Why I don't plan on having any other children!

First I'll start with why I decided to have another child.

When we found out that I was pregnant with Stevie we were very excited. We had been trying for 3 years and my mother had died a month before. We felt like it was such a huge blessing. My excitement faded as I started getting nauseous. The first month I lost 10 lbs because I couldn't eat and when I did, it usually came back up. I had many problems including, but not limited to, gestational diabetes (found at my first appt which meant 3 hr glucose test during first trimester, try keeping that down!), placenta placement problems, severe anemia, and kidney stones. I told everyone that I would never have another child and I truly believed that, until my labor. My labor was so awesome!

I went to the doctor's at about 9am and they told me I was almost 5 cm dialated and I asked what that meant. She said I could have the baby tonight or in 2 weeks and since I wasn't feeling like I was in labor, I went back to work. I worked till 4:30pm, my back was hurting a little bit, but I still didn't feel like I was in labor. On my way out I went to the bathroom and thought that I had lost my mucus plug, but still felt fine. My friend, Denise, finally convinced me to start counting my contractions (I didn't feel pain, I had to just touch my belly to see if it was hard.). The contractions were actually 1-2 minutes apart. Steve was in the baby's room asking me to hold off calling the doctor so he could finish putting together the crib. I still had 3 and a half weeks to go, so this was pretty unexpected. When I finally did call the doctor, she told me I was in labor and to get to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 6:30pm and I was 7 cm dialated and still not feeling the contractions. They hooked me up to the monitor and would ask me if I was having a contractions and I had no clue! I had to get 4 hours of antibiotics administered through IV, so they had to slow the labor down by giving me lots of fluids. My water was about to break, so they wouldn't let me do anything because they wanted me to get all the antibiotics. At 11:30pm the antibiotics were done and they broke my water. I started feeling the contractions and decided to get an epidural. The worst part of getting the epidural was having to sit up during contractions. After that, I didn't feel a thing. I was completely alert and when I finally started pushing around 2:3oam, I was able to joke around while pushing out the baby. The staff couldn't believe it was my first baby. They should've been around for Elizabeth! On top of a great labor, 3 days after I gave birth I had a bikini body, from sticking to a strict diet because of the diabetes from the first trimester.

Stevie 12/29/2006

Now why I don't plan on having any other children. About 5 months after Stevie was born we decided to try for another, expecting for it to take a while, which it did. I eventually bought an expensive fertility monitor and got pregnant on the first cycle using it. Totally not expected after trying again for almost 2 years. I immediately started feeling nauseous, but called my doctor and started on phenergan ASAP! Yeah, I could eat and I didn't lose any weight. When I went in for the ultrasound they were suspicious of an ectopic pregnancy. I had to go to the hospital and have an extensive scan, which kept me in lots of pain through the weekend. I was sure, because I was in so much pain, that it must have been too good to be true until I found out on Wednesday that everything was ok. The nausea lasted most of my pregnancy, and the first five months were pretty painful. I had one month of feeling great, which all of it was spent fixing up our 'new' house, a very dirty foreclosure. Luckily Steve is very supportive and helpful, otherwise it would have made things much worse for me. I'm very grateful that I didn't have to work, I don't know how I did it the first time. I think that this pregnancy was worse because I couldn't sleep through the pain and nausea like I could (after I got home from work) with Stevie. Now I had a 2 year old that I had to take care of.

After Thanksgiving I was put on 'bed rest' or light duty, whatever you want to call it, for 2 weeks. I was almost 3 cm dialated and contracting a lot, but I still had 5 weeks to go. On December 14th I went to see the doctor for a sonogram, to see how big the baby was and a regular check. I was about 4 cm dialated and the baby's head was measuring on the big side, oh yeah! Early the next morning I was laying in bed, wondering when I would go into labor. Not realizing I was in labor, my contractions had been painful for many, many weeks. All of a sudden, POP, goes my water! Not what I expected, but boy did the contractions start coming. It was 4:30am, we called Steve's mom and she came right over. Steve and I left for the hospital, went to the ER and got admitted immediately. They hooked me up to the monitors, blah, blah, blah. I didn't hear or notice much after they told me I couldn't get an epidural until my labs came back and this little girl was pushing down, so that was not likely. They checked my cervix and asked if I wanted some pain meds in my IV. OF COURSE I DO!!!!! Oops never mind, my cervix went from 6 cm to 10 cm in no time and all of a sudden I had to start pushing without any pain relief! Totally not prepared for that, we never took birthing classes or anything like that. What's the point if you'll be medicated? LOL! It's amazing how the breathing exercises actually help you through a contraction though. Maybe because you're focusing on how funny you sound. It actually felt better to push through a contraction instead of having to sit through it. Oh wait, to make things a little more exciting, Elizabeth decided to be positioned wrong. After pushing and pushing, when the head started to come out, the doctor noticed this and had to give me an episeotomy , or I would have been pushing forever! I pushed for about 40 minutes, with Stevie I pushed 1 hour (remember that was with meds). Later the doctor told me they usually do c-sections for that kind of birth. Seriously...... SERIOUSLY? I makes me nauseous to think of going through that. Steve said when the head was coming out, I had about 5 pretty good (blood curdling) screams. He felt so powerless that he said he was sobbing because I was in so much pain. Otherwise, he said I was pretty focused. Oh, and she was born at 6:58am.

Elizabeth 12/15/2009

I would definitely not suggest natural childbirth, when there are other options available. I'm amazed at women and their ability to endure this. It's amazing to give birth and then days later, we are back to routine. Maybe a little slower to start, but we get things done! I definitely feel liberated for having gone through that, but think people are crazy actually wanting to go through that. Maybe if I had been prepared for it I wouldn't be so sick at the thought. I was saying throughout my pregnancy that I never wanted to get pregnant again and I guess God gave me a real reason why I might not want to try for another! Don't get me wrong, I love the outcome of my pregnancies, I just can't handle the actually pregnancy. I don't think that my body was built for it!