As cliche as it may sound, I have never loved so hard or so reflexively in my entire life. It's crushing in its extent. And humbling. And incredible. And magical.
Saturday, December 11, 2010: The weekend before Arlo's birth I attended the funeral for the son of one of my NICU co-workers. Her son was 38. I had debated attending his funeral, mostly because of my unruly swelling and mountainous fatigue, but eventually decided to attend. This particular coworker had always been such a bright source of support during my pregnancy, and it seemed entirely fitting that I--swelling and ass-kicking fatigue be damned--honor her child in the spirit in which she honored mine for the previous many months. And so I went. The church halls were decked in the most surreal, yet regal of Christmas decorations: fresh wreaths flanked the pews, swags of greenery were draped along the organ pipes, and the pulpit was studded with gorgeous white poinsettias. As my coworker, surrounded by her loved ones, entered the church sanctuary and approached her son's open casket, I held my breath. For as long as I could. Because watching her bend down and kiss her son goodbye before closing his casket was gut-wrenchingly awful, and I simply knew that my next exhale could exit as a choked sob, and I desperately needed to get a grip on my shit. As I wrapped both arms around my belly, closed my eyes, and hugged the lively little fetus inside of me, I was flooded with the most raw sense of longing: My sweet baby. I can't wait to say hello to you, to hold your warm body tight to my chest, to kiss you all over, to tell you what a miracle your life is. Please be healthy, please live a full life, and please, oh please, don't leave before me.
Sunday, December 12, 2010: Nick and I went to the Richmond Craft Mafia's Holiday Handmade craft show, sort of a recent holiday tradition for us. One of my friends--my freshman year suitemate, to be precise--spearheads this event. (She's a fabulous potter and also happens to be responsible for my all-time favorite yellow ginkgo leaf earrings I'm wearing in the picture of me and Nick in the top left column of the blog.) We shopped around the craft show for holiday gifts, quietly searching for a small gift for the baby, should he/she arrive before Christmas. We had hoped to find a kitschy stocking or something, but struck out. Eventually Nick found the perfect ornament, and I inscribed the bottom with the date and my gestation at the time (37w5d). It's precisely what this baby is to us:
Tuesday, December 14, 2010: I had my 38 week OB appointment. Blood pressure: perfect. Urine: no protein. Cervix: 2.5cm dilated, softening, and shortening. I was relieved to hear the progress in cervical change because I'd been having some moments of discomfort in the previous few days, and I wanted there to be something to show for it. The OB said she'd be in town for the remainder of the month and that she felt pretty confident that she'd be available to attend our delivery at our hospital. We reviewed our birth plan with her again.
Our birth plan:
We have planned and prepared for a peaceful and natural birth. We would appreciate being assigned a nurse who enjoys working with couples who have prepared for an unmedicated birth. We would like for our birthing to unfold with as few interventions as possible. We would like to be informed about all procedures and tests before they are performed. We want to be aware and informed of all of our options in the event of an unexpected emergency.
Our Preferences:
-We will be using hypnosis to manage birthing. We would like low lights, quiet voices.
-We will have our doula, LP, present throughout labor and birth.
-Freedom to walk, move, and change positions as desired throughout labor and birth.
-Freedom to eat and drink throughout labor and birth.
-Minimum of vaginal exams.
-Use of the shower or tub as desired.
-Natural methods of strengthening labor, such as walking.
-Use of labor in an upright position.
-Massage and support of the perineum to avoid tearing.
-After birth, immediate contact between mother and baby; baby placed on my chest, breastfeeding encouraged, and baby left undisturbed for one hour following birth—newborn procedures can be performed afterward and in the presence of a parent.
-Delay of clamping and cutting umbilical cord until it stops pulsing.
-Placenta delivered spontaneously.
What we wish to avoid:
-Medication and the offering of pain relief. (We will ask if we feel this is needed.)
-IV (saline lock is okay.)
-Continuous fetal monitoring. (intermittent 20 min on the monitor each hour is okay.)
-Stripping of membranes or AROM.
-Pitocin or other drugs to induce/strengthen labor.
-Supine position for pushing.
-Episiotomy.
-Vaccum/forceps.
-Supplemental bottle feeding.
-Circumcision if baby is a boy.
That same night, while working on our Christmas cards, I began to have contractions that were about 7-8 minutes apart. This lasted for about an hour and a half, but they subsided when I went to bed that night. I woke up to a couple of sporadic contractions during the course of the night, but they were all entirely irregular. I felt great the following morning.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010: Our doula, Leah, came over and spent several hours with us for our second prenatal appointment. She showed us a short video on the Rebozo, a shawl used traditionally by Mexican midwives for comfort measures during childbirth (and also used for babywearing). She showed us several different positions to use with our birthing ball for fetal positioning and for labor. We promised to touch base with her after our next OB appointment or if anything happened labor-wise before then.
