Alexandria is here!
July 17, 2010
7 lbs. 12 oz.
19 1/2" long
As I was writing my last post in the middle of the night last week, I kept thinking, "It's time. It's finally happening. I can't believe it!" And then things started moving so quickly, and before we knew it, we were the joyful parents of a gorgeous little girl who has brought joy and love into our lives unlike any we have ever known before. Alexandria is such a beautiful baby, and we can't get enough hugs, nuzzles, and kisses from her....we just find ourselves constantly wanting to touch her and hold her close.
I could go on forever about all the happiness we feel to have her with us, but I want to tell the story of how she arrived - before the freshness of the memory is gone. Her birth was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had, and I want to keep the feeling of it forever. There is always so much joy over a child's arrival, but I actually feel a great amount of joy over how she arrived, and that's the story not told as often. That's what this post is about...
If you remember, we left off with me having contractions in the middle of the night. We had visited our friends, Matt, Jen and Owen, at the hospital, went to dinner, and at the end of dinner, I started labor. It's funny, Greg and I used to talk about how you know you're in labor, since everything we'd read said you could have Braxton-Hicks contractions for hours or even days before real labor started. There was no doubt in my mind when my labor started. It just felt different, real, as if my body had transitioned into something very intentional, and this would not stop until it reached a point of completion.
By the time we got home from dinner, I was hitting a contraction every 6-7 minutes, pretty consistently. OK. We're not at the 5-1-1 mark, but I am definitely having consistent contractions. We decided to try to get some sleep, knowing that this was probably it, and we may not be sleeping again once things really started going. I remember Greg telling me as he was nodding off, "Babe, I want you to try to rest now. You will need it." Of course, I tried to heed his insightful advice, but it's pretty hard to suppress the excitement of starting one of the most important events of your life, so I got a little rest before I just couldn't stand it anymore and had to get up. Besides, there were things to do!
This is when I wrote the last blog, but I also started the final packing for the hospital. I could hardly contain my excitement, and I also started to have some anxiety about what was to come. The pain of the contractions was manageable but real by this point, and I was starting to hit the 5-6 minute mark between each one, which really put me on point. I did not want to over-anticipate the timing, though, so I told myself I would wait until the pain stopped me from doing things before waking Greg up to go to the hospital. By 4:30 am, I was having contractions every 4-6 minutes consistently, and the pain was requiring some pretty heavy breathing. I waited until 5:30 to wake Greg up. He, being cautious (and slightly delirious), moved slowly but deliberately, and by 6:30, we were finally on our way to the hospital, truck packed to the rim with all our stuff, and me loaded very uncomfortably into the front seat.
Now, the drive to the hospital. Imagine us driving as the sun is coming up, Greg is still not awake, I am contracting pretty heavily every 4-5 minutes with a death grip on the Oh-Shit Bar, but we have a beautiful CD of classical music that our aunt and cousins gave me at the Mo Family baby shower playing the most perfect music to set the tone for a stunning early morning drive to deliver our child. Despite my extreme pain at this point, things are looking good, until Greg looks at me and says, "I don't know how to broach this, so I'll say it directly. Would it be OK to stop at a Starbucks for a cup of coffee?" I hesitated for a split second, and then I came to my senses and replied, "I would love to be the cool wife right now, but are you CRAZY!? HELL NO!" Then trying to regain composure and actually giving him the benefit of the doubt, I told him only if there's one with a drive-thru right in front of us before we get on the freeway...as we pass one on the other side of the street. Too late. If it had been a right hand turn, maybe. No U-Turns. Not now. Contraction hits. We have to go.
We get to the hospital, and we're both in good spirits (despite Greg's lack of coffee). I have the ability to walk up to the 5th floor (Labor & Delivery), and I even still have a sense of humor as I joke with the admitting nurse at the Nurse's Station. I wish someone had told me right then and there that if you have the ability to joke with the nurses, you're not really in labor, but that was for later.
