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Labor and delivery
Being that Aria is now 8 months old... here is my narrative of her being born, which I have been trying to get down in bits and pieces for most of that 8 months. I'm sure I lost a lot of the detail in the intervening time, but it's not going to get any clearer unless I set down what I have, so here it is.
***
So her official Estimated Due Date was Monday, July 20, 2015.
By then I was having weekly OB appointments for fetal non-stress monitoring, and when I went in that day, he said I was about 1 centimeter dilated, and "OK, I don't want you to go past 41 weeks, so let me look into available scheduling for an induction next weekend if nothing happens before then." By Friday, July 24, nothing significant had indeed happened -- some occasional mild contractions, but nothing that escalated into anything -- and in fact I was still happily at work. So I called the doc again on my lunch hour and he said to come in to the hospital "around 6 or 7 p.m." the next night, Saturday, to start the induction process.
I went back to work and told everyone "no really, today is for SURE my last day since by Monday I should have a baby one way or another". And I came home and had a quiet evening, figuring we'd have all the next day to putter around and finalize everything.
But sure enough, on Saturday, July 25, I woke up at about 1:45am having early labor pains. For the next few hours I woke up on the hour to lurch to the bathroom; I also had some spasms of nausea but nothing came of it. Finally, sometime around 10am the contraction waves were getting close enough together (the instruction was to wait until they were 5 minutes apart) that we decided it was time to pack up the car and head to the hospital, about 20 minutes away.
We'd been told to come to the ER for admission to the birthing center, so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
etrace dropped me at the door and went to park while I staggered inside and signed in. Fortunately it wasn't very busy, so after just a few minutes (though of course it felt like more to me, being whey-faced and still expecting to barf into the nearest wastebasket at any moment, and the friendly old man in the waiting area being all "CONGRATULATIONS! IS THIS YOUR FIRST? TODAY WILL BE A MAGICAL DAY FOR YOU!" didn't help), someone showed up with a wheelchair to take me/us upstairs. So that was around 11am.
They put us in one of the labor rooms, checked my cervix, and said "Well, you're only about 2 centimeters, so normally we'd send you back home, but if you'd rather hang out here for a couple hours we can check you again and see how you're doing." I really didn't feel much like going home and coming back again, so we stayed. I did throw up for real sometime in this stretch, possibly twice, of what ended up being at least four times over the course of the day (bleah). When they did check me again, around 1:30pm I think, they said "hey, great, now you're up to 6cm! You don't have to go anywhere!" "Hooray," I said weakly.
I still hadn't made any firm decisions regarding pain medication; I basically wanted to "see how it goes" and hold out unmedicated as long as I could, tempered by the knowledge that there's a point past which it's too late to do an epidural. They went over the pros and cons with me of the various medication types; basically, the epidural would be less narcotizing for the baby, which I approved of, and possibly more complete, except they kept saying "You'll still feel pressure, the epidural can't do anything about that," and I wasn't sure what that even meant. But it was still the option I was leaning toward.
The nurse said "well, bear in mind it takes at least an hour of prep time to do the epidural... and I don't think the anesthesiologist is even available right now because he's in surgery... do you want to try the labor tub in the meantime?" They equip every labor room with an enormous, beautiful whirlpool bathtub for the purpose. "Will it help?" I said. "Oh, some people swear by it, they love it..." "OK," I said, and we ran the tub and I spent the next... 3 hours? floating in sort of a miserable haze between wracking contractions. I still don't know quite how to characterize the experience of the pain. Although this sounds weird to say, it wasn't exactly, like, PAIN pain, as from injury or even gastrointestinal pain; it felt awful but in a different way, like my insides were turning themselves out.
Finally around 5 I had to get out of the tub for some procedural reason that I forget, and at that point I said to the nurse "OK, what do you think about getting that epidural?" "WHAT? You didn't tell me you wanted the epidural! I'm going to have to start your IV right away and call the anesthesiologist in!" Yes, lady, that's my point, I am telling you NOW...
So she started the IV (apparently they have to give you a certain bolus of fluid volume as part of the prep) around 5:30pm, and around 45 minutes later the cute young anesthesiologist showed up. I sat up, he had me hold very still while he needled my back, and then the catheter was in.
And in a short while, OMG THE RELIEF. Night and day. As noted above, I hadn't really been processing the pain sensations as pain, exactly, but as soon as it was taken away, it was obvious what the difference was. I was so giddy after a few minutes thatetrace actually asked "Um, what's in that stuff?"; but it wasn't a drug high, it was a "this ordeal just got a whole lot less ordealy" kind of high. Everyone who told me I should just take the drugs: you were so right. I literally don't know how I would have gotten through the rest of the process if I'd had to do it unmedicated.