Thursday, December 16, 2010: While at work on Thursday, I began to feel rather strong pressure on my pelvic floor. I spend much of my day walking all over my hospital unit or, at the very minimum, standing on my feet. Walking from Pediatrics to the NICU I thought, Geeeez. This walking is really, really uncomfortable. Around noon, I called my boss and requested to leave early. Since I normally walk to/from work, Nick picked me up from the hospital and drove me home. I napped the rest of the afternoon away at home.
Friday, December 17, 2010: I called out sick. I was so exhausted. Earlier in the week we had taken a tour of our preferred day care center and after some debate we decided to add our names to the reservation list. We made the 20 minute drive Friday morning to the day care center to pay our reservation fee (this thought of day care, naturally, made me cry almost as soon as we pulled into the parking lot), and on the drive back home I began having contractions again, still irregular, but definitely attention-catching. I-95 was a parking lot, so we took a long back way to our part of town. We picked up sandwiches from our fave bakery downtown, and went home and napped. Again, the contractions stopped. I was in good spirits, but I was starting to feel completely exhausted.
Saturday, December 18, 2010: Nick's parents decided to drive up that Saturday afternoon to have a late lunch with us. They suggested Mexican, and I cringed--Mexican had been on my boycott list for the bulk of my pregnancy after my first and only pregnancy chuck-up experience came on the heels of a giant face-stuffing of veggie fajitas. I relaxed my boycott and joked that perhaps something spicy was precisely what this belleh needed to kick-start labor. I devoured a flaming hot chile relleno and gorged myself on chips and salsa.... 
(picture taken by Nick's mom before lunch the day my water broke. HUGE!)
Saturday night Nick and I made enormous brownie and banana split sundaes, crawled into bed and promptly started chowing down while watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Clark Griswold belted out JOY TO THE WORLD! amidst a family sputtering drum rolls, and I felt the strangest and strongest thump! from inside my uterus followed by an unmistakable gushing sensation. I sprang from my bed, grabbing a towel that was hanging on my bedroom doorknob, rushed back down the hall to the bathroom, yelping back to Nick (who was still in the bed) I THINK MY WATER JUST BROKE! More gushing ensued. I sat on the toilet, kind of unsure what to do next. It was 9:30pm.
Nick called Leah, who was on her way home from a Fairfax postpartum appointment (she is also a student midwife), and she said that she could come over as soon as she hit our hometown, if we wanted. She explained that since my water had broken, I was now "on the clock" (meaning there would be pressure to deliver within 24 hours or other interventions would be suggested/promoted by my OB). She told me that if I called the OB right now, I would be advised to go in to the hospital. I told Leah that I wasn't ready to go to the hospital, that my contractions hadn't even begun in earnest, and that I was unsure what to do. She encouraged me to trust my body and do what I felt was best. I told her that we would simply wait at home for a bit longer to see how or if anything would progress. I agreed to keep her posted.
I texted my sister My water just broke! She called me immediately and we chatted for a few minutes. I was breathless from the adrenaline as I explained everything to her. I told her I'd call her later with an update.
By 10pm, my contractions had started, and within about ten minutes they were 4-5 minutes apart and lasting anywhere from 45 seconds to a minute long. We realized that we foolishly didn't have any means to accurately time the length and distance between my contractions. Nick quickly found a stopwatch online, and we used the laptop to measure the time between contractions. Thank you, oh wondrous interwebs!
We had been encouraged by other peeps to have a "labor day" project of some variety, something to help occupy yourself while laboring at home. We had originally decided that we would make cookies for the L&D and postpartum nursing staff with a card from the baby thanking them for taking care of his/her mommy and daddy. I felt relieved that we had just picked up all the necessary ingredients for this project earlier in the day, but when we started to assemble the mixing bowls and measuring cups and ingredients on the kitchen counter, I could hardly focus on the recipes. At one point, I turned to Nick and muttered, "Oh hell no, I cannot do this right now!" and we momentarily gave up on the cookies. A few minutes later I tried to finish collecting the ingredients from the cabinets, but found myself hunched over the kitchen counter. Baking cookies, Rhianna? Really? FAIL.
