N = 3

Today our little N is three years old.  Today also marks the three-year anniversary of the day I became a Mommy for the first time-- the day I "grew up" all at once.  July 29, 2008 was a day filled with a myriad of emotions... empowerment at the notion that I was able to give birth naturally... amazement at the human body and its capabilities and mysteries... intense love for my husband who was such a strong source of encouragement... amazement at this monumental task that we accomplished together... thankfulness for my wonderful mother and sister who supported me in the delivery room... and awe at this precious new being that was ours.

So, in honor of that anniversary, I thought I would share the (long) birth story of N, which I wrote down a few weeks after the experience, so I wouldn't forget all the details.  I really enjoyed looking back on this today.  If you don't enjoy stories about people giving birth, then you might not like it, so don't read on.  For me, it was a beautiful day that I'll never forget.

Thursday, July 24 (5 days before birth, 2 weeks 3 days before due date)

We get in the car and drive up to meet my parents at the cottage they are renting on the coast of Maine.  For the next two days we spend time relaxing with them, taking lots of walks, shopping, eating at Moody’s Diner, and catching a movie.

Saturday, July 26 (3 days before birth, 2 weeks 1 day before due date)

We drive back to Massachusetts early this morning.  We do a little un-packing from the trip, and quickly head back up to Hampton, NH for our family baby shower.  We spend the day socializing, opening gifts, eating, and speculating about the baby’s birth.  I am exhausted after this… we go home and sleep it off.

Sunday, July 27 (2 days before birth, 2 weeks before due date)

Church in the morning.  After church my sister Bethany comes home with us and helps me sort through our gifts from the shower and organize them in the baby’s room.  As we’re working, in my very pregnant state, I joke that I would be perfectly happy if I went into labor that evening… heh.  That evening I notice a “bloody show” and a steady trickle of fluid.  I can’t tell if my water has broken or if I’m just having trouble holding my pee!  I’m not really sure what’s going on, so I figure I’ll try to get some rest and re-evaluate in the morning.

Monday, July 28 (1 day before birth, 1 week 6 days before due date)

In the morning I wake up early and I’m still “leaking”… I call the OB on call at the hospital to find out what’s up.  She asks me a series of questions… am I having contractions? No.  Is the fluid clear? Yes.  After much discussion, she basically determines that there’s no way to know if my water is broken unless they examine me.  She tells me to come in to the hospital, and bring stuff for over night, because if my water is broken I’ll need to stay in the hospital until I have the baby.  M and I quickly pack some over night stuff, along with other stuff for the day we had planned—a shopping trip for baby stuff, and a stop by M's school so he can pick up a few things and I can make a recording for one of my students.  We figure we can go straight to the school after we stop by the hospital and they tell us that this is all nothing.  We take our time, each take showers, have a leisurely breakfast.  Finally, around 9:30 AM, we head in to the hospital.

When we get to the hospital, we’re taken in to a sort of “holding” area with a small bed, a bathroom and a fetal monitor.  I’m guessing this is the room where they take people to decide whether they’re in labor or not.  I put on a hospital gown and they hook me up to a fetal monitor so they can check the baby’s heartbeat, and monitor any contractions.  The nurse tells me I’m having tiny, irregular contractions although I can’t feel them.  She says that once the doctor comes in they’ll examine me and test the fluid that’s leaking to see if it is indeed amniotic fluid.  The nurse gives us water and juice while we wait for the doctor.  M is great—he seems shocked and excited all at once that this really is happening.  I’m actually quite nervous.  The doctor comes in and takes a sample of fluid.  Right away she can tell that it is amniotic fluid.  I’m so nervous at this point that my legs are shaking and I try to hold them still so she can examine me.  She tells me that I’m not dilated at all, but beginning to efface.  Then she explains that we’ll be transferred to a labor room, and we’ll just wait for the contractions to begin.  If they don’t within a certain number of hours, they will induce labor.

The nurse comes in and helps us move our stuff to the labor room, and leaves to let us get settled in.  In this moment of calm, we look at each other in disbelief.  We are actually here, in the hospital, two weeks sooner than we expected, and won’t be leaving again until we have a baby to take home with us.  Our lives are about to change forever, and I have many hours of hard work and pain ahead of me that I hadn’t been expecting to face just yet.  After we let all of this soak in for a few minutes, we begin to think of the things that we haven’t done yet… and the things that we forgot to bring with us.  I think of the fact that I have a full teaching schedule lined up for the next two days.  We realize that we need to make some phone calls to friends and family to help us take care of some of these things that are really necessary to do before the baby’s arrival.  And we decide to only notify our immediate family since we’re not sure how long we’ll be waiting for the baby to come.

