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March 25, 2003
Here it is: the long anticipated Part 2 of Aden's birth story! (If you missed Part 1, you can find it in the entry dated 3-18-03.) If you'll recall, I left you with a cliffhanger--did I go into labor on my own or did I face the dreaded induction? How did the birth turn out? Keep reading to find the answers...
July 19, 2001 (Thursday)—almost 42 weeks
When I wake up this morning I’m a little disappointed. I hadn’t lost the hope that labor would start on its own before it was time to go to the hospital, but obviously that isn’t going to happen. But it’s okay because today I’m finally going to meet this baby, little Aden Daniel or Isabella Marie. I step on the scales—201 pounds, meaning I’ve gained a total of 29 pounds during my pregnancy. More than I had hoped, but not too bad. We get ready to go to leave and Derek takes one last pregnancy picture for the baby book. He videotapes me a little as I’m getting my things together, but I make him stop since I’m on the verge of crying. The idea of starting the induction is very emotional and scary to me. I just want to get there and get it over with.
We arrive at the hospital a little after 7:30—slightly late because we had to go back for Derek’s wallet. The nurse seems nice as she explains what we will be doing and helps me get comfortable. Then she fastens monitors to my belly to take a baseline measure of the fetal heartbeat and any contractions I’m having. Dr. Haun comes by at 8:00 and inserts the first prostaglandin tablet, then I have to be monitored for a while longer to make sure there is no adverse reaction. After that I’m free to do whatever I want, with a brief monitoring session every hour. I’m impatient and nervous, but the morning flies by. My mom arrives. Sally comes by to let me know she is down the hall in her office whenever we need her. My two best friends stop by—Molly brings me flowers from her garden, while Kasee admits she is almost more nervous about my labor than her own thesis defense that afternoon. My brother-in-law, Drew, hangs out watching TV for over an hour.
I begin to have regular contractions but they are so mild, like all of the false ones I’ve had before. At noon I’m still 1 cm but there has been lots of softening, so the nurse inserts another tablet. I do some walking but it feels silly. The contractions come every few minutes but they still aren’t strong. I wonder if this is really going to work, but by 4:15 the nurse says I’m having too many contractions to insert another tablet—we’ll see if my body continues on its own. I’m at 3 cm and 50% effaced, so at least progress is being made!
I’m nervous about the next step, breaking my water. It seems so final. Once my water is broken, there will be no turning back. I will definitely have the baby sometime in the next 24 hours, one way or another. What if my body isn’t ready? I know the possibilities but I don’t really think about them. My doctor comes at 5:20 and I let him break my water, which immediately intensifies the contractions. For the first time the contractions begin to feel uncomfortable. I’m supposed to be on the monitors for only 30 minutes and then I can get in the hot tub, but a woman two doors down delivers her baby at 6:00 right as the shift change is happening. I’m stuck in bed, unable to get up or get comfortable, and I feel like the nurses have forgotten about me. I just want to get into that tub!
At 7:10 I’m disappointed to still be at 3 cm, but 75-80% effaced. The baby is still at -1 station and the contractions are more uncomfortable. I walk down the hall to the hot tub, a short but painful journey. Movement makes the pain so much worse. I get in the hot tub and try to focus on Derek or the sound of the water or anything to help me relax. It doesn’t work. I’m cold. I can’t get comfortable. I know what to do for back labor but what do I do for pain that comes from under and in front of my belly? My mom and Derek start to write down the time of each contraction. It’s a long and hellish list: 7:38… 7:40… 7:43… 7:46… 7:48… 7:50. My nurse, Mary, says to imagine that I’m blowing the pain out with each breath. It’s the only helpful thing she does for me the entire time, but it works wonderfully.
An hour later, I need to pee so I’m escorted back to my room. The worst contractions come whenever I get up to go to the bathroom. Derek walks me there, and right as I get to the toilet a contraction hits. I cling to him, whimpering and crying. He holds me and it ends, I can pee. Another one. Do I really have to get up and walk back to the room? Standing up leads to another one. I’m never going through this again! Finally, back to the rocking chair in my room. I rock until a contraction comes, and then blow, blow, blow it out.
