the baby, etc.

After recently reading a very interesting description of a friend’s labor and delivery story, I realized that I haven’t written down an account of Tori’s birth.  So here’s my labor, delivery and post partum story. Thanks, Priscilla, for the inspiration.  I’m going to be detailed but hopefully not offensively so… just to give fair warning to any of my non-existent readers.  Another warning: It’s long.

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I was 6 days past my due date, and I could barely stand. Literally. My mother had flown in from New Hampshire, and we had spent a few lovely days sitting in the sun, talking, looking at the nursery, going through baby clothes, talking, and shopping. Well, I attempted to shop. Until this point I had been feeling pretty good, relieved that the baby had stayed put this far and the fear of doing too much and bringing on more pre-term contractions was gone.  In fact, I had become much more active, hoping to bring on my labor naturally.  But shopping when I was 6 days past my due date? Not the wisest idea.

It took me by surprise, walking through Pottery Barn, the sudden need to sit down. I could see the hopeful, excited look in my mother’s eyes… maybe this was the beginning! But no, I just needed to sit down. And stay down.  I had carried this baby completely in front, and my body just couldn’t carry it anymore. Literally, from the back, you could not tell I was pregnant, but boy when I swung my huge stomach around, make way! I was one of those women who people look at and think, “Is that even possible? How is she doing that?”  At 7 months people had thought I was due “any day now.”  By 41 weeks it just looked ridiculous, and my body was done with it.

The next day we went to my scheduled OB appointment. I have to say I really like my OB, Dr. Goldberg. She has always been the perfect balance of science and, well, normal. She doesn’t hype over things, but is still very thorough and practical. I always knew I wanted an epidural, but I’m confident that if I had told her I wanted to go au natural she wouldn’t have had a problem with that.  I have always felt that she had my baby’s best interest in mind, and that gave me a lot of peace. 

So at a full 41 weeks, I was not even one centimeter dilated. Major bummer. While she had refused to induce earlier than 41 wks, Dr. Goldberg does not like letting women go much further than 41 weeks, both because of the increased risk of needing a cecarean.  But I had reached the point where she didn’t want to wait any further, so I was scheduled to go to the hospital at 8:00 that evening (Thursday) to “ripen my cervix.” 

“You will get a treatment to make you dilate further, and then I’ll come in Friday morning at 7 to break your water. Be prepared for a long labor, since inducing usually takes a while,” she told us.  Great… This was really devastating news to me. My mother was scheduled to leave Saturday morning, and my baby might not even be born by then!! Given my tendency to want to plan and control everything, this was not encouraging.  I knew I needed to fully rely on God for this, since it was completely out of my control, and, as I learned in a Beth Moore study, beyond myself.

So we spent the rest of the day at home; I napped as my mother sat out in the warm February Tucson sun.  AJ ran the vacuum one last time, and I took a shower and did my hair, not knowing when my next chance to do so would be. We took one last look at our home as we knew it (read peaceful) and got in the car.  The trip to the hospital was slightly surreal, with my mother in the back next to the empty carseat, AJ at the wheel and me in the front passenger seat, trying to prepare myself for the unknown event that was about to take place. But boy, was I ready. 

We entered the hospital and I received more of the stares I had become accustomed to as we waited to check in (very obviously NOT in an emergency).  As was the case in Pottery Barn, after about a minute and a half of standing my body was about to give out, so I went and sat in the faux leather chairs for the remaining few minutes before they called us back to the delivery room.  The room was peaceful with wood-laminate floors, pale green wallpaper, high vaulted ceilings with a window and lots of wood trim; I had the strange feeling you get when you walk into a hotel room for the first time and thought to myself, Wow, this is where my baby will be born.  Continuing in the hotel-room tradition, AJ immediately set to unpacking our suitcase and setting up the iPod station, trying to get everything put away and settled as if we would be there for a week instead of a night.   I didn’t mind, as it gave him something to do while I was being hooked up to a heart rate and fetal monitor, getting an IV put in my left hand. That IV was probably one of the most annoying parts about my entire labor experience – I could not wait for it to be taken out, and it had only been in for a few minutes.

My mother stayed until I had been hooked up and settled in, and went back to our house at around 9:30.  We told her we’d call her in the morning and she said she’d come when she woke up and would hang out with us the next day.  At about 9:40 the nurse, a kind, portly woman with a gentle voice, inserted the cervidil, which looked like a small piece of paper and would supposedly cause me to dilate.  I informed her that eventually I would like an epidural, but not until my pain level reached a 7 or 8.  She wrote that down and then told us to get comfortable and she’d check back in on us periodically, and to push the call button if we need anything.  AJ turned on the TV and set the channel to NBC to watch the Olympics; he then joined me in my bed as men’s halfpipe snowboarding and men’s figure skating kept us entertained. 

