14 may 2015

on 13 may 2015, i was 38 weeks and 6 days. baby joey was due in just over a week, and because i'd been diagnosed with gestational diabetes (which was a wildly surprising and seriously stressful diagnosis but which was ultimately managed pretty well with diet... more on this later), i knew i'd be induced on my due date. so i'd started in on all the recommended ways of naturally inducing labor as soon as i'd hit 37 weeks - spicy curries, squats/walking/bike riding, raspberry leaf tea, sex... induction, as i understood it, meant that contractions came on hard and fast, and even though i kept telling everyone i didn't have any "plan" for my labor experience, i definitely expected - and wanted - to labor for a good spell at home. i envisioned myself soaking in the tub, using our exercise ball, walking in the park behind our house... getting used to the idea of being in labor and then heading into the hospital when things got serious.

as it turns out, bub had other plans.

13 may 2015 was a wednesday. i woke up at 5 that morning, fretting about the baby's position - the doc had told us on tuesday that it was in a posterior position, and we wanted it in an anterior position. i spent the day at work in a serious state of distraction, and even though i promised kp i'd leave early to take a nap, i stayed at my desk until 6:30, marking exams and looking up ways to move a posterior baby.

kp and i rode home together, and i made dinner. kp later said we should have known something was up since i hadn't made dinner in over 9 months... hilarious, babe.

after dinner, i pulled out the exercise ball and started bouncing/tilting/rolling baby into an anterior position while kp did the dishes. the plan was to watch an episode of 'game of thrones' before bed, maybe scare the baby out with all that gratuitous gore. and then, suddenly, there was fluid everywhere. i knew my water had broken but i couldn't seem to fully process that it meant i was in labor. i certainly didn't think it meant i was in established labor, but by the time i'd called the midwives and finished packing my bags, i was having contractions every 2-3 minutes. and by the time they'd checked bub and me out at the hospital an hour or so later, they were coming every 2 minutes, lasting for at least a minute or two, and i was at 5cm. there would be no walks in the park. we were admitted and moved to a birthing room.

we got right in the tub, and i got back on my hands and knees, draped over the side of the tub. i'd spent the first hour prior to admittance on my hands and knees draped over the toilet (when they weren't checking us out), so this was a definite improvement. it was the only position that made sense to me. i probably could have done some of it on the exercise ball, but we'd left it in the car and i wasn't prepared to let kp leave me even for a second. kp had the shower head going on my lower back while the tub filled, emptied, and refilled (we were in there for a few hours), and for awhile, i was in a groove. but eventually i decided to try the gas. i don't know why they don't offer it in the u.s. because it is amazing! seriously, it takes the edge off the pain but leaves you in full possession of the body and of the experience...

and then i hit transition. the gas doesn't stand up as well to transition, unfortunately, but at the rate i was going, it wouldn't be long and i just needed to focus. the midwife came in to check bub's heart rate and discovered it was high, probably because i was overheating in that tub. so she pulled me out to cool me off and do another vaginal exam. i was at 7 cm (things had slowed a bit), but i was also experiencing some anterior cervical swelling, which she said was probably because i'd spent the last 4 1/2 hours on my hands and knees and had begun bearing down with the pain of transition. we had to get the swelling down or at least keep it from getting worse while we waited for me to dilate the last 3 cm. to do this, she told me, i would need to lie on my back or my side and stop bearing down.

impossible. i could not stand being on my back - everything about it was wrong, and i instantly got panicky. being on my side was only marginally better, but at this point, i was feeling totally out of control. the baby was barreling through the birth canal, but i wasn't dilating fast enough. i could not stop bearing down. and the gas wasn't taking the edge off anything anymore. i was starting to lose it.

they say that a woman in labor is at her most vulnerable in transition, and that it is the time when women who otherwise wanted no medications or other interventions are easily nudged in that direction... i was aiming for a non-medicated birth but also open to accepting whatever course of events presented itself. i'd spent weeks coming to accept the possibility of induction and the cascade of interventions that often accompany it, including c-section. and i'd already taken the gas, so it wasn't like i was holding out for a purely natural delivery. if i cared about anything at this particular moment, it was a) providing baby joey the safest possible entry and b) getting OFF my side. that was truly horrible. it was at this point that the midwife started talking about the epidural. i don't think i even let her finish the word before i told her to get the needle. she was going on about how it was the only way to get me to relax for long enough to curb the swelling... blah blah blah... just hook me up, lady!  kp had the presence of mind to request one more vaginal exam before we did it to see if i hadn't dilated further - the idea was that the midwife could help move the cervical lip over the baby's head if needed, but i had to be fully dilated first.

i was not. so they brought in the anesthesiologist, who said i had to stay utterly still or risk being permanently paralyzed... given the way my body was seizing up at every contraction at this point, i though for sure i'd spend the rest of my life in a chair. and i didn't care. kidding. with kp's unwavering support, i held it together long enough for them to get the needle in place.

post-epidural face, 3am

there are no pre-epidural pics

then we napped for about 3 1/2 hours while they monitored my progress. with the epidural, however, often comes a reduction in the intensity of contractions, and sure enough, things slowed down after they gave me mine. at 6:30 or so, the midwife decided to give me a low dose of syntocinon (pitocin) to speed things up, and fortunately for me, it worked like a charm. my ob turned up some time between 7 and 7:30, and we started pushing shortly thereafter. my left side was totally gone but the right could still feel the pressure of the contractions, which made it easier. and the baby had already descended so far that there wasn't much further to go. i think i pushed for 30 minutes before the head crowned, then a shoulder, then another, then she was on my chest - all 8 lbs, 5 oz of her - screaming and shivering and staring at me in disbelief.

if i could bottle that feeling... nothing will ever top the pure joy that kp and i experienced meeting her gaze for the first time. 

 14 may 2015, 8:20 am

 3840 gms, 50 cm

ugh, we're going to have to learn to think in metric!

 M had low blood sugars at birth so she was in the special care nursery for 24 hours. i'd pre-expressed colostrum in preparation for this, but it wasn't enough, which meant she was bottle fed formula. the silver lining was that kp got to do it and bond with his baby girl.

 my two loves, sacked out after a big day!

our first mum and bub selfie