I am in the room.
You can see the excitement because the living room had been turned into a Thomas wonderland, complete with a new big train table from Santa, with parts like the Tidmouth sheds (the big engine roundhouse).
Vake was thrilled.
He loved the helmet so much that he basically wore it all day and then wore it to Christmas Dinner- I know, Mom's a sucker.
And then we had dinner. We worked on trying to get a picture of the cousins wearing their matching outfits, but this is as close as we got- we'll have to try again at Vake's birthday.
Here's to 10 pounds 4 ounces of sheer cuteness!!!!! 