I was starting to doze off when at about 10:00 I felt an odd sensation and heard/felt a muted “pop”. I sat straight up.

“Um, oh my gosh, um, I’m leaking!” I said.

“What do you mean, you’re leaking?” AJ replied.

“I’m leaking a lot! Oh man, it’s not stopping! Geez!” I pushed the call button twice.

“Can I help you?” the voice over the intercom said.

“Um, I’m pretty sure my water just broke,” I replied. “Can you send a nurse in?”

“Your water broke?” AJ exclaimed, “Are you sure?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure. No question here,” I replied, getting slightly high from adrenaline. Things were starting!!

The nurse came in, and asked me with a twinkle in her eyes, “What have you done?” and took a swab of the fluid “just to be sure it actually was your water breaking.” I knew it was (duh), and it didn’t stop gushing until quite a while later.  The nurse told me to just relax and keep hanging out, that it probably wasn’t going to change the course of things.

Within 5 minutes I started having my first real contractions, which I can only describe as having a huge needle stuck through your lower abdomen and pulled out through your back over and over again.  Uncomfortable at first, I just focused on watching Shawn White accept his gold medal for snowboarding. Within ten minutes they were coming every 90 seconds, and lasting about 30-60 seconds each.  By 10:40 they were every minute, and getting more painful with each one.  I pushed the call button and asked for an epidural. I couldn’t believe I could tolerate only 40 minutes of contractions! What a wuss I was. Such a disappointment, but boy, I was in a lot of pain!

The nurse came in and laughingly asked, “what did you do this time?” and looked at my chart. “Wow, you’re really going strong! Let’s check to see if anyting is happening yet.” It was. In forty minutes I had dilated from half a centimeter to seven.  I jokingly said that I was not as strong as I thought I was and thought I would’ve lasted longer before getting an epidural, and the nurse replied, “Honey, you just dilated 6 centimeters in forty minutes. I can promise you that you are at a pain level of 7 or 8, so don’t feel bad.”

The next fifteen minutes passed in a haze, mainly because I was so concentrated on getting through the contractions until the anasthesiologist came.  I vaguely remember nurses standing in front of me, telling me things, and I recall thinking, “Don’t they know I am not hearing a word they are saying? Why are they talking to me?!? Can’t they see I am DYING here!?!?” I have a foggy memory of sitting up and leaning over while the epidural was administered and I honestly can’t remember how long it took to take effect.  But once it did, oh man, I thanked God for science. The relief was overwhelming, and I could finally catch my breath. I was dilated to about an 8 at that point. 

AJ and I settled in again, and I promptly started to doze off. Unfortunately, about twenty minutes later I started feeling the contractions again, but this time only on my right side. It was a very odd sensation, the same amount of pain as before but my entire left side felt fine. I called the nurse and described what was happening, and she called the anasthesiologist, and they both threw around the word “bolus” which I later learned just meant an extra shot of whatever your IV is dripping. The bolus took effect and my right side became numb again, thank goodness.  This whole scene was repeated about four times throughout the remainder of the night, which in turn left my left side completely numb. Have you ever heard that someone who is missing a limb sometimes thinks they can feel that limb itching or moving, but it’s really the mind playing tricks on them? That is what I felt like. I would wake up and think that my left leg was straight on the bed, then I would look at it and it would be bent at the knee. It was the most bizarre sensation I’ve ever experienced.

The epidural slowed down my progress quite a bit, and we were able to get twenty-minute snatches of sleep until about 5:00 Friday morning (I had been in labor for about 7 hours), when the nurse checked me again. I was at over nine centimeters and fully effaced, which seemed to surprise the nurse.  She immediately called my doctor, who had been planning to come at 7:00 and break my water.  Haha – surprise! Dr. Goldberg told the nurse “Don’t let her push until I get there,” got out of bed and started making her way to the hospital.  We waited for about an hour and then I noticed the epidural was wearing off again. I asked if there was time to get another bolus before I began pushing, something I am very grateful I did.  Bolus administered, the nurses and doctor started prepping the room for delivery.  AJ managed to prop my left leg up (complete dead weight) and the nurse held my right leg (half dead weight).  I started pushing at about 7:30, with Glenn Miller and His Orchestra playing their sweet tunes in the background. (We received several complimentary comments about our choice of music.) 