We got settled in a gorgeous room with a full view of the ocean, looking out at one of our favorite surf breaks. The nurse who would be with me for labor came and hooked me up to the contraction and baby's heart rate monitor, and sure enough, I was having great contractions every 4-5 minutes, and Alexandria's heart rate was responding perfectly to each contraction. Everything seemed perfect and ready to go. Then we did the cervical exam. This is where the truth is always told, and my truth was at "a loose" 1 cm dilation, 80% effacement, a slightly posterior cervical opening, and Alexandria's position was at -1 to 0. I was crushed. Maybe even a little devastated. I had been having contractions for 8 hours at this point, and I was nowhere near delivering this child. Despite all of the pain, despite how perfectly timed and how strong my contractions were, despite the beautiful drive as the sun came up or the view of our favorite surf spot, I was not delivering this child yet. We decided to give it an hour to see if anything would change (which I did not expect since nothing had changed in 8 hours!).
As a stroke of luck, my doctor was actually at the hospital, and she came to see me in that hour and confirmed what the nurse had found. Yep, not yet. She did a membrane sweep to see if she could get things started that way (which is incredibly painful when everything is contracting and already in distress), and she told me what I did not want to hear but thought might be coming...I would have to go back home and wait this out. Now I really was devastated.
The nurse convinced me it would be better to be at home because I could take a shower or a bath, eat whatever I wanted, and I would be free to move around any way I wanted. I listened to her advice and agreed, but in my heart I was so sad. I wanted to have this experience now. I wanted to continue the story with the great drive, the great room, the great sense of humor. But that was not to be. So I found my backbone and mentally accepted that I was in for a longer ride, and whatever it turned out to be, it would be right. At the end, regardless of what was happening now, I would have my daughter. There was no doubt that all this would reach that conclusion, and that kept me going. But I was pretty hurt emotionally.
Dr. Lai told me that because my contractions were so strong and well timed, she expected to see me back in as soon as 4 hours. She felt that I was really close, and she reassured me that things were progressing and not to worry. Hoag admits laboring mothers when they get to 4 cm dilation, and she believed I would be there soon. Of course, I made 4 hours a goal and promised to see her as soon as possible. Greg packed up all our bags (wonderful sherpa husband that he is), and we checked out.
I will say, no one prepares themselves for a drive home once you start labor, and that drive home was hell. Mostly because my contractions had still continued to get stronger while we were at the hospital, so now I was in serious pain, in a truck, with traffic on the 405, and I was heading away from where I wanted to be. I tried to keep my spirits up and stay focused, but I practically leapt out of the truck when we got home just to get into a different position than the pain inducing contortion I had found myself in while we were driving.
I got in the house and realized I had to prepare myself for real pain now. My body had to accomplish something that I could not control, could only read by the amount of pain I was in and how long that pain lasted, and basically had to endure until it was either unbearable or until Alexandria popped out right in the middle of the living room, whichever came faster. There really was no way to know that I had dilated to 4 cm (yet another brilliant insight from Greg...husbands should be taught how to do cervical exams for scenarios just like this...would have saved us a trip and helped us know when it was really time to go to the hospital), so all I had were my contractions to count, and count we did. 4 hours. I kept telling myself...4 hours. Just make it that long and see where you are then.
Needless to say, they were a tough 4 hours. My contractions grew increasingly intense, to the point where I was moaning pretty loudly, breathing very hard, and very particular about my body position and movements. I had a pilates ball that seemed to move things along pretty well in the beginning, but I found after a while that my contractions hurt much worse when I sat on it, so I let that go. I found that the white noise machine we had gotten for Alexandria helped me focus and relax, but it also knocked Greg out too, so it was a challenge to keep him awake. I had him start counting contractions for me, which helped. I also used a heat pack for my lower back, which was now on fire with pain. I felt like this must be a progression because it had not hurt the night before.
Things were moving along, and I was starting to feel like I was peaking in pain and timing (3-4 minutes), when all of a sudden, everything stopped. Everything. Stopped. No contractions. No back pain. Nothing. It all stopped. Just as I had the most intense contractions of the entire experience, just as I was going to say, "Let's go to the hospital soon," just as I was reaching that golden 4th hour...it all stopped. I could not believe it! I had labored for 14 hours at this point, and it just stopped.