HOWEVER. Once that was settled, the nurse said "Okay, now with the epidural you shouldn't be lying flat on your back, so let's roll you onto your side."
Baby did not like this.
Monitor indicated noticeable drop in heart rate. Fetal distress. "Eep, okay, let's try the other side instead." And suddenly one nurse after another came rushing into the room until there were at least half a dozen, plus the anesthesiologist, plus the OB on call (not my regular doc or even the other doc in his practice; someone I had never seen before), all looking Very Focused. Pooretrace was huddled on the sofa in the back corner, trying to stay out of the way and not panic.
Me? Not panicked in the slightest. All these medical personnel hurrying around, making suggestions, doing things to the machines and me... and I was literally Feeling No Pain for the first time in at least 8 hours, and totally content to let them rush around and do their jobs. I felt remarkably safe, all things considered.
So with turning me one way and another, finally by about 7:30pm I ended up on my back once again, only bolstered up slightly to protect the epidural site. And all the extra nurses and doctors filtered out, saying "okay, now you wait." And it was quiet.
Oh, except now that I was feeling better, they also said "You'd still better not eat anything in case we have to rush you into surgery on short notice." Sigh!
I think I slept for a while then, and called my parents with an update (since it was the first time in hours I could talk like a normal person).
Later, sometime after 10pm maybe, some nurses came back and said it would be good for the baby's position and promote progress if I could get up on my hands and knees for a while. So I did that. Rather, they helped do it for me, because BOY what a comedy of errors. Remember the epidural? I was so numb that I literally couldn't move my own legs; they pretty much had to haul me over and hold me up in place. And though I could stay in position for a little while, if I started slipping it was all over and they had to flurry around pushing my knees back up onto the bed. I needed wheelblocks or something. In the end it turned out that I spent a solid hour-plus hanging out in that position... and, one of the nurses said later, that may have made the difference in my ability to ultimately deliver the baby. So, go me.
At some point, they told me that they'd to let me continue to labor til about 2am, but if there wasn't significant progress by then, they'd take me in for C-section. So we waited.
About 1:30am though, I started to feel a noticeable change in the pressure levels, and I called the nurse in, saying "I think I'm feeling that need to push!" They measured me and huzzah! 10 centimeters dilated! The process was starting in earnest!
However, that "home stretch" went on for another 2+ hours. I literally cannot imagine having gotten through the process without the epidural, because it was impossible enough as it was. Most of it is kind of a blur by now (as it should be), but I definitely remember screaming my head off. The OB on call, the same guy I had never seen before (neither of the doctors in my actual practice was on hand; so much for that), came and settled in to oversee things. I distinctly remember him at one point saying sharply to me, "You need to STOP screaming and start pushing!" I swear that pissed me off more than anything that happened all day, but that was probably the point, because it did help me focus. (Even then I could understand his point that the screaming was, if you'll pardon the expression, bleeding off energy that I needed to be directing into the pushing. But JFC DUDE.)
There were two or three nurses in with us for the whole home stretch, too. They were my pep rally. Every time there was a big contraction and a big push, they would say "You're doing great, really great, really great!"etrace said afterwards that (from his vantage point in the corner) it sounded incredibly fake to him, like they were So Obviously just reciting their script... but honestly, I didn't really notice or care. I needed it. I guess that's the point? The cycle of push-push-push-push-nope went on about a million times, and in retrospect I suspect I really wasn't doing a particularly great job, even though they kept saying so.
But in the end it finally worked, and after some of the freakiest sensations of my life, which I will refrain from describing here, there was a baby on the outside. Baby! Baby baby baby!
Which meant that suddenly the ordeal was all over! They toweled her off for a moment while they were whisking some stitches into me (yeah, minor tearing; another reason to be grateful for the epidural), and put her on my chest. Her eyes were open and she was looking around. Tiny little larval-stage human. Though at eight pounds, 2.5 ounces, she was already big enough that it was hard to picture her having been inside my belly (let alone getting out).
After a few minutes, they took her back over to the scale, and cleaned her up some more, and thenetrace got to hold her. And then a little while later, they took her (and him) down to the nursery for whatever other medical stuff they do first off -- shots? bloodwork? -- while I got to try and eat something for the first time in 24+ hours.