9:00 and I’m at 5 cm, the baby is much lower, and my cervix has come around. I start to have bloody show. Better progress than expected Mary says. Is that all? I think. Laying down to get checked is the most torturous position, it’s as bad as getting up and walking to the bathroom. I sit up on the end of my bed. I still can’t get comfortable. Hot then cold. To the rocker. Back to the bed. ER is on the TV, a rerun. The one where the woman has the really preterm baby at 22 weeks. I think maybe the TV will distract me but I can’t remember watching it at all. The world narrows. There are so many contractions and they’re so close together: 9:04… 9:05… 9:07… 9:08… 9:10… 9:12… Finally my mom gives up writing them all down. “Continued every minute to two minutes” it says on that piece of paper. The contractions get more intense. I focus on a box on the floor as I try to blow the pain out. It’s not working so well anymore.
By 10:00 I’m a little more dilated and the baby is lower. I start to think maybe I can’t do this, maybe I need something to make it through the pain. I remember sitting in the rocking chair, dying to ask but afraid to, not wanting to admit I can’t do this. Everyone knows I want a natural birth, what will they think of me if I ask? My mom tells me I can ask for drugs if I need them, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I finally ask the nurse, in a tentative voice, if there’s just a little something she could give me. She leaves to call the doctor and returns saying he has okayed Stadol but he wants to start Pitocin too. I feel vaguely ambushed since I was sure I hadn’t wanted Pitocin. But I can’t say no, I think if I do that then I won’t get the Stadol either and since I finally caved and asked for it I’m not turning back. All of my hopes are pinned on that Stadol. I know that narcotics won’t relieve the pain but I joke that hopefully at least I won’t give a shit about it anymore. They start the IV at 10:20.
The Stadol helps me sleep between the contractions that come every one or two minutes. My mom wrote at 10:35 that I “said they’re not quite as intense.” I don’t remember thinking that. The Stadol puts me in a fog but it doesn’t seem to relieve the pain at all. I still have it and I still care. The waves of pain ebb and flow but they’re never really gone. I’m sitting on the end of the bed leaning forward, maybe I’m cross-legged or maybe I have a footrest. Mary moves the little rolling table across the end of the bed and raises it up so I can lay my head on it in between contractions. When they fade I lay my head down and drift off. Then another one starts to build and I begin to moan in protest. The contractions are so strong. I can’t do this. I want to quit. Can’t I just take a break? Maybe we could stop for a while and I could rest and try again tomorrow? Mary barks out that it’s not an option. She, Derek, Mom, and Sally keep telling me how great I’m doing, how well I’m staying focused and breathing through the contractions. I don’t buy it. I think I’m failing miserably. Mary says I sound like I’m in transition.
Every contraction is stronger than the previous one, and as each one hits I think, this is it. It can’t get any stronger. But it does. The pain in the front of my pelvis is so unbelievable, I think I might split open. It’s hot and radiating and overwhelming. Even though it’s the underneath of my belly that hurts, it consumes my entire body. But I remember Mary saying it was good pain, it was where the pain should be, it meant that the baby was facing the right way. I think that’s comforting in a twisted painful kind of way.
At 11:35 she checks me and I’m at 8 cm. Very soon after that the contractions change and I start to feel like pushing. I say something about it and Mary is surprised but she checks me again. I’m at 10 cm. It’s 11:50.
When I felt the next contraction I was scared and I said, “What do I do?” Mary says, “Push!” So I start to push and it’s really strange and scary. When I push I pull myself up to a sitting position and my mom supports my back. Derek and Sally hold my legs. I hold my breath and put all of my energy into pushing. Derek tells me later I held my breath so long he was afraid I would pass out. The sensations are overwhelming. Mary is doing perineal massage and I snap at her that I don’t like the way it feels. She says it will be better than tearing. I push once or twice and then stop for a moment. I push again. Sally tells me not to push my legs, push into my bottom instead. That makes sense but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. It burns, it burns. There is a flurry of activity in the room. Where is my nurse? Where is my doctor? It’s so close to midnight that I remember saying that we still don’t know what day the baby’s birthday will be.
In a minute Sally says the baby’s crowning, reach down, you can feel the head, there is lots of dark hair. And when I reach down to feel the head it’s weird, is this really happening, is that my body I feel or the baby? There’s some long string on the head. What is that? I don’t remember it but they had lost the baby on the external monitor and stuck an internal monitor on his head, which they never got a chance to hook up. Sally tells my mom to look and I think she’s scared or nervous but she takes a quick peek. The doctor finally comes in. I find out later that there was some miscommunication, he was waiting in the hallway thinking he wasn’t needed yet.