After about twenty minutes of pushing, Dr. Goldberg said “I see a dark curl!” and I immediately thought, “A dark curl?!? How on earth does my baby have a dark curl? She’s supposed to have blonde peach fuzz!” and kept pushing. AJ told me later that I actually fell asleep between pushes, which would account for my very foggy memory of the whole ordeal.  About twenty minutes later (forty minutes of pushing) the baby started crowning.  The nurses and doctor kept suggesting I look in the mirror, so they brought it over.  I looked at it once and didn’t look at it the rest of the time; I wanted my labor memory to remain romantic and clean, and the sight in the mirror was anything but.  I had been pushing for about an hour when the doctor said, “The head’s out!” and I gave two final pushes and heard the miraculous sound of a baby crying.  Victoria Grey, with her full head of dark hair and perfectly shaped rosebud lips, was laid on my chest and I held her for about thirty seconds before they washed her off and measured her, etc.  The baby that my body couldn’t hold up anymore weighed a whopping 8 pounds, 12 ounces, which explained why I looked like I had a beach ball in my stomach. 

Once she was clean and I had been stitched and was able to sit upright, I told the nurse I wanted to try to feed her for the first time. I took Tori to my breast and waited to experience the ultimate satisfaction of nurturing my baby outside the womb.  But she didn’t latch. She fussed a little and looked fairly confused. The nurse said that it was common and that the baby will get the hang of it once she recovers a little.   My mother came in and met her granddaughter for the first time – something I am so grateful was able to happen… after all, according to the plan, the baby might not have been born until after my mom had gone home.  AJ’s brother, sister-in-law and daughter came in to say hello, and I was falling asleep every two minutes.

I was hefted into a wheelchair (dead legs, remember?) and wheeled out with my baby in my arms.  I left her with AJ in the nursery for her to have her first bath, have a few tests done, etc., and then went to my room and promptly passed out.  I was awoken about an hour and a half later (it was about noon) when AJ wheeled the baby into our room.  Our baby. It was a crazy thought. And there she was, just lying there, perfect in every way, innocent of all things worldly and waiting for us to make the next move.  The nurse came in. And another nurse. And then another. I didn’t realize how many nurses could attend to you at one time – the baby nurse, my nurse, the vitals nurse (or perhaps I’m making that one up but I swear there were three that came in…) They poked and prodded me, and one asked me if I had torn a lot. I replied that I wasn’t sure… She looked at my chart and said, “Oh yeah, you tore. It says it was a third degree tear.”

I had no idea what that meant, so I asked her. She replied, “Well, a fourth degree tear is all the way through. So you tore just a tiny bit less than that. Gonna be painful for quite a while.” Lovely.

The baby nurse asked if Tori had eaten anything, and I told her I had tried to feed her before but she didn’t latch.  So we tried again.  And again, Tori just fiddled around, whimpered a little, and seemed genuinely perplexed by the whole thing.  The nurse told me not to get frustrated, and that Tori would figure it out soon enough. 

We had a large spattering of guests come and go; AJ’s family, his grandmother, friends from church and AJ’s childhood.  I only vaguely recall those visits (sorry guys!).  Throughout the day I tried repeatedly to feed Tori, but she never latched.  The nurse took her glucose level to determine if she still had enough in her system, and her levels seemed fine, so we just kept trying and waiting. My worry level was starting to rise – Tori had gone 12 hours without eating anything – I had heard so much about how neccessary it is for a baby to eat every two hours on the dot after they were born, and my daughter hadn’t eated ANYTHING yet.

We went to sleep. Or, rather, we tried to sleep.  AJ had witnessed Tori choke on her spit up while in the nursery, and apparently she had turned blue before they whacked her on the back and the pink rushed back in.  I’m so glad I didn’t see that in person, but the story was enough to make both of us absolutely paranoid that she was going to choke in her sleep.  So we didn’t sleep much at all that night.  Every three hours I woke up, woke up the baby, and tried to feed her, again with no success.

Saturday came, and the pattern started again. Visitors, trying to feed, etc.  The lactation consultant, a grandmotherly woman named Margaret who had an endearing Irish accent, had come in a few times and strongly recommended that I “kangaroo” with Tori - snuggle her little naked body up against my bare chest.  No problem here – I loved doing that!  The idea was that it would help Tori bond with me, and she would recognize the scent of breast milk.  What breastmilk? I thought.  My milk certainly hadn’t come in!