And then they brought her back so I could try to breastfeed her for the first time. Which, she did at least latch on (in some fashion) and spend about 45 minutes, although it wasn't clear anything was coming out (that's a whole 'nother story which I will have to tackle next).
And then they moved us into my postpartum (private) room, where I spent the next 2 days. They had told me standard practice was to keep me 24 hours, which I assumed would mean going home Monday noonish; but then on Monday they said "Oh, you can stay another night if you want" and we looked at each other and said "Yes, I think that would be good for all of us", so we went home Tuesday afternoon instead.
I'll leave the nursing issues aside, since it was a complex process, although it was of course one of the main focuses of those first couple days.
But other than that, the thing I remember most (besides how crippled I felt limping to the bathroom) about those first 24-72 hours is how weepy and shivery I felt... not constantly, but passing over me in waves. Not even "sad", more like shellshocked, more of a physical sensation than an emotional one. I would find myself sitting in the bathroom at 3 in the morning, rocking back and forth, reciting prayers in a whisper (anything I could remember by heart -- strangely, mostly "Elokai ntzor", which I will now always associate with that time) to try and hold myself together. Thankfully, it didn't last that long, and I was in basically good spirits the rest of the time after that -- apart from the occasional moments of overwhelm/exhaustion.
My mom had made plans months earlier to come (from California) the first week of August, figuring that since there was no way we could time her being here for the actual birth, we should plan for when the baby would definitely be here. So she was here for basically Aria's entire second week. We were afraid thatetrace would have to go pick her up at O'Hare; but then fortunately her sister-in-law Carol (who lives nearby) got her son to drive out, and the two of them made the pickup, which was a huge favor to us. She stayed in a nearby hotel, and as far as "helping" for the week, mostly it ended up that she would go do social stuff for the afternoons, but then show up with groceries and make (or bring) us dinner every evening... which, although not exactly "helping with the baby" in the way I had initially imagined it, was a great boon. That week still ended up being a much bigger social time than we had really planned on, because her friends kept coming over to have dinner with us! This was harder on etrace than it was on me; I actually enjoyed having the extra company, but anytime it got too exhausting I could always beg off and stay in bed. But then, when it came down to it, occasionally so did he.
I'd had every intention of taking to my bed for the entire first two weeks, although the way it worked out, by the end of that time (and the conclusion of my mom's visit) I was up and about pretty much like normal.
And that's pretty much it, apart from the nursing (or lack thereof) saga, which is a story for another day.
And then we were three. <3
***
So her official Estimated Due Date was Monday, July 20, 2015.
By then I was having weekly OB appointments for fetal non-stress monitoring, and when I went in that day, he said I was about 1 centimeter dilated, and "OK, I don't want you to go past 41 weeks, so let me look into available scheduling for an induction next weekend if nothing happens before then." By Friday, July 24, nothing significant had indeed happened -- some occasional mild contractions, but nothing that escalated into anything -- and in fact I was still happily at work. So I called the doc again on my lunch hour and he said to come in to the hospital "around 6 or 7 p.m." the next night, Saturday, to start the induction process.
I went back to work and told everyone "no really, today is for SURE my last day since by Monday I should have a baby one way or another". And I came home and had a quiet evening, figuring we'd have all the next day to putter around and finalize everything.
But sure enough, on Saturday, July 25, I woke up at about 1:45am having early labor pains. For the next few hours I woke up on the hour to lurch to the bathroom; I also had some spasms of nausea but nothing came of it. Finally, sometime around 10am the contraction waves were getting close enough together (the instruction was to wait until they were 5 minutes apart) that we decided it was time to pack up the car and head to the hospital, about 20 minutes away.
We'd been told to come to the ER for admission to the birthing center, so
etrace dropped me at the door and went to park while I staggered inside and signed in. Fortunately it wasn't very busy, so after just a few minutes (though of course it felt like more to me, being whey-faced and still expecting to barf into the nearest wastebasket at any moment, and the friendly old man in the waiting area being all "CONGRATULATIONS! IS THIS YOUR FIRST? TODAY WILL BE A MAGICAL DAY FOR YOU!" didn't help), someone showed up with a wheelchair to take me/us upstairs. So that was around 11am.They put us in one of the labor rooms, checked my cervix, and said "Well, you're only about 2 centimeters, so normally we'd send you back home, but if you'd rather hang out here for a couple hours we can check you again and see how you're doing." I really didn't feel much like going home and coming back again, so we stayed. I did throw up for real sometime in this stretch, possibly twice, of what ended up being at least four times over the course of the day (bleah). When they did check me again, around 1:30pm I think, they said "hey, great, now you're up to 6cm! You don't have to go anywhere!" "Hooray," I said weakly.