Greg very quickly consulted "The Birth Partner" for the pre-labor information and found a description of pre-labor that just about broke me. It basically described everything I had experienced for the last 14 hours and then said that this could all be pre-labor, which was not "labor" in the true sense because of the lack of dilation. It also said that this could go on for hours or even days. That was when I lost it. I could not fathom going through everything I had just gone through AGAIN to maybe get to real labor...or not. I could not fathom building for that long to be in that much pain again for something that was not going to end in delivery. Sensing a break in my spirit, Greg again wisely told me to take this time to get some rest because I would need it for what was to come, whatever that would be.
I took his advice and took a bath, hoping that would help, but I could not get my belly submerged to take the weight off, so it seemed somewhat pointless at the time. It did, however, get me relaxed enough to sleep a little. I got about two hours of sleep before I was awakened by that familiar feeling of pain. Contractions were starting again! They started at a 5 minute pace with intensity building pretty quickly. Within an hour they were 3-4 minutes apart and strong enough to make it very difficult to do anything but continuously breathe through them. I found a good rhythm in my breathing, but I had to keep breathing even outside of the contractions to stay focused and ready for when the contractions came. The pain was more intense than it had been at any point earlier, and I needed every ounce of focus I could find to breathe properly.
During this last round, we were visited by my mom and dad, who thought I should be going to the hospital soon based on how I was doing. I wanted to wait a little longer to be sure that there would be no question that I was in labor and would not get sent home again. We were also waiting for Greg's mom to get into town, and we held out that extra bit longer to wait for her and to ensure that we were far enough along to go back to the hospital to stay. This was a really hard time. I was breathing constantly, moaning loudly, and only able to move a few steps walking back and forth. I spent most of the time bent over gripping the side of our sofa for support during each contraction. My lower back was killing, and the heat pack was a godsend. It got so intense that I had to have Greg massage my back during every contraction. I was in another place, focused, and having every sign of labor you could imagine. I just hoped that my body was responding accordingly.
I finally called it around 6:30 pm. I was ready around 5:00, but we realized that if we could wait a little longer, traffic would be a little better. Yes, 5 o'clock traffic with a lady deep in labor would not have been pretty. My parents had brought my car to us, and we piled everything into that (no truck this time!), had Greg's mom follow us, and we all started toward the hospital. I looked at Greg and said, "We are going to stay. I don't care how dilated I am, I will not leave the hospital without delivering my child." That was that.
As uncomfortable as any of the other trips to and from the hospital had been, this was the worst. 3 minutes separated each contraction, each lasting at least a minute, if not more. I was unable to find any position that was not excruciating, and I finally broke down and cried from the pain. It was everything I could do to handle it, and I was so thankful when we pulled into the valet parking area at the hospital entry (just as a killer contraction was ending) that I opened the car door and just kept walking straight to the elevators to get to the 5th Floor. I figured I had 3 minutes to get up there before I was going to have to stop for another contraction, so I'd better move.
Greg somehow caught up to me after handling the valet, and we walked into Labor and Delivery in a very different way than we had in the morning. Every single head turned at the Nurse's Station and it was immediately obvious to all that I was in bad shape. Just as we stepped into the hallway, I went into a contraction, and once that one was done, I signed in (easy since I had already been there in the morning), and then started another one - in the middle of the hallway.
The scenario at Hoag had changed since the morning as well. In the time that I had been at home, everyone apparently decided to have a baby. They were full. No beds were available. I was ushered out of the hallway (not the best place to deliver) and into a temporary bed in Recovery, where a nurse set me up with the contraction and heart rate monitor and prepared to do the cervical exam. Contractions were on - strong and regular at 3-4 minutes. Alexandria's heart rate sounded good. Cervix...3 cm. The nurse made a comment about checking with the doctor on call to see if I could be admitted and disappeared. I looked at Greg and said, "I don't care what that doctor says, I am not leaving this hospital." I just left it to him to deal with this one, in case we were told we could not be admitted because I was not at 4 cm, and I went back to focusing and breathing through the pain.
The nurse came back a little while later and told us that we would be admitted. I was so far past that detail that it seemed anticlimactic, but somewhere in my head relief registered because I knew we could really start now. After 16 hours of ("non") labor, I was finally going to have this child...
(Part II to follow.)
