Ada Arrives
As many of you know, I had pretty much a dream pregnancy. Very little morning sickness (I never threw up), no complications, and I felt pretty good the entire time. I kept waiting to feel miserable and it never really happened.
Two weeks before Ada was expected, we had our house torn up in order to replace both staircases. Don't ask what was wrong with them. I don't own the house, so I don't particularly care. Our house was in complete disarray for two weeks. To add to the chaos, our AC stopped working and temperatures were hovering around 100. I was unhappy, but it had nothing to do with pregnancy.
As if the stair work hadn't made life crazy enough, Luke and I bought a house on Wednesday, the 30th. It's new construction, so we aren't moving just yet. But we had to pick out all of our options within 30 days, which meant I had to commit to a 3 hour meeting at the design center in the middle of all the "due any day now" excitement.
On Thursday, the 31st, everything wrapped up. Construction and painting were completed, the HVAC repair man fixed our air, and the cleaning crew was scheduled for the following morning. I could relax now. Luke and I went down to the sales office for the house to sign one more piece of paperwork. I had questioned the wisdom of going all the way down there when we could do it Sunday (the office is close to our church), but we went anyway.
As we walked around the neighborhood a little later that evening a neighbor asked if I thought I'd see anything happen that weekend and I laughed. Surely not. I didn't feel any different yet. I was due Sunday, but that didn't mean a thing. Maybe next week.
Luke and I had a nice evening relaxing in our less chaotic, cooler house and went to bed around 11. At 1:45 I woke up to what felt like menstrual cramps. I had had tons of Braxton Hicks, so I knew what those felt like, and this was a little more. I went to the bathroom (just a habit by this point) and tried to go back to sleep. A few minutes later, I felt another crampy contraction. So I checked the time and waited to see if it would happen again. 8 minutes later, it did. I woke Luke up, told him I was having real contractions and that I was going to go downstairs. I would wake him if they became the real thing.
I went downstairs and started cleaning the kitchen. I had made dinner in the crockpot that night but had not cleaned it. I figured, if this was really labor, I was not going to come home to dirty dishes. I was timing my contractions with an app on my phone, and even though they had gone from 8 to 5 minutes in the last hour, I was not ready to claim labor. I continued cleaning the kitchen. When a contraction hit I would lay my head down on the cool granite counter top and sway through it.
Once the kitchen was clean, I into the family room. I had my Kindle and planned to read for a while. I had practiced relaxation using the Enya station on Pandora, so I turned that on. My plan was to lay on my side, with all my pillows, relax, and see where this all went. It was quickly apparent that I wouldn't be reading, and that laying down was not very comfortable. I grabbed my balance ball and would lean on it and sway during contractions. Eventually I decided it was time to call the midwife.
Around 4:00 I called the after hours number for my OB practice. One of seven midwives was always on-call at the hospital. My favorite, Mary Beth, was the one who responded. I told her my contractions were about 4 minutes apart and had been for the past hour. She told me to come in if I wanted pain meds, but to stay home as long as I could stand it if I didn't. I had spent my entire pregnancy preparing for an unmedicated labor, so I stayed home.
I woke Luke and told him this was really it. I wanted to try getting in the shower to see if that would help. By this point, I was really having to work to relax through each contraction. We got the shower going and it felt amazing. Luke timed my contractions for me while I leaned against the shower wall moaning through each one.
After a while I began to feel a little overheated, so Luke helped me get out. He dimmed the lights, turned on Enya, and helped me get on the bed. I laid there, on my side, breathing through each contraction for 45 minutes. It really helped me to have Luke tell me when I was halfway through a contraction so that I knew it would get better soon. On the bed, I was really able to relax. However, I knew that labor progresses faster when you're moving.
I decided to get up to see how I felt when moving. Yikes! The very next contraction was a lot worse! I immediately told Luke that we needed to head to the hospital. If I was this uncomfortable, waiting was only going to make the car ride worse. It took us about 30 minutes to get the car loaded (Luke) and head out. I called my sister and told her we were going to the hospital. We talked for about 3 minutes and I got a break from contractions during our conversation. As soon as I hung up the phone, the contractions started coming almost on top of each other.