I still hadn't made any firm decisions regarding pain medication; I basically wanted to "see how it goes" and hold out unmedicated as long as I could, tempered by the knowledge that there's a point past which it's too late to do an epidural. They went over the pros and cons with me of the various medication types; basically, the epidural would be less narcotizing for the baby, which I approved of, and possibly more complete, except they kept saying "You'll still feel pressure, the epidural can't do anything about that," and I wasn't sure what that even meant. But it was still the option I was leaning toward.
The nurse said "well, bear in mind it takes at least an hour of prep time to do the epidural... and I don't think the anesthesiologist is even available right now because he's in surgery... do you want to try the labor tub in the meantime?" They equip every labor room with an enormous, beautiful whirlpool bathtub for the purpose. "Will it help?" I said. "Oh, some people swear by it, they love it..." "OK," I said, and we ran the tub and I spent the next... 3 hours? floating in sort of a miserable haze between wracking contractions. I still don't know quite how to characterize the experience of the pain. Although this sounds weird to say, it wasn't exactly, like, PAIN pain, as from injury or even gastrointestinal pain; it felt awful but in a different way, like my insides were turning themselves out.
Finally around 5 I had to get out of the tub for some procedural reason that I forget, and at that point I said to the nurse "OK, what do you think about getting that epidural?" "WHAT? You didn't tell me you wanted the epidural! I'm going to have to start your IV right away and call the anesthesiologist in!" Yes, lady, that's my point, I am telling you NOW...
So she started the IV (apparently they have to give you a certain bolus of fluid volume as part of the prep) around 5:30pm, and around 45 minutes later the cute young anesthesiologist showed up. I sat up, he had me hold very still while he needled my back, and then the catheter was in.
And in a short while, OMG THE RELIEF. Night and day. As noted above, I hadn't really been processing the pain sensations as pain, exactly, but as soon as it was taken away, it was obvious what the difference was. I was so giddy after a few minutes that
etrace actually asked "Um, what's in that stuff?"; but it wasn't a drug high, it was a "this ordeal just got a whole lot less ordealy" kind of high. Everyone who told me I should just take the drugs: you were so right. I literally don't know how I would have gotten through the rest of the process if I'd had to do it unmedicated.HOWEVER. Once that was settled, the nurse said "Okay, now with the epidural you shouldn't be lying flat on your back, so let's roll you onto your side."
Baby did not like this.
Monitor indicated noticeable drop in heart rate. Fetal distress. "Eep, okay, let's try the other side instead." And suddenly one nurse after another came rushing into the room until there were at least half a dozen, plus the anesthesiologist, plus the OB on call (not my regular doc or even the other doc in his practice; someone I had never seen before), all looking Very Focused. Poor
etrace was huddled on the sofa in the back corner, trying to stay out of the way and not panic.Me? Not panicked in the slightest. All these medical personnel hurrying around, making suggestions, doing things to the machines and me... and I was literally Feeling No Pain for the first time in at least 8 hours, and totally content to let them rush around and do their jobs. I felt remarkably safe, all things considered.
So with turning me one way and another, finally by about 7:30pm I ended up on my back once again, only bolstered up slightly to protect the epidural site. And all the extra nurses and doctors filtered out, saying "okay, now you wait." And it was quiet.
Oh, except now that I was feeling better, they also said "You'd still better not eat anything in case we have to rush you into surgery on short notice." Sigh!
I think I slept for a while then, and called my parents with an update (since it was the first time in hours I could talk like a normal person).
Later, sometime after 10pm maybe, some nurses came back and said it would be good for the baby's position and promote progress if I could get up on my hands and knees for a while. So I did that. Rather, they helped do it for me, because BOY what a comedy of errors. Remember the epidural? I was so numb that I literally couldn't move my own legs; they pretty much had to haul me over and hold me up in place. And though I could stay in position for a little while, if I started slipping it was all over and they had to flurry around pushing my knees back up onto the bed. I needed wheelblocks or something. In the end it turned out that I spent a solid hour-plus hanging out in that position... and, one of the nurses said later, that may have made the difference in my ability to ultimately deliver the baby. So, go me.
At some point, they told me that they'd to let me continue to labor til about 2am, but if there wasn't significant progress by then, they'd take me in for C-section. So we waited.
About 1:30am though, I started to feel a noticeable change in the pressure levels, and I called the nurse in, saying "I think I'm feeling that need to push!" They measured me and huzzah! 10 centimeters dilated! The process was starting in earnest!
