I Got You: Madison Violet Goss

It has taken me quite a long time to write this and it is so difficult to put into words how this day went and how I felt. Here is the best I could do!

Madison Violet Goss

August 18, 2014

Sunday night, August 17, 2014, Aaron and I go to the hospital, bags packed, and we are both anxious for what is to come! I get admitted and the nurse comes in to start hooking me up to machines galore! Turns out she was once a Cardiac Nurse... YES!!! I'm so pumped! I went into this telling myself "I'm not going to be that patient... I'm not going to be that patient who tries to rule her treatment process because I'm a nurse." As a rule, nurses make the worst patients.... Turns out that is true lol. The nurse comes in to start my IV and I do not want an IV in my hand. I pick out a beautiful fat, juicy vein fit for a 12 gauge needle. She misses it... I immediately think two things, both of which are bad. 1.) can I just start it myself, or 2.) can I call one of my coworkers to start it for me. After 3 sticks, I let them start an IV in my hand, ugh.

Fluids get started and I get to have this wonderful balloon (essentially a foley) inserted into my cervix and flushed with pitocin all night. Great! Things are going well until I have to pee... Again, being a bad patient, I unplug my IV pump from the wall and start to make my way out of bed and GUSH! No one told me that the liter of pitocin they've been flushing into my cervix was going to come out! At this point the floor is soaking wet, but I'm about to pee my pants (or I would if I had pants on). I make my way to the bathroom, pee, then grab a couple of absorb pads, one to switch out my bed, another to turn upside down to absorb the mess on the floor. The nurse rolls in and just gives me a look. Like "I knew you were out of bed, without calling me, bad patient." She proceeds to see my pad fix on the floor and I tell her most of it should be absorbed by now. She tells me that is a new way of cleaning up liquid mess, and I tell her it works like a charm. I behaved for the rest of the night. First thing in the morning, IV pitocin gets started. My mom arrives around 5:30am and I'm starting to actually feel some contractions.

My nurse, who I eventually begin to like, bumps up my drip and encourages me to walk. Aaron and I roam the hallways and my nurse hunts us down every once in a while to turn that drip up. At this point she's really beginning to annoy me as my contractions are getting stronger. I decide to sit back in bed and this nurse has finally made these contractions become unbearable. At this point I am unsure what to ask for and don't really know what my options for pain control are. I didn't want narcotics, but I was beginning to wonder about this epidural stuff.

My midwife Lisa comes in and wants to place a probe on Madison's head. To monitor contractions better. I'm 85% sure this did get put in, but I was in so much pain, I'm really not sure what went on. Lol. I learned very quickly how much of an absolute wimp I am when it comes to pain. I'm bawling my eyes out and telling the nurses that I'm done and I will deliver Madison on a different day! I am literally looking for my discharge papers because I was convinced this wasn't happening today and Lisa suggests it is time for an epidural. This is like music to my ears. I am to receive a bolus of IV fluid before the anesthesiologist is called and my nurse (who is growing on me now) tells me she's running it in as fast as it will go. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life.

Finally Dr. Jones arrives! I've never been so happy to see those snooty anesthesiologists! At this point the midwife covering for Lisa is in my room and we are sitting me up to get my epidural. The next 5 minutes were the most confusing! I had nurses telling me to move one way, scoot another, Dr. Jones is barking orders at me from behind to move, straighten up, my nurse it telling me to do something and I'm having the biggest contractions all at the same time. What in the world...

None of that matters now, why? My epidural is in and I feel amazing! Bam! Next thing I know I can't feel the lower half of my body! Sweet! I will give it to the midwife Carolyn, who helped my nurse change my bed and roll me like a beached whale! It blew my mind how I couldn't move or feel my legs! What a weird feeling to have them tossed around like dead weight! Blew my mind. They changed out everything, so all was new, I had a foley placed, and pillows galore fluffed and puffed me. Aaron played some Jack Johnson over the iPad speakers and I was told to take a nap.

This was my favorite part of labor.

I am woken up by my nurse an hour later and she tells me she is going to check how my dilation is going. Low and behold... I'm 10 centimeters! Bam! She goes to page Lisa and I call Aaron and my mom back to the room. We wait around for an hour or so. Lisa comes in and says "Are we ready to have a baby?" I'm thinking there is more to it than her waltzing in and getting started, but no, before I know it, she is telling me when to push!

I am thanking my lucky stars that this epidural is still pumping at full capacity! I had heard that some women get epidurals but they run out by time it comes to the actual birth and MAN was I NOT looking forward to that. I was ready, before my epidural, to pack my bags and keep Madison in there for a couple more weeks and could not imagine how it would feel to push that proverbial watermelon through. I know I would have done it anyways and everything would be okay, but I was so thankful for that epidural because bringing that sweet girl into the world was easy and I could really focus on the miracle of it all. I mean... After all, I was bringing a pink, screaming, beautiful baby human into the world and she is going to be ours forever! I knew what was growing inside me was a tiny human and not a pterodactyl for 9 months, but it all seems unreal. It's hard to imagine those tiny hands, pretty pink lips, beautiful blue eyes, kissable toes and adorable nose while they are inside you. So here I was, about to see it all for the first time and she is so real and more amazing than anything I could have dreamed! I really wasn't sure how I would react once she was born. I'm typically not a cryer, but then again, I also thought I was a tough cookie when it came to pain too haha.

August 18, 2014 12:26PM

After 45 minutes of pushing and what I felt like was 100 times of "one more push," my sweet little Madison was born! Right now I am teary eyed remembering how she cried, how she felt on my chest! I was a Momma now and this.... This was my little girl. It was like the next 70 years of my life flashed before my eyes and I knew my future, my passion, my vocation in life was loving this new little gift and sharing in her world. It was as if my heart would explode with how much I already loved her and I had only just met her a second ago. At least that's how best I could describe this overwhelming gush of feelings.

I cried.

I just could not believe she was finally here and she was already so amazing!

She weighs 6 pounds 15.4 ounces and is 19.5 inches long!