I rocked my hips while sitting on my birthing ball with my upper body leaned over on a stack of pillows on my bed. I had prepared for labor by practicing Hypnobabies since I was about 28 weeks pregnant. I tried to listen to my Hypnobabies scripts, but the narrator's voice just started pissing me off. I was trying to listen to the Easy First Stage script, but my contractions were coming far too fast and intensely for me to focus on what she was saying. (In hindsight, that's because--DUH--I wasn't in first stage labor.)
I walked up and down my hallway, pausing for each contraction while Nick applied counter-pressure to my back. My back was beginning to KILL me. I started to tear up a little. I labored some on the toilet, facing backwards with my upper body braced over the tank. I started having a really difficult time talking through my contractions. Nick started to become worried and queried if we should contact the OB. I didn't want to--for some strange reason I felt like doing so would be giving in and that our whole birth plan would be trashed the minute we arrived at the hospital. My whole plan was to labor at home as long as possible, and we'd only been laboring for about two and a half hours. I felt so defeated.
We packed three bags--Nick's, mine, and the baby's. We packed our own snacks for the hospital, just in case they tried to tell me that I couldn't eat or drink during my time laboring there.
I eventually conceded, and Nick had Dr. Wicker paged. She called us back within minutes. She said precisely what I knew she'd say: go to the hospital. And that's what I begrudgingly did. Since we live within walking distance of the hospital, the drive was blessedly short. I still felt so defeated going in to the hospital so quickly. I tearfully lamented to Nick during the drive, "I just know that they're going to tell me I'm only 4cm, and I'm going to get so discouraged, and my labor is just going to stall out."
I was so pissed off.
Finally, a wheelchair chariot arrived, and I sat my soaked bum down, closed my eyes, and concentrated through my contractions as we took back corridors and elevators to L&D. It was surreal to wheel past my office door--already my job seemed like a distant memory to me. This new road before me--this road to motherhood--was the only thing that seemed real and vital.
I had been so worried that I'd deliver during night shift with nurses that I don't know--thus my worry that my birth plan wouldn't be acknowledged. I was relieved to see a familiar face when I was wheeled into triage--a nurse, Sherry, I'd had some occasion to work with during day shift. I perched gently on the edge of the triage bed because that was all I could muster with my crazy lower back pain. Sherry peeked into the room to check on me, and I told her that my back was killing me. She asked if I felt the need to bear down and I told her YEP, I SURE DO. They scurried me from triage to room 3067, and I shakingly changed into my own delivery gown that I brought. Sherry announced with audible surprise when she checked my cervix that I was 8-9cm dilated.
8-9cm.
Holy crap.
I was doing it.
I had actually labored like crazy at home. There was a reason that this all felt so enormous and intense!
Quickly, another nurse brought in a scale and radiant warmer for the baby. I was stunned by how rapidly everything was coming together and that they really thought this baby would be here any moment.
I guess all the Hypnobabies practice did work for me after all because folks commented that I appeared calm for the stage of labor that I was in.
The serious ass-kicker in all of this? The baby, we learned, was occiput posterior, or sunny-side up. Hence the seemingly unbearable back pain. I read somewhere that trying to push out an OP baby is like pushing out a baby a full pound larger than your baby.
I pushed for two hours.
I pushed in this upright position for a long time over the raised back of the hospital bed:
Using the squat bar and the Rebozo, I pushed in this position for a while as well, bracing my feet on either side of the squat bar:
The baby wasn't moving further down, and my contractions became less frequent and less productive. There were rumblings of giving me a "whiff" of Pitocin to kick my uterus back into prime pushing form, and I pleadingly looked at N and Leah and Sherry and asked, "What else can we do?" I tried my very hardest and powered through my fading energy. I turned over and began pushing in this sidelying position, with N holding one leg and Leah bracing the other:
I could feel the baby turning inside of me. Sherry and Leah both said, We can see your baby's head. Your baby has hair! I looked at Nick, who gleefully nodded his head in agreement. Sherry said, Reach down and feel your baby's head! I did--it was soft and I could feel all of the baby's hair, and I started crying in anticipation and genuine disbelief. It gave me just the dose of energy I needed to keep pushing and holding my baby in place through the pushes.
Before I knew it, Dr. Wicker was in the room to catch the baby. I pushed again, and everyone exclaimed that the baby's head was out. Nick says that Dr. Wicker told me to stop pushing at that point, but I didn't hear her. I was concentrating so fully on getting my baby out that I kept holding through the push, and Nick says that Dr. Wicker had to palm the baby's head to keep me from pushing the rest of him out while she was checking him out. I felt an enormous release of pressure once the baby's head was out, and pushing the rest of him out was effortless in comparison. Nick said the baby came out with his fist resting on his cheek, so peaceful.