We spend the rest of the day making calls, watching T.V., taking walks, and waiting.  I’m not allowed to eat much in case labor begins.  We finally start doing a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time.  By 6 PM, nothing.  I haven’t had a single contraction that I can feel.  The doctor comes in to check on me, and tells me that we need to induce the labor, because the longer I leak fluid, the greater the risk of infection for me and the baby.  So we agree.

Around 6 PM they give me my first dose of Cytotec, which is a pill that they place directly on the cervix to stimulate muscle contractions.  They tell me it can take several hours to start working, so I don’t expect anything right away.  My mother-in-law and sister-in-law stop in later that evening for a visit, along with my sister who comes by after work.  As we’re all sitting there, doing the jigsaw puzzle together, and I’m not feeling a thing, I start to get discouraged.  I talk about my fears of having a cesarean section if the labor never starts and the baby won’t come out.  The waiting is beginning to get to me.  Gradually our visitors leave and we settle in to try and get some sleep.  Every few hours the nurse comes in and hooks me up to the fetal monitor to check everything out.  I sleep okay for a few hours but it’s hard with all the interruptions.  At midnight they come in with a second dose of Cytotec.  After that, I begin to feel mild contractions.  M is sleeping on the “Dad bed” next to me.  I’m trying not to wake him up while I deal with the contractions, which are irregular.  Sometimes every five minutes, sometimes every ten, just uncomfortable enough so that I can’t sleep.  At one point M suggests that I take a shower to help me relax.  I do and it helps.  The nurse keeps asking me if I want something for the pain, or an Ambien to help me sleep.  I feel confused, and ask if sleeping pills are safe for the baby, and she says yes, but I tell her I’d rather not take one.  M tells me he wishes they would stop bugging me.

Tuesday, July 29 (day of the birth, 1 week 5 days before due date)

At 6:00 AM the contractions have slowed and gradually stopped.  The doctor comes in to examine me.  1 centimeter dilated... after all that!!  She tells me that she would like to start pitocin… I am ready.  The thing about pitocin, however, is that you can’t move around as much—you are hooked up to an IV and have to be on the fetal monitor at all times (which means two giant elastic bands strapped around your belly—and if you move too much the sensors slip and the nurse has to fix them).  Moving around had been helping me with the pain, so it’s discouraging to hear that my movement will be limited.  Luckily, the nice nurse we had when we first checked in to the hospital is back on duty, and she keeps suggesting positions that I can try to manage the pain while on the fetal monitor.  I also hear from my sister, who has managed to get the day off work, and she says that my Mom has the day off work and is on the way (I had hoped to have my Mom in the room for the birth—as sort of a second labor coach—since she had birthed four babies naturally).  This is encouraging for me to hear.  I’m ready to move forward.

I find myself actually excited as I see the contraction peaks rising and getting closer together on the monitor.  It’s a relief that I’m finally making some progress.  The first few hours are manageable… I’m cheerful, talking with everyone between contractions.  The nurse is still really helpful—offering suggestions but still keeping her distance and allowing me to take the lead.  M is great too—encouraging with words and back rubs when I need them.  The nurse keeps reminding me to relax with every contraction, and for a while I am successful at doing so.  Around noon, the doctor comes back to examine me.  4 centimeters.  It’s a start.

Just after that, things start to get intense.  I start to try some of the breathing techniques we learned in childbirth class.  It's helpful—gives me more to do.  I’m spending most of my time sitting on the exercise ball now—the least painful position for me.  As the contractions get more and more intense I find it’s easier for me to close my eyes so I can focus all of my attention on getting through the pain—I don’t really have the concentration for anything else.  I’m trying to remember to take the contractions one at a time, like they say in childbirth class, but I’m beginning to get tired.  As 1 PM rolls around, the thought of asking for pain medication surfaces somewhere in the haze of my brain.  I’m so focused on just making it through each contraction, there is no choice but to rest after each one is over.  I can’t even muster the energy to speak, let alone ask for medication.  Gradually the “resting” between contractions becomes falling asleep between contractions.  But they’re coming pretty quickly now… I can’t rest for long.  This is where things begin to get fuzzy in my memory.

At some point the nurse suggests that I try to use the bathroom.  M helps me up, and I walk slowly into the bathroom, M wheeling my IV along with me.  I remember saying that I’m afraid I won’t have the energy left to push the baby out.  Again, somewhere in the haze of my brain, I’m remembering stories of women who spent hours pushing their first babies out.  The nurse tells me, “Don’t worry—you’ll have the energy.”  I find it hard to believe her.