By Saturday night we still hadn’t had any progress feeding her, but the nurses still seemed to think it was ok.  But my mind was going crazy – it had been 24 hours and she hadn’t eaten anything! Even I, a full grown human, would be hungry after that long! And so we began another long, restless night.  At about 3:00am, after another unsuccessful attempt to feed, I broke down. Don’t get me wrong, I had certainly cried my share up until this point, but this was crazy-eyed, borderline hysterical sobbing.  The baby nurse looked at me and said, “You need to let me take Tori to the nursery. You need to sleep. You aren’t any good to her this way.”  So my baby was wheeled out, and guilt crept in.  Feelings of abandoning my daughter soon lost to the desperate need for sleep, and AJ finally got a few hours of solid sleep. I almost felt human when I woke up, only to realize it was 8:00am and I hadn’t seen my baby in over four hours.

As I was thinking that, she was wheeled in.  We attempted to feed again. No progress. I realize now that I hid my emotions fairly well – in my mind I was panicking, pushing away thoughts that there was something really wrong, and my baby was going to starve to death.  I have never in my life been so worried, so overwhelmed with my lack of control, and so desperately in love with anyone. 

We had a few more visitors, friends bringing gifts and flowers and wanting to hold the baby.  I really couldn’t participate in their excitement or happiness because my mind was overwraught with a hedged feeling of despair.

At about 5:00 on Sunday afternoon, we tried to feed Tori again.  Margaret and the baby nurse watched my technique, (they had told me repeatedly already that I was doing everything perfectly, that we were just waiting for the baby to do her part), and AJ left to get a breast pump because my milk hadn’t come in due to lack of stimulation.  What normally happened during our attempts to feed was that Tori would fuss, cry a little, try to get her little mouth over my nipple, cry some more, wiggle around, repeat. We would try this for about 10 minutes until she either got hysterical or fell asleep.

This time was different. I put her up to my breast, and… nothing. She just lay there, completely uninterested. Not moving. Just vacantly staring at something I couldn’t see. No wiggling, no crying, no fussing. She had given up, and in that moment I knew true panic.  The baby nurse took my defeated Tori away to test her glucose levels, and Margaret started asking me questions.  Had I been tested for diabetes? Did I take any drugs during my pregnancy? Was my blood pressure normal throughout my labor? Did the baby ever have any difficulty during labor? And so on. 

“We need to bring in the pediatrician,” she said, and left the room.  Left completely by myself I started sobbing hysterically. My baby was exhibiting all the “failure to thrive” symptoms I had read about.  AJ came back into the room with the pump to find me sitting alone, my boobs exposed, sobbing, no baby to be seen.  Poor guy.  I tried to explain what had happened, but within two minutes there were about six people in our room: the pediatrician, two lactation consultants, and three nurses, one of whom had brought Tori back in.  I assume Margaret had already briefed the pediatrician about the situation, because she asked me to try nursing Tori again for the doctor to see.  So I tried, and my baby remained limp and uniterested.  I saw Margaret and the doctor exchange a look, and said to me, in slow, clear sentences, “We need to make sure your baby can eat. That she can physically swallow. We need to give her a bottle with some formula in it. Is this alright with you?”

Was that alright? Was that alright?!?! My baby hadn’t eaten in almost 48 hours and you think I’m going to be one of those women who is afraid of “nipple confusion” and refuse to let my baby have a bottle?!?!

“Of course – I just want her to eat something, whatever it takes,” I replied, trying to keep my hysteria to myself. 

Margaret took Tori, and put the bottle up to her mouth, and I could see the serious-faced pediatrician was watching the baby very closely. In fact, everyone in the room was watching Tori very closely, myself included.

And my baby started eating. She drank almost a full ounce right then and there. And I started crying new tears, tears of relief.  The pediatrician immediately smiled and said, “OK, she’ll be fine. If she takes a bottle like that, she’ll be fine.”

I knew even as they were happening that those five minutes were the longest, hardest five minutes of my life.

We stayed an extra day in the hospital, twenty four hours that were filled with learning a routine we would need for the next three months: waking up, me attaching myself to the breastpump and pumping while AJ filled the bottle and fed the baby.  We put a sign on our door asking visitors to leave us alone (in a nicer way, of course) and spent that night and day recovering from the last 48 stressful hours. 

On Tuesday morning, armed with the hospital-grade breastpump and enough formula samples to last at least a week, we put our tiny, precious, dark-haired baby into her carseat.  When we finally walked out into the unusual Tucson rain, I knew I never wanted to spend the night in a hospital again, and that those first few days of Tori’s life will never be remembered with the bliss and joy so often described by other mothers.  But my baby was with us, alive and thriving, and I knew the best was yet to come.

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