At 7 a.m. on Saturday I woke up to use the bathroom, as pregnant ladies will do, and since no one else was awake yet, I went back to bed. At 8 I woke up and it was as though someone had stealthily poured half a glass of water on my lap as I slept. I knew pregnancy could make you unknowingly pee yourself, but with an empty bladder and no history of peeing myself through two pregnancies so far, I knew I had likely broken my water. And I knew that if that happened I would be going to the hospital and they wouldn't let me leave until the baby was out. Other than waking up in wet pajamas, I had no signs of labor, which concerned me. I pretty much immediately pictured a lengthy induction ordeal followed by a c-section.
I woke up Geoff and let him know that I was leaking some kind of clear fluid and that I was going to take a shower and then call the doctor. I had him call my dad so the he could be put on notice that today might be the day we needed him to watch Cora. In the shower I thought about all the things that hadn't been knocked off the to-do list yet, including some mandatory ones like installing the car seat so we could bring Hazel home in it. So after I got out, we quickly packed my hospital bags and Cora's overnight bag, found the newborn clothes in the basement and brought them up so we could find something for Hazel to wear home, and installed the car seat.
While packing I realized I had never made that planned blog post about how the second half of the pregnancy had gone, and hadn't taken any pictures of my very pregnant state, so I quickly snapped this shot as I was packing the camera.
I was mostly glad to skip out on the last two weeks of pregnancy as I wasn't feeling that great, but sad about a couple of things too. No more kicks from the inside, no more belly bump to rub. Mixed feelings about not being pregnant anymore, definitely.Finally I called the doctor's office and spoke to the nurse. She consulted the doctor who was on call for the weekend, whom I had never met, and called me back to let me know that yes, I should head to labor and delivery. I ask if I have an hour to get my two-year-old where she needs to go, and she sounded annoyed and said I should get there as soon as I can.
We called my dad to drive down to get Cora, and Geoff and I decided that in the meantime, he would drop me off at the hospital by myself. After all, we hadn't even had it confirmed that I had, in fact, ruptured my membranes. There was still a chance this could all be some kind of false alarm. Thank goodness this was all on a Saturday and Geoff was home--I didn't have to make any judgment calls about when and if to call him home from work.
So Geoff and Cora dropped me off at about 12:20 and I said good-bye to them in the car before walking in alone. The nurse showed me to a room--the room where I would eventually give birth--and I gowned up. A midwife came in to do some tests. The litmus test turned dark blue and some fluid on a slide showed ferning, which meant that I had, in fact, ruptured my membranes. I said, "So I'm not going home." And the midwife said, "You are not going home." But examination shows that I was still only 1 cm dilated, cervix had not thinned out, and the baby was at -2 station. Nothing has changed or advanced since my OB appointment the previous Thursday except that my water broke. I am again picturing long induction attempt and a c-section.
The OB came in to see me. She wanted to start me on Pitocin to get contractions going. None of this is my ideal labor situation, but I agree it's the best course of action. I asked her if there's a ticking clock (meaning until a mandatory c-section) since my water is already broken, and she gives only a cagey answer. We might as well see how the Pitocin works first anyway.
So I called Geoff to let him know that I'm definitely staying. He'll be there as soon as he gets Cora and her stuff handed off to my dad.
Someone comes in to do an ultrasound to confirm that the baby is still head down. The nurse comes in to start my IV. The attempt on my left arm doesn't go so well--blew the vein, it stays painful, bleeds onto my arm, etc. (A week later I'm still bruised.) I'm normally okay with needles, but this makes me lightheaded and she has to lay the bed flat so I don't faint. Ugh. When she starts over on my right arm it goes fine of the first try.
