R's birth day...

So this month my baby girl turned six. How is it that six can sound so much older than five? I guess the aging is more apparent at their age, and I'm amazed at how much she's changed since we first met six years ago.

I think it is worthwhile to document how she was born, though maybe just for the mom's out there who get a kick out of a really juicy birth story, and for my own journal keeping.

When I found out I was pregnant, Chris and I had been married just three months. We'd planned on waiting awhile to have children, but there we were...we owned a home, he had a solid start on a promising career, my education was done, I'd seen the world and we'd known each other over ten years. All I could think about was a baby, we prayed about starting our family, felt like it was the right choice and voila, I was pregnant.

This was happy news, but after we called the folks and walked over to Jeff and Mary's to tell them the news, I called my bff Lyndsey and just BAWLED. The emotion totally took me off guard. After lots of thought and more tears...eight months of tears, I think I realized that I wasn't going into parenthood under any false pretenses that it was going to be easy, or that the baby was just going to hang out while Chris and I continued with our lives. I am the oldest of five children and had four younger siblings before I was nine years old, so I knew what changes were in store, and though I immediately loved that little person growing inside, I was fairly shaken by the immense responsibility and permanent change that was due to arrive on Christmas day.

After we called our little fetus "Brynn" for a few weeks, it dawned on me that I was giving birth to the first great-grandchild of my maternal grandparents, who had passed away before I was born. The realization caused me to think more about her name, and I became very passionate about naming her R, after my great-grandma. Chris was not a fan of the name to put it mildly, but apparently seeing me go through the physical torture that was my labor with our child, he gave in, because he was the first person to call her by her name after she was born.

It was the day after Thanksgiving, I was 36 weeks according to early due date estimates, but my midwives were thinking that I was farther along based on my measurements and due to the fact that the ultrasound we'd had indicated that we were maybe due more like the 15th of December. If that date was correct, I was within the allowed range (37 weeks to 41.5 weeks gestation) to deliver outside of the hospital.

Chris and I went to buy a Christmas tree after he got off work. We pulled all the decorations out and BIG SURPRISE, I started to cry. It was the same old cry, cuddling on the couch and telling Chris how much I was going to miss him when the baby came, and how we wouldn't be able to lay in bed in the mornings and we wouldn't be able to eat out or go out or ski or...you get the picture. After he comforted and reassured me for a good 45 minutes, he convinced me we should just go watch a movie in bed. We decided on "The Jerk" with Steve Martin. We both quickly fell asleep. I woke up after like ten minutes and reached over to turn out the lamp, and POP...my water broke.

"Chris, my water just broke!"
"Are you sure?"
Did he think I may have wet the bed??!!
"YES!"

I ran to the toilet and he ran for the vacuum. I was supposed to have a baby shower the next morning with my girlfriends from the growing up years, and so I first called Kelly and told her not to plan on me for brunch. Chris was baffled, "CALL Heike!" he said.

I called the midwives, and they said they'd rest (this was at like 10PM) and to call them when contractions were more intense. By 10:30 I had my first contraction, and they were pretty steady...short and like five minutes a part.

After sleeping, laboring, timing contractions, we eagerly met at the birth center at 6 AM Saturday morning. Mary, my doula was there with us as well as my mom. I was only 4 cm dilated! OUCH.

I enjoyed walking around with Chris for awhile, then I got in the tub. The warm water was amazing, I loved how weightless I felt. Labor for me was very internal. I just wanted silence, darkness, and I didn't ever open my eyes. No music, no talking. Chris was very supportive and helpful the whole time. I wasn't that raving lunatic lady you see on television--and I kind of thought I would be. I felt very reliant on my supporters, and vulnerable to them, and intensely grateful for their presence and concern for me. Even when people would annoy me by asking me questions, I'd use my "please" and "no thank-you"...I was more polite than normal. It wasn't intentional, just the way I felt safest. I didn't want to bark at someone and make them stop wanting to be there for me.

I had to have antibiotics every two hours, by way of a shot in my leg because I didn't want any IVs or things connected to me. This was a way that I could gauge how much time was passing. It was always my belief when they'd give me a shot it would be my last...but then they'd be at my side again giving me another...and another...

Finally, around 4PM, I was dilated to 10 cm. Unfortunately, my contractions ceased at this point. They were just GONE. We did some different things to stimulate uterine contractions, and no luck. R's heartbeat was strong, and so my midwife just said that I had to push her out. (Enter Ali, Heike had to catch a flight to somewhere, so her partner came on the scene. With no contractions to help push her down, and no instinct or urge to push, I had to get gravity on my side, so I sat on a horseshoe shaped stool close to the ground and leaned against Chris between pushes. This took THREE HOURS. THREE HORRID hours. I swore after watching so many women on television giving birth that I would never say things like, "I can't do it." So, I didn't...but I really wanted to.

Finally, R was ready to come all the way out. Heart was still beating strong, but then they noticed that the cord was wrapped around her little neck. They started cutting it and I just pushed her the rest of the way out.

There she was! She looked horrible. Not the horrible like a normal, healthy baby looks. She had an initial Apgar score of 2 (dead babies can have that Apgar) and her second score was a 5. The midwives started he on oxygen and told me to talk to her, as her heartbeat was suddenly slowing dramatically. I remember them counting the numbers out loud. I was numb. I don't think childbirth is something you can endure if you are emotionally plugged in, so I had to unplug to get through, and it wasn't really emotional for me. I just continued doing what they asked of me, like a robot. Talk to your baby, they'd say. I'd say, "Breathe, baby". They called 911.

This whole time, I was bleeding. I know this sounds like such a disaster, but we are talking about like sixty seconds between birth and the dialing of 911. The paramedics were there in like two minutes and by then, R was breathing on her own and in Chris' arms (though we never got that great, healthy newborn cry that is so reassuring). Now, all attention was on me. My uterus was still not contracting, the placenta was retained and the cord was unattached from the placenta. I was profusely bleeding.

That's really all the detail you need. I went to the hospital, and they said the doc wasn't available for 20 minutes. Ali knew I shouldn't wait 20 minutes, so she went a head and performed a DNC on me with her arm, got the placenta out and massaged my uterus into contracting. Lovely, let me tell you. The doc arrived, she examined the placenta (wow, she was not happy that my midwife had done anything to treat me in their hospital...there were a few threats spewed) and I was put under for an official DNC.

I nursed for the first time while I was still under. I KNOW! Crazy. I woke up, Chris was over snuggling with our baby that I'd never held, I had a catheter in and was hooked up to EVERYTHING on the planet in a horrible hospital bed. It was far from what I had imagined, but I really didn't care because I was so tired. I wouldn't say that I immediately felt that "mama bear" feeling for my baby. I was just pooped and still kind of emotionally unplugged.

Anyway, that is how my darling R entered this world! Poor baby! I was telling her the story this morning and she was really interested, it was fun. You'll have to stay tuned for the A story because you will find it theraputic after reading this one! She was worth it all!