Sprout's Birth

On Father’s Day, June 20th, we went to my parent’s house for dinner. My mom’s mom and her sisters were there, and we were having a cookout. I felt odd; but I wrote it off as an overactive imagination, because I knew that the next day I had an appointment to decide whether or not we should induce labour, and I was so hoping to go into labour on my own. I ate strawberry shortcake as an appetizer, joking that ‘when you are in your fourth trimester, you shouldn’t put anything off’ and 20 minutes later, at about 8 pm, my water broke all over my mom’s front porch.

I was trying hard to get away before anyone realized what had happened, but it was unavoidable, since water was running down my legs. I called for Kelly to get me a towel and mass chaos ensued. No one got me a towel until I was really, really insistent. Finally, my mom gave me two and I shoved them between my legs and got in the car with everyone shouting at me from the front yard.

We came home and tried to call the midwife, but the number wouldn’t work… after several attempts I finally talked to Jackie, who told me to rest up and wait for contractions to be five minutes apart and a minute long, and then call back; otherwise she would see me at our appointment the next day. I felt giddy and unreal; also, I was a little afraid that I was wrong somehow and my water hadn’t actually broken. Kelly was also feeling all over the place and for some reason, suggested we go to Target. It must have made sense at the time…

I changed clothes, and we got back in the bug. I didn’t leak the whole way there, but as soon as we got in the doors I felt gushy. Suddenly, going to Target seemed very, very foolish. I went to the bathroom to check my diaper and suggested that K buy a towel just in case. I wasn’t leaking that much at all, it just seemed that way. I bought my big butt underwear and K bought whatever it was he came for (plus, towels) and we headed home.

Once we got home, K put away the Fantasia stuff and I puttered around on the computer. We started to pack the hospital bags, and then he went to return the trailer; while he did that I curled my hair. I don’t know why; it just was amusing at the time. I started having some contractions and it occurred to me that I really needed to get some rest. By one o’clock, I had a regular pattern of contractions and I was really wishing I had taken an afternoon nap.

I did my best to rest, but it was so hard! I slept while I could but got up before it was light out to stay on the couch and the computer while I contracted. At 6 am, I woke Kelly up because I was beginning to feel I needed support. He helped me try different positions and then ran me a Jacuzzi. I spent some time soaking and it really helped at first, but then labour began to take over and nothing I could do changed anything.

After this, things started to feel more serious. I was still excited, but also getting a little scared. Contractions hurt! Sometimes, it was hard to breathe through them and I just wanted to moan. I tried squatting, crouching over the chair, lying on my side with K supporting my leg (already, I was getting hip pressure), and all sorts of other positions. I even spent sometime on the big exercise ball. We were timing contractions but poorly; I was more interested in having Kelly help me than in letting him time me. We never seemed to reach the pattern Jackie described—contractions were closer together than 5 minutes but shorter in length than a minute. We kept waiting for them to space out and lengthen, but it didn’t happen. When they were 45 seconds long and two minutes apart we called again.

Once more, there was mass confusion on the phone. I had my first really, really painful contraction while Kelly was on the phone and I couldn’t stop myself from moaning. They told us to come in. I insisted on putting on makeup before we left. Putting on mascara between contractions made me giggle. We got everything into the car including me and headed to the hospital.

Uneventful drive. I only had two contractions on the drive (we live very close to the hospital) and both times we were stopped at stoplights. We parked the car at the clinic entrance because we were going up to the midwives offices, not to the hospital, and I had to stop twice and rest on K as we walked through the lot. Kelly offered to drop me at the door but I said I would rather walk with him than stand without him.

When we got to Jackie’s office she checked me and said I was 90% effaced and about 4 cm dilated. I was hoping for five but said I would take 4. She said that she would be comfortable admitting me at this time if I wanted to stay. I thought about the car ride and said, yes, I wanted to stay. So, she walked me over to the hospital birthing center and introduced me to the nurses and got me settled into the room. Kelly went to get our bags. I was thinking that I would be fine because contractions always slow down when you get to the hospital, right?