At some point they hooked me up to external monitors for the baby's heartbeat and contractions and see that I am having small contractions every seven minutes or so that I can't even feel. The goal of the Pitocin is to cause a pattern of strong contractions every two to three minutes. How much Pitocin that takes varies from person to person, so they'll start a small dose and slowly turn it up until contractions reach the right pattern. They put the Pitocin into the IV at almost 3:00, and minutes later Geoff arrived. I was doing fine without him there, but I was very glad to see him. If this pathology thing doesn't work out, Geoff can have a second (or fifth?) career as a doula, because he's a good one to have by your side for labor and delivery.
The next five hours were not my favorite. Hooked up to the IV, hooked up to the monitors, and they're pumping what would eventually be four liters of saline into me. I still have to use the bathroom on a regular basis, but have to take the IV pole and the unplugged monitor cords with me. And the baby would not stay on the monitor! The nurse would come in, adjust the disks against my belly to get the signal, and leave. I would try not to move, but they would always lose the signal after a few minutes and have to come back in and start over. Frustrating for everyone. And during normal laboring circumstances, I wouldn't even be at the hospital yet--this early labor would be the at-home part. The monitors are keeping track of my response to the Pitocin, though.
Geoff and I chatted and watched a movie, and over the five hours, as the Pitocin was increased, I started to feel the contractions, and then they became uncomfortable, and then I was having to concentrate on my breathing and clutch the bed rail through each one. And since they don't want to check your cervix any more often than they have to once your water is broken, this whole time I didn't know if any of this was even working. I could be contracting painfully but still be at one centimeter. After I'd been squirming through some painful contractions for a while, my nurse initiated another conversation about my pain level and when to ask for my epidural, I agreed that it was time to get that process started.
The epidural was kind of brutal. With Cora's birth the anesthesiologist was pulled out of surgery and was in a big rush, was rude to the nurse, but popped that epidural in on the first try and was gone before the dust settled. This time the anesthesiologist was much nicer and answered all my questions, but that epidural did not want to go in for love or money. There was much needle stabbing. Right after being warned to hold still, I felt my leg jerk involuntarily like it had been shocked with electricity. He asked if the jolt was gone now, and no, it wasn't. He had to start over on a higher spot with another shot of lidocaine and make multiple attempts there, too. (A week later that's still bruised, too.) It took a long time. I broke out into a sweat. He felt I wasn't arching my back enough, but let me tell you, under threat of further stabbings, I was absolutely arching my back as hard as I could. And contractions started coming right on top of one another, which makes it that much more unpleasant to hold still. Nevertheless, I was dreading him saying that it wouldn't work and I'd have to go without an epidural more than I was dreading him continuing to stab. Eventually it worked, much to everyone's relief.
When I looked up after the epidural it was about eight o'clock. Now that I was all numbed up, they gave me a Foley, inserted an internal monitor for contractions--which was fine by me since I can't feel it anyway--and informed me that I was dilated to four! This is pretty much the turning point from the mildly miserable part of the labor to the good part. I now felt hopeful and optimistic that this was working. Done with their activities for the time being, everyone cleared out of my room. Geoff and I called my parents to check on Cora and got a good report, confirmed by her happy babbling in the background. We started up another movie but didn't really watch it.
I laid curled up on my side, drifting near sleep, and it's no exaggeration to say that I felt the most comfortable I'd felt in weeks. I thought about Hazel and how glad we are to be welcoming her. How much we want her to be okay. How this is one of the most important days of our lives. How much we love her no matter what. I was very glad to have this time to slow everything down, "be present" in the moment, as they say, and be a bit awed by what was really happening here.
After a while the nurse came in and had me roll from my right side to my left. I found that my left leg, despite having been my top leg, had gone completely dead. My right leg was numb to pain but I could still at least wiggle my toes a little and feel a slight tingling. My left leg was like a prosthetic leg--I can see people touching it but can't feel it at all. No sensation, no movement.
A bit after 10:30 I started to become aware of the contractions. They weren't painful, but I could feel a slight tightening in my lower abdomen, whereas previously I couldn't feel when I was having a contraction at all. With Cora's birth, that was what I felt as the epidural started to wear off. Now I was dreading that this might be the beginning of the end of my epidural. That after all it took to get it in, it might need to be redone or I would have to do without it or I would have to decide how much pain was too much.
