Labor Story, Part I

For those who care...the story of how Liam came to be, literally.  


Every pregnant woman obsesses and agonizes over the exact moment at which labor will begin.  Well, at least, I did.  Will I be shopping the frozen desserts section at Albertson's when my water breaks?  Will my contractions start gradually or hit me like a ton of bricks?  Will it really feel like I'm being slowly eaten by sharks?


For those of us trying to avoid planned induction, we try to convince ourselves that knowledge is power.  You have CHOICES in childbirth.  For the most part, this is very true.  (Although, now I wonder if labor is the one area in life where ignorance really is bliss...)  They forget to remind you that you do NOT have a choice about when and under what circumstances your labor will begin.  You spend weeks...months...preparing and "planning" for a completely unpredictable and un-plannable event.  There is no book that can make you feel ready-- no friend's story that you can count on as yours to hope for.  You just-- wait.  You play hours and hours of Tetris Battle with your husband.  You try not to leave the house so that you don't have to worry about water breaking in a supermarket.  And you wait.  And you agonize.  And you play the "I wonder if today's the day" game.


And then your due date comes, and you're still preggo.  And the next day comes and goes.  And the next...

Wes and I got to bed late on Sunday night, October 25.  It was after midnight.  Just before I dozed off, I leaned over and told him "You know what would really suck?  If my labor started in the middle of the night, before we've had a good night's rest.  That would be terrible!"  It was literally not minutes later that I felt a sudden gush...


It was 12:40am and it had begun.


My water breaking was possibly the strangest physical feeling I had felt up to that point in life.  Hence, the "Holy $*@!!" expletive to which Wes violently awoke (I HATED that he could fall soundly asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow.  It always took me a good hour or two in my third trimester if I was fortunate enough to sleep at all.)  For a moment or two, I was frozen in shock as I lay there like a child who knew she was too old to be wetting the bed.  I laughed when Wes asked me if I was sure my water had broken and I immediately thought of Hugh Grant in the movie Nine Months who responds to Julianne Moore's water breaking with "We'll get you another!"


I waddled into the bathroom and grabbed some towels to clean things up.  The water just kept coming.  I was surprised at how much was there.  (They say to expect about 4 pints.)  My heart was beating fast.  The adrenaline was flowing.  Liam is coming today!  And then...OH CRAP WE HAVEN'T SLEPT I'M GOING TO BE EXHAUSTED...


I put the finishing touches on my hospital bag and tried to calm down and think things through.  I wanted to labor as long as possible at home because I despise hospitals and wanted to avoid being hooked up to anything as long I could get away with it.  I knew that once I was admitted, they wouldn't allow me to eat anything or go home if things were moving slowly.  I would be held hostage.  And the ONE thing I had control over was when I would arrive.

But, my water had broken.  (Less than 10% of actual labors begin with water breaking.)  Wes and I hadn't really studied this scenario.  What about risk of infection?  What about the penicillin drip I needed because I had tested positive for Group B Strep?  This was not the PLAN!

Contractions started within thirty minutes.  They were irregular at first.  10 minutes apart, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 8 minutes.  They lasted between 45 seconds and 1 1/2 minutes.  I remember the Bradley book saying "Don't get excited too early."  But didn't that only apply to labors that started with contractions, not water?  I also remembered a million people telling me "Plan on things not going as planned."  And, voila!


Wes urged me to try to get some sleep so that I would have at least a couple of hours under my belt before the real work began.  HA.  YOU try sleeping through these things.  I was glued to his iphone for the next few hours as I logged each contraction into the "Labor Mate" contraction tracker (yeah, there's an app for that.)


We paged our midwife several times.  She could tell us if we should rush to St. Mark's or wait things out.  No response.  We even texted our Bradley instructor, but we knew she was on vacation in Chicago.  No response.  This was not how it was supposed to work!  We were on our own.  Contractions were getting stronger.  I had to start thinking my way through them.  


Squatting and sitting on the exercise ball felt good.  Wes made me an Egg McMuffin on a whole wheat bagel and had me eat some yogurt so that I would have at least some energy stored up for the work ahead.  Contractions were strong relative to what they had been and coming every 3 minutes or so.  They say the formula for deciding when to leave for the hospital is the 4-1-1 rule.  4 minute contractions, lasting 1 minute each for 1 hour.  It had been much longer than 1 hour.  


