When the nurse came back, she checked me and much to her amazement I was already 8 cm dilated! She couldn't believe I was already to that point because I had a smile on my face still and was laughing. Since I was already that far along she told me that I quickly had to decide whether or not I wanted an epidural. When I say quickly decide, I mean quickly...if I dilated any more they would not give me one (they don't go past 8). I couldn't make a decision because the whole time (prior to now) I had figured that I would have been in the hospital much longer before I had to decide. I thought I would decide when I got to that point...and since we were already "there" I didn't know what to do. Thoughts filled my head with "what-ifs" and other peoples opinions....the nurse told us she'd be back shortly and that we had to have an answer when she got back. Corey and I went back and forth about what to do (he didn't know what choice I should make either!)...
Upon her return, we still didn't know...she "loaded" me up into the wheel chair (although I felt fine enough to walk) and asked me one last time what we were going to do...at that point I figured that I had made it this far without one...why not? I told her I was opting out. Going med free! As I heard my response in my own ears, I prayed I didn't regret my decision later.
I don't really remember the trip to my room (I was still contracting like crazy for pete's sake! AND I had just decided not to be "numbed" haha...I had a lot on my mind, okay?) but we somehow made it. We were introduced to our new nurse (and what I would soon discover...a SUPER one at that!), Jenna. Since my water had not broken they informed us that they would have to contact the doctor so she could "help" us out. Due to the fact that Dr. Rowe was still at her office for the day, after her hours were over she said she would come over and break it. Unfortunately, since she was not on call we knew she would not be delivering our little munchkin...but that ended up being okay anyway.
Dr. Rowe's office hours were not over for about an hour and a half, so we had to wait. In the meantime, we got to get to know Jenna a little bit and also have Corey-Danielle time when she left us alone. Every time she came back to check on me, she said she couldn't believe that I was dilated so much and still smiling and laughing (once again, with no meds). Apparently she said all of the nurses thought I was amazing and that I was "born to labor". We laughed because all I could think of was baby girl....and that even though there might be pain now...she was going to be my joy when it was all said and done.
Finally about 6:30ish Dr. Rowe came over to take care of business. She checked me to see how far along I was and she said about 9-9.5 cm. I am not quite sure how the timeline goes after this (it's kind of a blur, as you can imagine) but relatively soon after my water was broken I began to feel the need to push. Jenna told me to call her in when the contractions started to get crazy and I thought I needed to push. Corey and I joked about how I probably wouldn't know when that was....I had no clue what to expect. She told me we'd probably have little Miss Sunshine by about 8-8:30 pm...little did we know that would NOT be the case!
This last little part is where the miracle happened. All I can say is there was a lot of pushing....and I mean A LOT. Jenna had me getting into all different sorts of positions and had Corey helping out a ton (what a guy! He was my GREATEST helper...besides the Lord, of course. If it wasn't for him, I don't know how I could have made it!). Every time she checked me, I was still at about 9.5 cm. She had said I still needed to progress a little bit more so baby could fully come out....and while I thought I was "so close" at those points there was a lot more pushing in my future....Let's see, I pushed until the other doctor came in (about 9? I am not really sure...I'll have to check with Corey)...where I then continued to push more...
At about 10:30-11:30 (once again, I am not quite sure about this timeline...) the doctor informed me that we had to make a decision. Baby was not fitting under my pelvis and he could see I was past the point of exhaustion. When he said all of this I couldn't believe I was going to have to make another decision...to make matters worse, he told us he didn't want to either choice....ironically he said this was a "pep talk" (looking back, it worked). He said that they normally do not let patients push for longer than two hours. Clearly I had been pushing longer than that...and if you remember from earlier, I literally was on no sleep. He said in order to get her out we were going to need to either use the vacuum or have an emergency C-section. Both were things that we did not want...and he said he didn't want that either. He said he did not want to use the vacuum because he did not know how big she was....he was afraid that he would get her head out but then her shoulders might get stuck. The C-section he did not want to do for obvious reasons, but in addition to those reasons he said my muscles were all stretched from pushing so long and he did not want to cut where baby was.
I looked at Corey and he looked back with both concern and encouragement in his eyes...I said I was going to keep pushing and that's what I did. Let me interject once again how AWESOME my husband is....he was praying on the top of his lungs and texting our family to pray. That was the best intervention possible because before I knew it, it was 12:03 and our beautiful Selah Evangeline was born. 19 inches long...8lbs, 2oz....and the best thing that ever happened to the both of us.