Instead, after just a few contractions that way, the attending and both my nurses suddenly came in and asked how I was feeling. I reported that I had just started becoming aware of the contractions. The attending suggested that they check me. I thought, "Check me for what?" When I realized she meant check my dilation, I wondered why they were doing that, since I was just at four centimeters a little bit ago.
As she gloves up she asks if I had to push a long time with my last birth. Geoff and I both emphatically explain that no, the time from 9.5 centimeters to the baby being out went by very fast--faster than anyone expected--and I only pushed for twenty minutes. The doctor checked me, looked mildly alarmed, and much to my surprise said, "Oh! The head is right there. Don't cough or she might come flying out!" As they quickly set up the room for delivery and called in the baby nurse, the doctor and nurse joked about the doctor being psychic, and that it's a good thing she happened to be walking by and had a hunch I should be checked.
Everyone got ready for pushing. Geoff was in charge of holding my dead leg in position, with no help from me since it might as well be someone else's leg I was looking at at that point.
With Cora's birth, it was easy to know how and when to push because I was in a huge amount of pain by that point. It's easy find the motivation to push like the devil is chasing you when you're pushing back against that squeezing pain. This time I was not in any pain, but I tried to remember how I pushed with Cora and replicate it. I dug in and mentally prepared myself to push for a half hour or so.
I could feel the contraction ramping up, so I let them know, took a couple of deep breaths, and pushed through the first contraction. The doctor said it was working and the baby was moving.
The contraction ended and I took a little rest. The next contraction was right on its heels, so I let them know, took a couple of breaths, and started again. Before the contraction was even over, I heard a little noise and the doctor said, "Okay." Okay what? I opened my eyes and the doctor was holding a baby and clamping the cord! It seems impossible, but obviously this must be my baby. Which is fine by me, because this baby she's holding is absolutely gorgeous--pink and strong and flailing, with her perfect face turned back toward me. It was an amazing moment, and I was so thrilled to have Hazel as our own I started crying a little. As the doc was suctioning the nose I asked if I could have the baby up on my chest, and she plunked her right on me, where I could see her little face even better and touch her. Geoff was amazed, too, but has his hands full wrestling my dainty, dead leg.
Later I said to Geoff that it seemed like I only pushed for five minutes, and he laughed. "Do you really want to know? . . . A minute and a half!" He said the nurses were incredulous.
After a few minutes they took Hazel over to be weighed and examined. My regular OB had predicted a seven-pounder just from feeling and measuring my belly. I was skeptical, but she was in fact 7 lbs. 4 oz. That is just a smidge smaller than the average birth weight, but I am shocked at how little she is. Both of my brothers and I, and four out of our five collective children, had been over nine pounds. And then there's Hazel, the tiny peanut of the family, nearly two pounds smaller than Cora's 9 lbs. 2 oz. She is perfectly healthy, though, and had a perfect placenta and umbilical cord, so that's just how she happens to be built and how she's meant to be.
So the whole event this time around was about fifteen hours, from my water breaking at eight in the morning to her birth at nearly eleven at night. To my mind, the first part of it was a bit uncertain, and then the second part of it was nearly ideal. Certainly anyone's first priority is healthy baby, healthy mama, and I'm grateful to have gotten that. But you also hope that you'll get a good experience and good memories, and I'm very grateful to have gotten that, too.
Mostly I am just shocked that the universe has sent me these two children to be my children. I'm still blown away that I could be so fortunate even once . . . but now twice? I still can't quite wrap my head around it. And a great partner to go through it all with, as well. None of this was guaranteed to me or had to happen, but it did.
1 comment:
Snif! Snif!
I agree that they are both perfect and a joy. They are lucky to have two parents who love them so much.
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