However, that "home stretch" went on for another 2+ hours. I literally cannot imagine having gotten through the process without the epidural, because it was impossible enough as it was. Most of it is kind of a blur by now (as it should be), but I definitely remember screaming my head off. The OB on call, the same guy I had never seen before (neither of the doctors in my actual practice was on hand; so much for that), came and settled in to oversee things. I distinctly remember him at one point saying sharply to me, "You need to STOP screaming and start pushing!" I swear that pissed me off more than anything that happened all day, but that was probably the point, because it did help me focus. (Even then I could understand his point that the screaming was, if you'll pardon the expression, bleeding off energy that I needed to be directing into the pushing. But JFC DUDE.)
There were two or three nurses in with us for the whole home stretch, too. They were my pep rally. Every time there was a big contraction and a big push, they would say "You're doing great, really great, really great!"
etrace said afterwards that (from his vantage point in the corner) it sounded incredibly fake to him, like they were So Obviously just reciting their script... but honestly, I didn't really notice or care. I needed it. I guess that's the point? The cycle of push-push-push-push-nope went on about a million times, and in retrospect I suspect I really wasn't doing a particularly great job, even though they kept saying so.But in the end it finally worked, and after some of the freakiest sensations of my life, which I will refrain from describing here, there was a baby on the outside. Baby! Baby baby baby!
Which meant that suddenly the ordeal was all over! They toweled her off for a moment while they were whisking some stitches into me (yeah, minor tearing; another reason to be grateful for the epidural), and put her on my chest. Her eyes were open and she was looking around. Tiny little larval-stage human. Though at eight pounds, 2.5 ounces, she was already big enough that it was hard to picture her having been inside my belly (let alone getting out).
After a few minutes, they took her back over to the scale, and cleaned her up some more, and then
etrace got to hold her. And then a little while later, they took her (and him) down to the nursery for whatever other medical stuff they do first off -- shots? bloodwork? -- while I got to try and eat something for the first time in 24+ hours.And then they brought her back so I could try to breastfeed her for the first time. Which, she did at least latch on (in some fashion) and spend about 45 minutes, although it wasn't clear anything was coming out (that's a whole 'nother story which I will have to tackle next).
And then they moved us into my postpartum (private) room, where I spent the next 2 days. They had told me standard practice was to keep me 24 hours, which I assumed would mean going home Monday noonish; but then on Monday they said "Oh, you can stay another night if you want" and we looked at each other and said "Yes, I think that would be good for all of us", so we went home Tuesday afternoon instead.
I'll leave the nursing issues aside, since it was a complex process, although it was of course one of the main focuses of those first couple days.
But other than that, the thing I remember most (besides how crippled I felt limping to the bathroom) about those first 24-72 hours is how weepy and shivery I felt... not constantly, but passing over me in waves. Not even "sad", more like shellshocked, more of a physical sensation than an emotional one. I would find myself sitting in the bathroom at 3 in the morning, rocking back and forth, reciting prayers in a whisper (anything I could remember by heart -- strangely, mostly "Elokai ntzor", which I will now always associate with that time) to try and hold myself together. Thankfully, it didn't last that long, and I was in basically good spirits the rest of the time after that -- apart from the occasional moments of overwhelm/exhaustion.
My mom had made plans months earlier to come (from California) the first week of August, figuring that since there was no way we could time her being here for the actual birth, we should plan for when the baby would definitely be here. So she was here for basically Aria's entire second week. We were afraid that
etrace would have to go pick her up at O'Hare; but then fortunately her sister-in-law Carol (who lives nearby) got her son to drive out, and the two of them made the pickup, which was a huge favor to us. She stayed in a nearby hotel, and as far as "helping" for the week, mostly it ended up that she would go do social stuff for the afternoons, but then show up with groceries and make (or bring) us dinner every evening... which, although not exactly "helping with the baby" in the way I had initially imagined it, was a great boon. That week still ended up being a much bigger social time than we had really planned on, because her friends kept coming over to have dinner with us! This was harder on etrace than it was on me; I actually enjoyed having the extra company, but anytime it got too exhausting I could always beg off and stay in bed. But then, when it came down to it, occasionally so did he.I'd had every intention of taking to my bed for the entire first two weeks, although the way it worked out, by the end of that time (and the conclusion of my mom's visit) I was up and about pretty much like normal.
And that's pretty much it, apart from the nursing (or lack thereof) saga, which is a story for another day.
And then we were three. <3