The baby was held up, and I was told to look to see if the baby was a boy or a girl, but I didn't have my glasses on and I couldn't really see. I looked to Nick, who cheekily whispered, It's a boy. I tugged down the top of my delivery gown so that we could be skin to skin, and when I held his warm body tight to my chest for the first time, nothing else in the entire world mattered more. He was quietly alert, peering around, not crying at all. Just Zen. Another nurse earlier in the morning had brought in a cd of ocean waves for us to labor to, and Nick joked that it was the sea breeze that kept the baby so tranquil.
Nick and I whispered our disbelief to each other. Nick held the baby's hand while he laid on my chest. Sherry did the baby's vitals from my chest, never taking him away from me. N and I alternately stared at each other and the baby, completely euphoric, totally in awe, unabashedly in love with this new little being.
It was perfect. All of it. Our birth plan was mostly honored as we'd hoped . Nick was so supportive. Every look we exchanged during those long hours was meaningful. All that worry about not having good nursing support? Apparently completely unnecessary. Sherry was also hugely supportive and on board with everything, and was even a great advocate when I asked about taking my placenta home. And Leah...amazingly supportive. I am unyieldingly grateful that we found such an awesome doula. I firmly believe that I couldn't have made it through an unmedicated birth without her assistance--from the prenatal preparation all the way through delivery.
I held the baby while Dr. Wicker stitched me up. I had a 3rd degree tear. Perhaps it was the lidocaine, perhaps it was all the oxytocin coursing through my bloodstream, perhaps it was the miracle tenderly resting on my chest, but I didn't feel a thing. Dr. Wicker talked about her perfectionist seamstress skills, and Nick joked that she was sewing me up like a prom dress.
I could only focus on Nick and the baby. The baby we both almost instantly agreed looked like an Arlo. Our sweet Arlo.
Sherry called to the nursery to give them a heads up to prepare for Arlo's admission, and I asked her if she would ask the nursery if they could instead admit the baby from my room instead of taking him away from us. At this point in the morning it was now day shift, and my friend, Melissa, from the postpartum unit came over and did Arlo's admission right there in the delivery room with us. Nick was able to bathe and diaper Arlo right there in our room. It was lovely, and suddenly I was very grateful to have had my baby in the place of my employment where we were treated so wonderfully from the start.
Leah later told us that our birth was the most gentle birth she's ever attended at our particular hospital. I seriously loved every moment of my labor & delivery and postpartum experience. I wouldn't change a minute of it.As we were wheeled from L&D to the postpartum side, we passed a parade of my coworkers, each of them uttering congratulations and cooing over Arlo in his hand-knit Christmas tree hat from Grandma Betty. We felt so loved.
Arlo never left our side during our hospital stay. The pediatricians came to see us in our room to do his daily exams. And even when he needed a midnight bili draw, the nurse took care of that at our bedside.
The next 48 hours were a blur of visits from Nick's parents, my sister, our good friend Deb, and an abundance of my coworkers. Nick's parents brought us a tabletop mini Christmas tree with a Baby's First Christmas ornament on it, and fittingly many other visitors also brought us Christmas ornaments for Arlo. We hung each of them on the little tree, which we now refer to as Arlo's Tree. I beamed every time I looked at the tree, its boughs loaded with ornamental well wishes from so many. It's an amazing feeling to have your baby be so celebrated, especially when he feels so sacred to you in the wake of what it took to bring him into the world.
Just...awesome.
And as if the whole experience couldn't get any more surreal... One of the nurses taking care of me had worked with me a month or so earlier on an adoption, and she came into my room and said, "I have a very bizarre request. Remember C, the birth mom from that last adoption? She's here now, and she is asking to see you. I told her that you were not working but were currently a patient and that I'd check to see if you were up for a visitor. Do you want to see her?" Of course I did, even though it felt like a crazy blurring of boundaries. She stopped into my room, gave me a thank you note, and told me all about her baby and his adoptive family. She showed me pictures of him, said she couldn't have picked better adoptive parents, and talked about how good she felt about her adoption plan. I told her how sheerly delighted I was for her, her son, and his family, all the while trying not to cry. It meant so much that she came back to update me, but it meant a crazy ton more that we were both able to talk with deep affection about our new, personal definitions of family.
Families. We are all created profoundly. It's spectacular, y'all.
(Arlo on the inside...) 
(Arlo finally on the outside...)
Snuggling watching football, nearly 3 weeks later...
I love it! I have read this twice already!
ReplyDeletethis made me cry. i can't wait to see him soon.
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