Our Baby Story (long read)

Now that she's here and the fog has cleared a little, I wanted to share with you our baby story...

Our doctor had recommended that we be induced right at the 40 week mark of pregnancy. So Wednesday 6/24/08 we tearfully sent our older child (Wrigley our golden retriever) over to the grandparents house for an overnight stay. We calmly loaded up our hospital bags and bravely walked into the maternity floor at Memorial North Hospital. After a few hours, we were checked in, hooked up to all the monitors (it was fun to hear and see her heartbeat) and started the medication for dilation. The week leading up to this moment was so exciting and nerve-racking that we hadn't gotten much sleep at all, so it was a small miracle that we actually got some sleep Wednesday night and was more rested for the big event to come. In the morning we were started on the serious induction medication, Pitocin - which makes contractions more intense and effective (i.e. painful). About 10 am we started on the medication and my contractions did indeed ramp up. Thank goodness for the excellent nurses at Memorial, they really knew what they were doing and did a great job regulating the dosage.

At noon my doctor arrived and without much warning and it was time to break my water. She asked "You received your epidural, right?" I had not, my goal was to see how long I could labor without it. I replied no, and she said "well this is definitely going to hurt then". And oh my God, did it. She had trouble finding and getting to the bag of waters. An extremely painful 5 minutes later and the water was broken. Apparently this pain was notable because the nursing staff that we had been working with all came in and apologized for it being more painful than it should have been. I was just relieved that it was done because I knew it would accelerate the process.

Within the next hour I dilated from 1 cm to 3 cm, with the help of increased Pitocin. At this point my contractions were only 1.5 minutes apart and 30 seconds long. This is a pattern most seen at the last stage of labor, not the early stage. I managed as long as I could, using the breathing techniques that we learned in class and the fit ball, with Jason applying counter pressure. My nurse kept offering the epidural, but I was stubborn and wanted to see how far I could go. Its not really a pride thing, more so a right of passage I guess. I lasted until about 4:00pm, until I had tears welling up from the constant pain and no real relief in between contractions any more. We ordered the epidural and the saintly doctor came in right away and made it all bearable again.

By 7pm we were at 6cm and doing pretty good. We were even able to have visitors and relax a little. Another reason I wanted to have the epidural was so that I could regain my strength for the final pushing stage. Thank goodness I did! Right around that time everything got a little scary. Sophia wasn't tolerating the Pitocin as well anymore and her heart rate was dropping. I was on oxygen and trying to do somersaults in the bed (while completely numb from the waist down - which is very tricky to do) to alleviate her stress. We had to do a amniotic infusion, basically putting fluid back in to the uterus so that she could float off of her umbilical cord. We had to stop the Pitocin all together and let the natural contractions do their own work. This lasted throughout the night - the nurse wanted me to try to rest, so I wasn't allowed to watch the heart monitor, but I knew it wasn't going well whenever the nurse busted through the door and I had to do somersaults again. It was a long, worrysome night.

But alas, we got to about 4:00am and I was actually dilated 9+ cm. Thank goodness! So by 5:00am, it was time for me to start pushing. The epidural was wearing off and I was able to feel the contractions again, which was helpful. The sun was rising and I was still pushing. I have never accessed inner strength like that before. So concentrated that the sounds of the room drifted away, and it was just me and my breath and consciousness of Sophia. With every contraction I was able to effectively push 4-5 times, then I would basically passout inbetween, only able to catch mybreath and try to relax knowing I had even harder work ahead. She was born at 6:44am Friday morning, and I had never been so relieved.

It was amazing to one minute be in labor and within a second this whole new human being being laid upon my chest and my nurse and husband cleaning her off. Jason cut the chord. The most amazing sound of her first cry and the first glance into each others eyes was phenomenal. From then on everything else was a blur, our happy family and friends visited - I was finally able to order food and in a comatose state tried to eat amongst the congratulations - all the while having the biggest smile I have ever had permantly ingrained on my face. My daughter was here, she was safe and perfect.