Wrong. Mine didn’t slow down, just got longer. I crouched over the recliner in my t-shirt and circus clown underwear and stared out the window at the parking lot, watching Kelly’s every move. When Jackie came back in she couldn’t find me because my shirt was the same colour as the recliner. Kelly returned and we laboured together while people came in and asked questions over and over again. I remember both of us laughing at one point because we’d been asked the same question so many times. Then, people came in giving us folders and it seemed like I was having one, never-ending contraction while people were asking me to process information. It was annoying and I was having trouble dividing my concentration.

Here it gets a little fuzzy. We tried a lot of different positions and went in the hot tub. Only me, though, K didn’t come in. I brought a big cup from home and was pouring water over myself with it. Jackie came and rubbed my back a lot and it was glorious. She helped Kelly learn how to soothe me. I took a lot of deep, slow breaths like I would during an exam, and I kept my eyes closed most of the time. Standing with Kelly and rocking “like you’re at the prom” was one of the best positions, but K was getting so tired.

At one point, around 5ish, I knew K needed a break so I sat down in the chair and tried sleep imitation. I sat there pretending to be asleep until Kelly crashed on the bed. I remember concentrating 100% on not asking Kelly for help so he could rest, because I knew I would need him later. The sleep imitation helped a little and once Kelly was asleep I concentrated specifically on relaxing my face, shoulders, neck, and bottom. I was using the “head, shoulders knees and toes” song as my focus. J I was able to do this for about 45 minutes to an hour and even doze a little between contractions.

Then, the contractions got even stronger. Gah. They were putting so much pressure on my hips that I couldn’t hold the position any longer. I had to be more upright. I woke Kelly up and he held me more. I found a position sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet planted and I could get through most of the contrax without Kelly after awhile. The contractions got very close together and hard and the nurses kept asking me how they were changing. I didn’t know how to answer. Kelly was trying to time me but sometimes one contraction wouldn’t end before the next one began; roughly they were 30-45 seconds apart. I was getting so much pressure in my hips and beginning to think that I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Secretly, I was hoping that this sense of growing despair meant I was nearing transition. I was afraid to express anything for how K would interpret it. I came so close to breaking down and crying and I couldn’t always stay calm through contractions. I thought I would split apart.

Then, at 7 o’clock, the nurses’ shift changed and so did my contractions. They began to space out to almost 5 minutes apart. I wanted to walk again—at one point we were walking the halls and it had felt so good to press my hips up against the handrails during contractions—but for some reason I couldn’t seem to get out of the room. I remember that when I was walking the halls I wasn’t wearing any underwear and the nurses kept tying me back up because of the security cameras.

At any rate, at about 7:30, Jackie checked me again. I was 8 cm (I’d been 7 cm at my last check, when I took the tiara photo) and Jackie wasn’t happy with the baby’s position. She suggested pitocin to help get regular contrax again and hopefully bring him down. This killed me. I was feeling like I’d finally come to cope with my contractions and now they wanted to give me pitocin? Pitocin was my biggest fear for labour and I had planned to automatically refuse it. I cried. Kelly cried. I asked to try some other things first but didn’t feel received. She explained that I would have to be on an IV and a monitor but they would give me a break from the monitor every 45 minutes so I could walk the halls, etc, and that I would still be able to change positions and stuff. I was very resistant but had to admit I was exhausted. Jackie left us to talk and we just couldn’t think straight. I really wanted to call Robyn but felt odd expressing this to Kelly. Finally, I told him I wanted to call her and he dialed for me.

Robyn was great. She didn’t tell me what to do, but just helped me remember what I though about things. I knew she would be able to reflect back my own opinions without judgment, and she totally did. It helped to hear from someone outside of the room that I was a strong, capable person. I felt much better after I talked to Robyn, even though I still felt I was getting pushed into doing something I didn’t want to do. I reluctantly took the pitocin, reasoning that if it was inevitable, I would prefer to take it while I had some strength.

I hated being all hooked up. Kelly was upset, too. The pit started out slow and manageable, like my natural contractions, but turned worse. They were coupling and somehow it was worse than before. Kelly could see them on the monitor and he would tense up every time the numbers climbed. Jackie rubbed me with oils and switched my positions, and then things are fuzzy again—I had no sense of time and my hips were so incredibly painful. At one point, I said I wished I could take off my legs, like Barbie legs. We’d long since turned off the music and we watched both Monster’s Inc. and Finding Nemo during pitocin contractions. I lost it a bit when she put me on the birthing ball. I shrieked that I didn’t like it and she couldn’t make me stay there. That was the only time I felt truly and completely out of control.

