A Baby Story

Wow! Colin is here and already thrilling us with each sweet little baby sigh and face that he makes. So far it has been amazing being his parents. He is such a sweet little boy and we are loving just oohing and ahhing over him and wondering how we got so lucky.

But before that come his birth story...thinking back on it amazes me still. I can't believe the power of the human body and the awesomeness of birth. If you stop to think about it, it really makes you pause in amazement.

I started having contractions Saturday morning. I felt the first couple on our drive to the farmer's market. But they were pretty mild and definitely far apart. I didn't know if it was really the start of anything or maybe nothing at all. We had a normal day on Saturday...the farmer's market, breakfast out, doing things around the house on Saturday and then to my sister's house for dinner and a walk into town for custard and italian ices. I continued to have some mild contractions throughout the day. When we got home from my sister's we settled on the couch to watch a little TV before going to bed. At that point, the contractions started coming a little stronger and more consistently. I was worried I might not be able to sleep very well...and I was right. I had some trouble falling asleep but I eventually drifted off with contractions kind of waking me up from time to time. At 3:30 in the morning our college-age neighbor across the street came home and there was some loud talking going on in their driveway that woke me up. At that point, my contractions were coming strong every 7 minutes like clockwork. Keith and I were both awake and thinking that we might as well get up but then somehow we both drifted back off to sleep until about 7:30. We got up and walked for 2.5 miles trying to get the contractions more regular and closer together. At this point they were no longer consistently 7 minutes apart. We got back from our walk, ate, showered and tried to have a somewhat normal day again but it was hard. My contractions were coming every 4 to 11 minutes and with varying intensity. I was bouncing a lot on my birth ball and we were trying some of the pain management techniques we learned in our classes (lots of lower back massage!) We had to miss the block party but that wasn't the end of the world. We got frustrated with timing the contractions since they just weren't consistent (we used contractionmaster.com....thanks Heather for the tip on the iPhone apps for timing contractions. Turns out you can use them on a laptop too). We watched a movie and some TV and tried to focus on something else for awhile. After the movie I walked for 30 minutes on the treadmill and Keith went and got us some Chinese food. The treadmill walk seemed to get things going - the contractions started coming harder and about 5-6 minutes apart. At about 9 PM I went to the bathroom and noticed an alarming amount of blood...more than I thought was normal. This prompted us to leave for the hospital right away. Luckily we had everything packed and in the dining room, ready to go. I called my doctor's office on the way there and she confirmed that yes, we should go in.

When we got to the hospital they put us in a "triage" room which is basically just a little room where they can check you out and decide if you should be admitted or if they will send you back home. They hooked me up to a fetal heartrate monitor and one that monitored my contractions. Luckily Colin's heartbeat was completely stong and normal so no one was worried that he was in distress. They examined me and took a lot of blood to check and see if maybe there was a problem with clotting. All of this took a looooong time. We were in that little room from about 10 PM to 2 AM and in fact both of us were drifting off in there before the nurse finally came in and said they were admitting us and had my room all ready. I was 4 cm dialated at that point and my bloodwork came back fine. They didn't have any diagnosis for the bleeding but since I seemed fine and so did Colin, they didn't seem too concerned.

We got settled into our nice labor and delivery room and they came in and broke my water at 2:30 AM. This really got things moving. My contractions increased in intensity and frequency. Unfortunately, they had me hooked up to an IV and the fetal monitor and the contraction monitor still so I was limited in my mobility. They wanted to keep me on the fetal monitor constantly because of the bleeding. But truthfully the contractions were so intense I don't know if being able to be out of bed would have made much difference. One of them was so bad that I vomited. We requested the epidural a little before 4 AM and by 4:30 it was done. That was a slightly scary process...they tell you to be perfectly still and you're sitting there worried that if you move you might be paralyzed for life and you're having a contraction at the same time! But once it was there (and once I asked for and received a little bit extra of a dose) it was heavenly! The pain was gone and Keith and I were both able to catch a few winks. During this time they kept checking my dialation and it was steadily increasing from 5-6, to 6-7, to 8 and so on. At about 8 AM or so I requested some more of the epidural because I was having some sensation return. They gave me a little "top off" but not too much because soon it was going to be time for me to push and they wanted me to not be too numb for that.

By 9 AM they said I was 10 cm dialated and I'd been completely effaced for quite awhile. So it was time to start pushing! Now for some reason, I really didn't have any concept of pushing. I don't remember reading anywhere about what you do and how you do it and how much effort it takes. Someone should have told me! Even though I couldn't feel any pain (thank goodness) or even really tell if I was pushing correctly, it was still very tiresome because of the huge amount of effort that it requires. Keith held one leg while the nurse held the other and I pushed with each contraction while the nurse coached me through each push. My midwife was here at this point and she was great, very nice, supportive and as Keith put it "a dash of dry sense of humor." I pushed for about 50 minutes and even watched a little bit in the mirror which I didn't think I wanted to do until the time came. Colin was born at 9:49 AM and it was absolutely amazing. He came out a little bit blue so they only gave him to me to hold for second before taking him over and getting him a little bit of oxygen to get him going. Liz, the midwife showed me the umbilical cord at this point which had a knot in it! She said he must have done that earlier while he was still small enough to have a lot of room to move. I knew he was an active baby! Luckily this seemed to have no impact on him in the womb. They cleaned him up, thoroughly checked him and I anxiously awaited to hear his weight...they kept saying what a big baby he was (8 lbs, 11 oz). And he had way more hair than Keith or I expected! Finally they gave him back to me and we enjoyed some skin-to-skin contact together and our first feed once he started rooting around. I just can't get over what an amazing experience it was to give birth to him and then to see him and hold him for the first time. It really gave me a new respect for my body and what it can do (I could tell Keith felt the same way). Nature is such a powerful thing! More about our first few days together later, this is already a War and Peace-sized epic. Time to go wake up the boy for a feeding!