I was so anticipating the time that little Spencer would start to make
his way into the world. Yet when it
started happening, I wasn’t even sure if it was real or a dream.
Beginning at 4 A.M. on Monday, November 6th, I felt some
cramping and a sensation that something “very different” was going on inside
with Spencer. I began to dismiss it
as false labor, scared to admit that this might actually be the real deal.
At 4:30 A.M., I began “leaking,” indicating that my water had broken.
“Could this really be it?” I asked myself.
After speaking with my doctor at 7 A.M., she instructed me to go to
Arnold Palmer Hospital right away. So I
called Manish to let him know this really was the time and the day for Spencer
to make his way home to us.
At the hospital, I was checked in and told my water had indeed broken but
that I was only 1 centimeter dilated. I
was admitted and moved to the Labor and Delivery room. I was put on a monitor for my contractions and a fetal
monitor for Spencer to check his heart rate at all times throughout the labor.
My contractions at this point were about 5 minutes apart.
However, once I was settled in the Labor and Delivery room for a while,
the contractions were only about 2-3 minutes apart and increasing in duration
and intensity. I opted for a
“walking epidural,” which was to alleviate some of the “edge” off of the
contractions, yet would still allow me the freedom of movement during the early
stages of labor. The catheter was
placed in my back and I was hoping for relief soon.
Such was not the case, unfortunately.
Perhaps the catheter was not placed as correctly as it needed to be,
because I found absolutely no relief from the medicine, and my contractions were
only getting even closer and much stronger, thanks to the pitocin the nurses had
given me. Even after requesting two
increased dosages on the walking epidural, the pain was only intensifying and I
all I could do was wonder, “How much longer can I handle this for?” I was only dilated 1.5 centimeters. I then agreed to change the medicine to the regular epidural,
which is supposed to numb the body from the lower-abdomen down.
This meant that I would be confined to my bed from thereon, but a
trade-off I didn’t mind for an end to the pain.
I had heard stories from some women who suffered because their epidural
either didn’t take, or it took to everywhere it needed to except for one
unfortunate spot. For me, the
latter was the case. Although I
felt numbness in a greater portion of my body, one spot in particular on my
lower right abdomen was unaffected by the epidural.
This meant that the excruciating pain of my contractions were all
concentrated in this small area. After
attempting to fix the catheter, the procedure for the epidural had to be redone
in order for me to have a chance at any relief from that point on.
This time, the epidural truly took effect in no more than ten minutes,
numbing my entire lower abdomen this time.
I was feeling MUCH better at this point, watching my contractions on the
monitor and not being able to feel them at all.
At this stage of the labor, 15 hours had passed and, after being checked
again, I was told that I was only 2 centimeters dilated.
I could finally get some rest for the impending delivery, but I was
feeling very discouraged, as the dilating was happening ever-too slowly. Nausea
and vomiting did not help my spirits either.
My nurse had mentioned that a nurse in Labor and Delivery did an amazing
thing one time. Apparently, a woman
who had been in labor for quite some time was not dilated very much at all.
This nurse, to be funny, rubbed the woman’s belly and performed a
dance, a “dilation dance,” you could call it.
Forty minutes later, the woman was dilated to 10 centimeters!
So my nurse thought it would be funny to bring Ninah, the dancing nurse,
in to maybe speed things along for me. It
was all in good fun, but not even two hours later when I was checked again, I
was suddenly 9.5 centimeters dilated! It
happened so quickly, and we couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. “Isn’t that just the craziest thing!” Another twenty minutes went by and I was completely dilated
to 10 centimeters. My doctor was
called and I was going to begin pushing at 10 P.M.
Perhaps it was a combination of the epidural giving me the shakes, and my
utter fear of having to perform this next feat of pushing.
Whatever the reason, I became nauseous again and had one more round of
vomiting. But once this passed, it
was time for me to push and there was no getting around that.
I couldn’t feel my legs at all; they seemed as if they were detached
from my body because they were so limp and numb.
Manish and the nurse were the only ones in the room, and I had a soothing
CD on in the background to help calm my nerves.
Amazingly, my nurse told me to stop pushing because I was doing “too
well” and going too fast; meanwhile, my doctor was still just on her way.
So I had to hold on for a bit, but once Dr. Lambert arrived, I quickly
finished pushing and, believe it or not, after 7 or 8 total pushes and an
episiotomy, our son Spencer Manish Patel was born.
To describe in words what I felt at that moment Spencer was born is
impossible. When I saw him for the first
time, I felt as if I was truly born again.
I never knew that I could feel such an enormous, immeasurable, and vast amount of
love as I do now. All I could do was thank
God that our little "Spekky" was healthy as can be and that we had
been blessed with the greatest gift we could have ever asked for in our lives. If ever I
questioned in my life what my purpose was in this world, my answer came that
night, Monday, November 6 at 10:40 P.M. No,
labor is not easy by any means; it is frightening, painful, and exhausting, to
say the least. But there are no
challenges that I would not face for my son.
It was my love for him that got me through the past nine months, the 18
hours and 40 minutes of labor, and what will carry me through the rest of my
life as Manish and I try our best to raise him to be as loving a parent as his own someday.