Every time I would complain about the pressure, Annette and Jackie would get hopeful and ask if I felt like pushing. I never did, so I stopped complaining. I could tell that they were getting really worried. Jackie checked me and I was at 9 cm, but the baby’s position was still high and he wasn’t coming down. I remember feeling so frustrated that just a few days ago he was bouncing off my cervix and now he couldn’t be bothered to drop. The hollow feeling that had been in the top of my belly was totally gone and it seemed like he was higher than ever.

I started to feel like I couldn’t go on. I kept asking them to kill me, to let me die. Oddly, an epidural never entered my mind. Kelly said I would rather die than take the drugs to listen to me. I think in part I was beyond believing that anything other than death could make the pain stop. I wanted so badly to push the baby out but it was all in my head, not in my body at all. I was getting scared that I would never feel the urge to push, and scared that pushing would hurt even worse than this, and I had no idea how I would push out the baby because I had no energy. Every contraction, it surprised me that I could find the strength to survive it. All I was doing at this point was breathing—exchanging CO2 for O2 was my only goal—it took all my energy just to suck in air and push it out again. When I stopped concentrating on breathing, I literally just stopped breathing.

I finally brought up a c-section.

Jackie said she would let me try for another half hour. At that point, I knew that they were really worried and that I was going to end up with a section no matter what. I said I didn’t want to wait. She said she thought I could handle another half hour but no longer, and her concern was that if I got him only part of the way down it would make for a more complicated section. I really wanted the c-section at this point. I hadn’t felt the baby move for hours and despite his heartbeat on the monitor, that scared the crap out of me. I was feeling morbid and I honestly just couldn’t handle any more.

Kelly was very upset and he cried—I felt a strong urge to comfort him and convey that this was okay with me. He asked how long it would be and was upset that Sprout wouldn’t be born on the 21 st. I just wanted to hug him but I couldn’t move. He asked if I was truly at peace about it and I said that I was, but couldn’t guarantee how I would feel in the morning. They asked if we wanted time to talk it over and I said no, I was positive that this was what I wanted. Kelly agreed, and asked a lot of questions about what would happen. I tuned out.

They brought me the paperwork and unhooked the pit and called all the necessary people. I continued to have very strong, very painful contractions. It was difficult to cope with the pain, partially because I was so tired that I wasn’t using helpful positions or relaxing, but partially because it seemed like the ultimate injustice to have contractions when I wasn’t going to give birth. I just sat there trying not to pass out, thinking of my body as only existing as a pair of lungs.

The team trickled in to meet me but mostly I just ignored them and contracted. When Brian the anesthesiologist came in I was locked up and he asked if he could have my hand; I said “no” and didn’t even look at him. He just kept talking to me with his NZ accent and it made me think of Kate. I vaguely recall meeting Jenny, the baby nurse, but I don’t recall Dr. DiGiosia (surgeon) or Rachel (my nurse) being in the room at all. They gave Kelly scrubs and I recall seeing him and Jackie talking in the corner while he put them on and feeling concerned. I also wanted someone to take a picture of K in scrubs, but couldn’t find my voice to ask. Kelly told me later that they were discussing what to expect and why he wanted to be with me.

They began setting up to take me into the OR. Brian explained what he would be doing and told me that if at any point, I wanted to go under, to let him know and he would do it. It took all my strength to not say “how about right now?” because I was still contracting and quite frankly terrified of the spinal. I was sitting up on the bed with one foot tucked under me and the other leg stretched out dangling off of the bed to get my hips as far apart as possible, and Jackie wanted me to lay down to transport me. I just wouldn’t do it. Brian told them to leave me alone and that he would make sure I didn’t fall off the bed. At that point, I fell madly in love with Brian, and he hadn’t even given me drugs yet. They normally don’t let dads into the OR until after the mom is drugged, but I wanted Kelly with me and everyone thought he could handle it. So, Kelly was actually the one who lead my bed down the hall to the OR (like on TV) and he stayed with me the entire time.

