Birth Story!

The Friday before my last week at work (3 weeks and a day before my due date) I woke up with achiness in my low abdomen that felt kind of like mild menstrual cramps. It pretty much continued all day, and I thought perhaps labor was coming soon, so when I got home from work Chad and I did a few of the last important things that needed to be done, like pack a hospital bag and such. I could tell that very mild contractions were happening by pressing on my belly and feeling the difference in the muscles, and when we timed them they were 8 minutes apart. I figured that, since they were so mild, I should just go to sleep and see what the morning brought. The next morning the achiness was gone and I couldn't feel any more contractions (bummer! that would have been 3 weeks less of my being pregnant), but it was obvious that he had "dropped" significantly. At Monday's doctor's appointment (7.16), the doctor said I was 2cm dialated, 75% effaced and -1 station. He thought the baby could pretty much come at any time but said he would be surprised if it wasn't in the next week or two.

The next three weeks are a little bit blurry to me, but the mild-contractions-all-day-long scenario repeated itself at least once but I think twice. I guess those contractions might be called Braxton-Hicks, but I never did figure out where the line is between Braxton-Hicks contractions and "real" contractions. The next Monday (7.23) I measured the same as the Monday before (2cm dialated, 75% effaced and -1 station). By the next Monday (7.30) I was getting pretty tired of the waiting game and had almost run out of interesting things to do at home (I started my leave from work 2 weeks before my due date) even though I still had a week to go to the due date. Measurements that day were 3cm dialated, 90% effaced and -1 station. The doctor said he'd willingly induce me if I wanted and we'd have to talk seriously about it the next Monday if I still hadn't gone into labor. I was getting pretty impatient (as were Chad and his whole family), but I really, really wasn't interested in being induced.

Saturday (8.4) was my due date as well as our friends' wedding, and I again was having mild contractions when I woke up in the morning. This time I decided ignoring them and going 0n with our day as planned was the best bet since this had happened several times before and it hadn't seemed to produce a baby yet. The wedding and reception were great, and we got to sleep about 11 or midnight.

I woke up at 5:30 on Sunday morning with nasty bowel cramps, so I went to the bathroom and then back to sleep. About 15 minutes later, I woke up again, with more bowel cramps, so again I went to the bathroom and back to sleep. About 10 minutes later I woke up again. Going to the bathroom didn't seem to fix the problem and my stomach wasn't feeling that great, so I made a piece of toast with jam. I didn't quite get finished with my piece of toast before I began feeling significantly worse and having more pressure in my low abdomen. I thought maybe I was having contractions again and should wake Chad so we could time them (this was about 6:45am). After about half an hour of timing contractions, we decided they were 3 minutes apart, lasting for about a minute or so each. I wasn't feeling great, but I was still walking around just fine and talking. We called the doctor, who said yes, I should probably go ahead to the hospital and have them check to see how far I was dilated (he later said he figured I was still in early labor and wasn't too concerned) and so we headed for the hospital. As we arrived (probably 7:45am), I was still generally fine and the contractions weren't terribly painful, but the pressure that was building in my low abdomen was beginning to be really uncomfortable. By the time I got into a wheelchair and made it to the maternity ward I felt better with my eyes closed and I was pretty sure this was the real thing. I think they checked my cervix at 8:00 or 8:15 - 7 cm dilated. I laid down in the hospital bed for a few minutes before I threw up. Two nursed tried three different times to get an IV put in my arm but weren't able to do it. At some point (after giving up on the IV) the nurse asked if I wanted to go to the jacuzzi tub. I'm not sure how long I was in there, but at least the last 30 minutes or so my body was trying to start pushing, but the nurse said I was only at 8cm and couldn't. Keeping my body from pushing while having a contraction was the second hardest thing, I think, only followed by the actual pushing process. Finally at about 10am the nurse checked me again and said I was at 10cm and we could go back to the room. I think my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart most of the time. I actually walked back to the room (there was no way I could even think of sitting down at that point). My contractions never got any further apart and even started double-peaking during the pushing process (annoyingly contrary to what we had learned in our Bradley birthing class - I had been looking forward to a little break). About an hour an a half later I could see the baby's head crowning, but I couldn't get him any further out. I think about this time until the birth was the only time that I actually wanted to give up and didn't feel like I could keep going, not because of pain but because I was so worn out. We decided to do an episiotomy since it seemed that I was very tight and would definitely tear and that the tightness might be keeping the baby from being born. After two different snips, the baby still wasn't coming out, and the doctor said that it seemed that his shoulders were a little stuck. I was exhausted and couldn't keep pushing through the whole contraction, and the baby's heart rate started to drop during the contractions. The doctor decided to try the vaccuum extractor, and within 10 to 20 seconds during the next contraction, with me pushing and the doctor pulling, Gavin finally emerged. That was about 11:45am, only 6 1/4 hours after I had woken up that morning.

Gavin had a full head of red hair when he was born and weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces. I think his Apgar scores were 8 and 9. The nurse put him on my stomach within a minute of his birth, but I was so exhausted that I had a hard time keeping him from slipping off. I don't think I really had many thoughts or feelings at that point other than relief that it was over with. I wasn't very cognizant throughout most of the labor process once we were at the hospital. It seems now almost like a dream - for certain, my brain was not functioning like normal. I birthed the placenta sometime in the next 15 minutes or so and was then stitched up (and my brain was recovering, too). Chad went out and announced to everyone that we had a little boy! (we hadn't known the gender until birth). I was told later that there were about 15 people waiting immediately outside the birthing room door while I was pushing, listening intently for Gavin's first cries. My mom and dad (who were on the east coast at the time) even got to hear him through my MIL's cell phone.

Gavin nursed for a few minutes within the first hour and latched on at least once more for a minute or two after that but then wouldn't latch on at all until about a day and a half later, with much effort and frustration and the help of a couple lactation consultants, first a syringe with a tube and sugar water with a finger to stimulate his sucking reflex (which apparently was NOT well developed) and then later a nipple shield with the syringe and sugar water. The short breastfeeding story is that we basically had to teach him how to suck. We were overjoyed when he finally would latch on to the nipple shield with less than 45 minutes of crying preceding it on Wednesday (I think - the days run together when you only sleep a couple hours every night). He lost one ounce less than 10% of his body weight, and my milk started to come in just in time so that he started gaining weight back and we didn't have to give him formula. I think by the end of the week he was taking the nipple shield relatively well (meaning, less than 5-10 minutes of crying before latching on). Over the next 2 weeks or so I gradually weaned him from it (again with much effort and frustration), and now he is a champion at nursing straight from the breast. I feel like that synopsis by no means conveys what a huge effort and how emotionally wrenching it really was. At one point at some wee hour of the morning during the first few days were were home from the hospital, I'm not sure if it was Gavin or me who was crying more, and poor Chad had to console us both. Thankfully God gave us grace for the moments as we went through them, and I am very happy to be on the other side.