After much deliberation, we decided to leave for the hospital.  It was about 6:30am.  

Can someone please tell the Salt Lake Department of Transportation to repave 3900 South?  You would think that a road leading directly to a hospital over which thousands of laboring women must drive would be smooth and comfortable. Oh, no.  I felt like I was driving through a third world country.  Every pothole felt like we had experienced a head-on collision.  Having said that, Wes was a great driver despite the less-than-ideal circumstances.  


I was proud that I refused the wheelchair I was offered when we finally arrived.  I'm not an invalid!  I waddled my way up to Labor & Delivery and filled out the registration form that St. Mark's previously assured me I wouldn't have to complete immediately upon arrival.  I struggled to remember my own birthday.  I was happy that a room was available with a jetted tub, and didn't fathom then that I would not set foot in it my entire stay.  We distributed my "birth plan" to everyone involved, making sure they knew that we were fairly anti-intervention.  Yes, we were one of those weirdo "Bradley couples."


Amy was my first nurse.  A nice enough lady, but it didn't seem like she really appreciated that I was about to perform a miracle.  She acted like what she was doing was no more exciting or important than a  postal worker's daily duties.  Maybe I  would feel the same if I had to look at vaginas all day.  (Wes doesn't think I should write vagina in my blog.  VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA.)  Amy took my vitals, hooked me up to the external fetal monitor and insisted that she check to see how dilated I was.  I was hoping to wait until my midwife arrived, but we weren't the only ones having trouble tracking her down.  They would send me home if I was less than 5 cm dilated and if my membranes hadn't really ruptured.  I was fairly certain they had.  The hospital has a policy that once your water breaks and you're at the hospital, you MUST be admitted because you are at greater risk of infection.  


I had been 2 cm for over a week, so I had to at least be a 5 or 6 after all of the work I had been doing.  Amy proceeded to give me the most painful exam of my life.  Wes said it reminded him of the movie Fletch when Chevy Chase says "Did ya use the whole fist there, Doc?"  


3 cm dilated.  80% effaced.  


Umm....EXCUSE ME?  You have GOT to be kidding me.  After roughly 8 hours of labor, I had dilated a total of 1 cm.  My cervix must be broken, I thought.  If this is how it feels to dilate to a 3, what must it feel like from 3cm-10cm??  Sharks.  Great white sharks.  


Amy hooked me up to an I.V. for the penicillin drip.  What should have taken 15 minutes took over 2 hours.  In addition to the pain of a needle digging around in the veins on top of my hand, the concentration of the drug was excruciating.  It felt like someone stabbed me in the hand with a jagged knife, jiggled it around and then slit through my arm up to my elbow, like when you gut a fish.  Amy diluted the penicillin with so much saline that my dream of being very mobile during labor turned into just that.  


The next several hours went by very slowly as we awaited word from my midwife.  My contractions had stalled and my worst fears were coming to fruition.  I was trapped in a hospital, but I wasn't sick...


To be continued...

They're Here

I saw one of the most incredible things of my entire life night before last.  The view from our master bedroom faces west, and I happened to be looking out over the mountains at about 12:30am (trying to fall asleep) when, all of a sudden, the sky turned green and gradually got brighter and brighter until it seemed like daylight.  I woke Wes up as I started to panic that the end of the world was here.  

Then, a streaking flash of orange fell across the Utah sky which then turned into red, then bright white.  It looked like a comet, but WAY too close to be that...It seemed so huge and near, like it was crashing into Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Wes reminded me that a huge meteor killed off the dinosaurs, and things like this can be quite dangerous.  Awesome.

I was pretty sure that aliens had landed and had a hard time getting back to sleep (ironic, since it was the first time in many nights my sweet newborn baby slept 4 hours in a row.) Witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle made my lack of sleep a little less excruciating.

I told my family about what I had seen, and my brother replied, "No more weed before bedtime."  Seriously.  I swear I wasn't the only one who saw it!  Someone down in southern Utah even caught it on his security camera... They claim it was a type of meteor known as a bolide, but I still think it may be time for me to make myself one of these:

October 27, 2009

We have a new little man in our lives!  Weighing in at 8 pounds 1/2 ounce and 21 inches long, Liam was born at 2:53am on October 27th after a 26 hour marathon labor (more details on that to come).  He arrived with mohawk in-tact.  

Click on the adorable toes below to see more photos.  We're in love!