When we got to the OR I opened my eyes a bit and looked around at all the medicalness and felt a little scared. But I was also immensely relieved because I knew my baby would be safe very soon. They had me sit up on the edge of the bed and curl my spine and that’s when I first saw my nurse, Rachel, who seemed too young and too small to be real. Jackie had rubbed so much oil on my back that Brian couldn’t write on me, and I kept having contractions. Rachel kept telling me how great I was doing and I just stared at her but it helped to make eye contact with someone. Her eyes were blue and made me think about what the baby would look like. It seems odd now, in retrospect, that at this point I still didn’t know the sex of the baby.

I could hear explanations from all parts of the room, including Brian telling me that he would give me a local, then a slightly deeper shot, then the spinal. I had a contraction during the last injection and it was hard to be still but I just did it. I felt irrationally proud of myself.

They laid me down and moved me to the operating table. I lost sensation in my lower body and Brian flopped my arms into trays with blood pressure cuffs and whatnot, and showed me how to get my arms out of the trays if I was interested (“we’re not strapping you down, just don’t try to help Dr. DiGiosia with the surgery, okay?”). Kelly was near me and held my hand; Brian gave me an “airplane ride” showing off how the table worked. I felt so sleepy now that the pain was gone and I thought I would go to sleep but I didn’t. I remember saying that everything looked blue, but my eyes were shut so I really have no idea what I was basing that on.

Eventually, I felt totally numb and they started doing stuff. I did feel sensation when they put in the catheter and I was totally confused by it until they told me that they had put in a catheter. Then it made sense. I felt vaguely disappointed that I couldn’t watch the surgery but was glad that Kelly could. I wished for our camera so that K could take a photo of him being born, but I don’t think I said anything. Kelly kept me posted on what was going on and I could feel the tugging on the muscles and skin that wasn’t numb, around the middle of my chest. Even though I knew I wasn’t feeling anything lower than that, my body translated it into sensation in my abdomen, which was weird and cool.

They had some trouble manipulating him out of me and I could feel the entire bed being tugged back and forth as they got his shoulders out—I could hear him crying before they even told me he was coming out. It was such a little squeaky cry! Then they told me he was a boy and I saw him and said “that’s a huge baby!” How romantic, right? But then I cried and said “a boy, I have a son, I have a son” which was a little better. J Kelly was crying too. I remember wondering if they brought him right to me but I think that they wiped him off first. I could hear the staff talking about sucking up my blood and they took him and sucked out his lungs and he felt so far away, even though I know he was only a few feet away. The baby nurse said I had a toddler. They weighed him and measured him and told me he was 9 lbs 7.3 oz and 22 inches long. I laughed and said I knew he was 22 inches long—because I did. I talked babblingly about my labour and my baby and made sure K was okay with having a boy. He was more than okay.

They had to stitch me up and I told Kelly he could go be by the baby but he wanted to stay with me and hold my hand. Like I said, the baby was only a few feet away but at the time I didn’t really know that. I had my eyes closed again. His 1 minute APGAR as a 9 and his 5 minute APGAR was a 10, and I felt so proud and so happy to have him out of me. I could not believe how huge and strong he was—everyone commented on how big his feet were and how beautiful and alert he was. They asked me his name and how to spell it and I remember thinking how I had planned on writing it myself to make sure it didn’t get screwed up.

We were taken back to my room and it was the strangest thing when they moved me and I could only feel the top of my body. I felt like I was floating. I held Nick and just could not believe him. Kelly called my parents and they came over; at some point I called Robyn to report but K doesn’t remember dialing and I know I didn’t do it, so we’re a little confused on that. By this time it was three in the morning; my parents were there so maybe they dialed? They took pictures and held him and I just was so proud.

I was starting to hurt, though; they hadn’t given me any pain medication because I had refused to discuss it. Now that the baby was out of me, though, and I was hooked back up to pitocin, and the spinal was wearing off, it seemed time. They gave me tordol (sp) in my IV and brought in all these pills for later.

After my parents left, the nurse helped Kelly bathe and diaper Nick. It was adorable. Kelly pretty much did everything himself and the nurse took pictures for me. Nick was so good; he didn’t even cry when Kelly washed his hair. I was feeling more alert now and it was hard to stay in bed and watch other people interact with my son but I was also so grateful for this time that Kelly was getting to bond with him; it was obvious how besotted he was. I don’t know if he would have bonded so strongly and quickly if I would have been more with it.

Finally, we all snuggled in and slept a bit before waking at 6 am to start our first full day together. Our days in the hospital...