While I’m walking to the bathroom, I have a contraction.  I cling to M.  Relaxing through the contraction is not an option at this point.  We make it to the bathroom—another contraction.  I manage to sit on the toilet—another contraction.  As it finishes, I’m so exhausted and it hurts so bad that tears fill my eyes for the first time.  I look at M, sure that I have many hours left to go, and I say “I don’t think I can do this.”  He tells me something reassuring and helps me back into the room.  The nurse suggests I lie on the bed so that the doctor can come and examine me.  Even though this has been the most painful position for me so far, I don’t have any energy to protest.  I have another contraction, and it’s so intense that immediately afterward I tell M that I need something for the pain.  In my mind, I’m thinking that I was only 4 centimeters dilated just one hour ago, so I must have a long way to go, and I feel like I can’t even handle one more contraction without dying.  M asks me if I’m sure I want medication.  I use our “code word” so he’ll know that I’m serious.  The nurse asks the doctor to bring in a shot for the pain, since she’s on her way in to examine me anyway.

The doctor comes in the room to examine me and asks me to lay on my back.  As I’m trying to do this, another contraction overtakes me, and I have to curl up in a ball despite what she’s asking me to do.  As the contraction peaks, I feel the strongest urge I have ever felt in my life—the urge to push.  My eyes fly open, I shout “I HAVE TO PUSH NOW” and yell, bearing down as I do.  I hear the doctor saying, “She’s fully dilated!” and there is a frenzy of activity in the room.  The contraction is over--I remember being totally soaked in sweat and my mother next to me, holding my head and saying, “this is it… the baby’s coming… you’re almost done now… you can push her out…” and I was saying “I can’t… I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…”

M left my side, I guess the doctor was getting him ready to “help” with the birth.  The next contraction comes and I push again, without them even asking me to, arching my back.  Someone tells me, “no, put your chin to your chest, push down…” and then, very quickly, “okay stop! STOP! Don’t push!” and then, “Reach up… take your baby, here she is!!”  It’s all so surreal, I’m still crying out in pain, even though it’s all over… but then I look up like they say, there she is!  All purple and bloody and crying.  And I take her, and my cries of pain turn to cries of joy.  She feels all warm on my chest and they’re drying her off with towels.  I can feel the weight of her, just like I did when she was inside me, only now she’s outside.  I don’t remember M cutting the cord, but he did.  And then he looks at me, laughing, saying “You did it!”

They put a little hat on the baby, and M comes around to my side.  At one point I remember pushing out the placenta.  All the while I’m holding this tiny, perfect creature and it feels like she can’t be mine.  The doctor tells me I’ve torn and she needs to stitch me up.  She proceeds to do so, and I try not to focus too much on that unpleasant feeling.  But it feels like nothing compared with what I’ve just done.

M and I are just staring at the baby, who has yet to be named, watching her tiny, quick breaths, hearing her soft, high-pitched whimpers, and taking in every detail.  I ask M, “What’s her name?”  and he says, “I think she looks like N---- M----,” choosing one of the names from our list of five.  I agree with him completely.  After all those months of trouble trying to decide on a name, it was as simple as that.  Pretty soon she opens her eyes and stares at us both, with those eyes that are the darkest, most serious blue, checking out this two strange creatures who will be her parents.  Her hands are balled up in little fists.  Her tiny mouth opens up and closes on her fist.  Later on she opens her fist right in front of her eye, and then closes it, taking the skin around her eye with it into the ball of her fist.  We giggle and gently move her hand away from her eye, asking her not to hurt herself.  I remember being amazed that they were letting me hold her this long.  Before long the lactation consultant comes in the room and gives us a crash course in nursing.  I’ve read pretty much everything she tells me in a book, but actually doing it with a real baby is entirely different and new.  It hurts at first, but with lots of help N gets a good latch and begins taking nice, long gulps.  The lactation consultant seems really proud of her, and so I am too.

They have finished with all of the “repair work”, so I get covered up so that everyone who has been patiently waiting in the waiting room can come in and see her.  We spend some time showing her off, and everyone tells us how beautiful she is.  It’s true.

Finally they take her from me and do the eye goop stuff.  They weigh her—6 lbs, 6 oz!  Big surprise—I was expecting a 10 pound baby, like I was.  Then they take her footprints and put her in the little warmer that has been waiting in our room all this time.  Her hair is still all wet and her head is shaped like a cone.  Eventually they wrap her up like a burrito and put a little pink hat on her, so everyone will know she’s a girl.  I’m laying in the bed, with M there, still grinning that it really happened, that I really did it.  I keep having to remind myself that she’s sitting over there in the warmer, sleeping contentedly, that there are three of us now.