It’s all happening so fast, the mirror never gets set up but I catch a glimpse of myself in the vanity mirror by the sink. Me having a baby. It looks strange and unreal. Dr. Haun is telling me to push, push, push and then suddenly it’s don’t push, don’t push! Is something wrong? I look down and there’s my baby’s head, there’s his purple face. The nurse doesn’t even have a bulb syringe ready yet. Dr. Haun unwraps a loop of cord from the baby’s neck and a hand pops out up by the face and then the whole body is coming out. Another loop of cord gets removed from the neck and shoulder and another loop is in a figure eight around the body and then I see the whole baby and I say, “It’s a boy!”
Dr. Haun holds him up and I think he’s going to lay him on my stomach but quick they cut the cord and whisk him over to the warmer. I turn my head to watch my son as other things keep going on down there. I’m in absolute awe. I can’t believe it’s a boy! Derek’s crying. Why isn’t the baby crying? I’m a little confused and nervous but it all seems normal. Months later Sally tells me it wasn’t all normal, she thought he was too floppy and too blue and they were going to have to resuscitate him. Ignorance is bliss.
But it only takes a minute—an eternally long minute—and finally he starts to cry. I still don’t get to hold him. I don’t remember delivering the placenta or saying I don’t want to see it. I am too busy saying “That’s our baby!” to which Derek replies “He’s so beautiful.” Then Dr. Haun starts doing something to my bottom that really hurts. Oh, he’s stitching up the tears, there are a lot of them because the baby came so fast with that hand up by his face. I ask what time the baby was born and someone says it was 12:12 a.m., no it was 12:11. The nurse asks for his name and immediately I know, he’s not Aden Daniel, he’s Aden Derek. Derek looks surprised when I tell her this but he’s beaming with pride.
Meanwhile I’m alternating between awe of my baby and annoyance at how much the stitching is hurting and how long it’s taking and how much I want to hold my baby! But Sally is holding him next to me so I can see him, and everyone is getting their picture taken with the new baby. I’m still absorbing the shock that the baby is a boy. I have a son! “The next one better be a girl” I say and everyone laughs because they can’t believe I’m already talking about going through this again. Then the doctor is mostly done and they give Aden to me and I touch all of that dark hair and that tiny face with such big blue eyes that are staring up at me and those tiny hands and feet. It’s unbelievable and he is so beautiful and alert. Sally helps me start nursing him, which feels awkward but he latches on and eats right away. Derek is at my shoulder, just looking at him, and we’re a family for the first time.
I’m hungry so Mary gets me an extra tray of spaghetti that was leftover from dinner. I try to nurse Aden while I eat left-handed—my first attempt at motherly multi-tasking. We take more pictures. Our moms leave. Aden has already managed to smear meconium halfway up his back so the nurse decides now would be a good time for a bath demonstration. I’m glad she’s doing it but I want him back! Then Derek holds him as I’m finally allowed to get up to go to the bathroom. Around 3:00 we begin our move to a postpartum room. As we leave our birth room I remember apologizing to Mary about the mess and saying that I hope she’s not the one who has to clean it all up.
We get settled into our tiny little postpartum room and finally we’re alone, our little family. Aden falls asleep and we lay him in the little plastic basinet. Derek and I relive the delivery and I write some details down that I don’t want to forget. We can’t believe how amazing Aden is and we can’t take our eyes off of him. By 4:00 we’re finally going to sleep, me in the little hospital bed, Aden in his plastic bassinet, and Derek in a recliner chair. But I can’t sleep, I have to keep waking up to look at Aden and touch him to make sure he’s okay. That plastic bassinet can’t get close enough to my bed so I give up and put Aden in bed next to me. Finally I rest, but between 6:00 and 6:30 it starts to get light and I give up on sleeping. I just lay there looking at him, pondering how tiny and cute and amazing and perfect he is. He’s already 6 hours old, how can 6 hours have passed so quickly? I’m a mom, his mom, mom to Aden, this tiny perfect little boy. The sun is rising on this brand new day and suddenly life feels like such a wonderful miracle. For the first time since his birth, I cry.
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