Being in the car was so uncomfortable that I had a hard time managing the pain quietly. Luke let me yell basically the entire way to the hospital- about 20 minutes. When we arrived, it was about 6:15. Luke dropped me off in front of the ER door and parked the car.
I walked in, barked my name at the woman at the admitting desk and hopped on a chair to breathe through the next contraction. Luke walked in shortly, they got me a wheelchair and we headed up to labor and delivery. Looking back now, it's hysterical, but the one thing Luke brought in with him was my exercise ball. I really thought it would come in handy.
In L & D they put me in a triage room immediately. I was asked to change into a gown. It was one of the most difficult tasks I've ever completed. The triage nurse started hooking me up to the fetal monitor and asking me all the standard questions. I was having a hard time talking, so Luke provided most of the answers she needed.
I started to feel a lot of pressure- the feeling women describe when it's time to push. I told the nurse and asked her to check me. She continued to ask questions. Finally she checked me. Her response? "Oh girl, you don't have a cervix left." Duh...
Suddenly, things started happening much faster. She started calling around to find my midwife, who was finishing up another delivery. She decided to wheel me into the delivery room adjacent to the one my midwife was currently in, so that I would be close. At this point, the President could have been hanging out in the halls and I wouldn't have noticed. I was definitely panicking.
Somewhere in the hall I felt something coming out of me. I really panicked at this point. Was Ada just going to leap out before we could get to the room?! The nurse checked when we got to the room and found that it was my intact bag of waters bulging out. Then I became a person of interest and a few more nurses made it in to check this out.
Soon, my midwife, Mary Beth, arrived and promptly ruptured my bag. The room cleared out except for Mary Beth, Pam- the nicest nurse I've ever met, and Luke. There was nothing left to do now but bring Ada into the world. As my dear friend Vicki said, we'd drained her hot tub. It was time to pull her out.
I think I pushed for about 45 minutes. It was hard work. Mary Beth let me push without directing me. With each contraction I was able to get in three good pushes. Luke and I had taken 12 weeks of Bradley Method classes and they definitely helped me push on my own. Mary Beth called me a champ. Luke was an incredible help. I didn't have to tell him what I needed. In fact, by this point, he knew better than I did what I needed.
Throughout my pregnancy I had envisioned myself trying several different positions for pushing, in order to find the most comfortable, effective position for me. However, when you show up at the hospital ready to pop the kid out, things happen pretty quickly and you stop caring. I never pictured myself on my back, gripping the handles, but there I was. I pushed as hard as I thought I could. With each push, Luke would push my head down into my chest, which puts additional pressure on the uterus and helps push the baby down and out.
I was getting tired of pushing, and realized I would have to push harder if I wanted Ada to come out. I was determined to get her out quickly. So I mustered everything I had in me and pushed until she came out. It hurt, but it felt so much better to push than it would have to not push.
Ada came out at 7:58 AM, with her left hand up by her face, yelling and healthy. They put her on my chest and I held my daughter for the first time. I can't remember much about what happened after that. I don't remember how long I held her before they took her over to the warmer.
My poor midwife! She had been on-call for the past 24 hours, and here I am, giving birth a mere two minutes before she's supposed to go home. The next midwife came in and together they stitched me up. Because things had happened quickly and Ada had her hand by her face, despite the midwife's best efforts, I had torn a lot. It took 45 minutes to stitch everything back together. I have no idea how many stitches I got. I just know what by the end, I was ready to let them just leave the rest unstitched ;) The only thing that got me through was Luke ordering a huge breakfast and feeding me while I held Ada.
The dust settled, the midwives cleared out, and Ada and I were left to get to know each other. I nursed her for about 20 minutes before they took her to the nursery for all the mandatory stuff. Luke went with her, and the nurse got me cleaned up and ready to move to the post-partum room.
Ada was absolutely perfect from the first moment. Her APGAR scores were 9/9- which means she was a tough cookie from minute one.
We spent the next few hours calling family, taking pictures, and eating. A lot of women who have the goal of achieving an unmedicated birth resist going to the hospital because of the pressure they feel doctors will put on them to accept medication and interventions. But I loved my hospital experience. I loved spending the next couple of days in bed, recovering and enjoying my daughter. It was a really special time for us. Exhausting, but special.
We've been home for 6 1/2 weeks now, and I'll save that for another post!