A Baby Story, Part 2

Amelia is in her Ergo carrier, grunting and sucking the side of her hand, as I write. We'll see how long this lasts.

So, we got to the hospital. Dean parked in the circle in front of the hospital. He kept moving the car. Finally we got out and walked to the elevators they had told us about on the tour. The front desk called Dean over, though, to get a visitor's pass. They said I didn't need one (haha--I was not in the mood to joke.) I was not in terrible pain but I wasn't feeling great, either. When we got up to the maternity floor we had to wait in line behind another pregnant woman to check in. In the meantime 3 or 4 more pregnant women came in right behind me. The day before had been a full moon so maybe that had something to do with it? It was interesting, despite the contractions I was having, to see the different pregnant women as we waited to go back to triage. One woman was sitting calmly in a wheelchair--NOT something I felt like doing. I was standing up and occasionally squatting or leaning over this little end table near these people who were, I assume, waiting on someone they knew to have a baby. They were not smiley or friendly to me, which I thought was very rude. Then one woman came in crying, with a friend who called out, "She's seven and a half months and in a lot of pain!" I worried for her. I thought they should let her go in before me, but soon I was called back.

They put me in a little curtained area. I could hear someone throwing up. It was very surreal at that point. I got changed into the hospital gown and on the table. I just wanted someone to check me and tell me I was 8 cm dilated so I could go have the baby.

But first, they took my blood pressure.

The nurse said, "Your blood pressure is really high!" and walked out of the room.

I was unconcerned by that, as I was preoccupied with when they were going to check my dilation. But Dean said that announcement really scared him. The nurse came back and took my blood pressure several more times. (Eventually she did check--I was 5 cm dilated.) Dr. Footer, my doctor, was called. The nurse put a saline IV in, explaining that they would probably put me on magnesium sulfate. I sort of argued that maybe didn't need the IV but she would have none of it. Eventually they wheeled me back to the delivery room.

Things get sort of fuzzy in my memory, timewise, but the gist of it is I had preeclampsia. This is after nine months of totally normal blood pressure. Sadly, I learned I not only had to be hooked up to the IV for the whole labor, but that I couldn't move around at all, due to the blood pressure issue. So I got in the bed.

Eventually Dr. Footer came in. He explained a bit more about the medicine, the magnesium sulfate or "mag," as they call it. It does not lower your blood pressure but prevents the side effects of high BP, such as seizures. (Fun!) He said it might make me "a little out of it." (Ha! The next day I could barely see. But more on that later.) In the meantime he said he knew he wasn't supposed to ask about pain medication but... maybe I wanted an epidural? I remember saying it was okay if he asked, as my birth plan was pretty much a piece of humor writing by then. I asked when would be too late to get the epidural, and he said he had given them up to 9 cm. So I decided to wait and see how it went.

Thus began (or continued, I guess) the endurance test that is labor. I was hooked up to a fetal monitor, which allowed everyone else (Dean, the nurses, the doctor) to see when a contraction was coming. I of course could feel them coming but a few times they could tell before I did, which got on my nerves. Every time one came Dean would remind me to breathe and as they got more painful, I started turning to the side and gripping the handle on the bed. Also Dean's hand and arm. (I thought he would be bruised but he wasn't.) I did the huff-puff fast breathing through the worst parts. The hardest thing was not pushing during the most intense part of the last contrations. I wanted to push but wasn't dilated enough.

The labor is hard to write about because my memory of it is almost totally visceral. It was very, very intense. The height of the contractions were very painful. It's hard to describe, though. It was kind of like being washed up in ocean waves. Something way more powerful than yourself taking over your body. There was little thinking (if I had been thinking, I probably would have asked for an epidural.) It was a very "being" experience.

The worst part was definitely the end of the contractions right before they told me I could push. Pushing was a huge relief. At this point they kept saying the baby was almost there. Apparently they told my mom and Luli (who kept sneaking back to the delivery room and getting kicked out by the nurse) it would only be 20 more minutes once I began pushing.

It was not to be. I think I started pushing at 7:30 and Amelia was born at 10:16 PM. It was tiring. They kept telling me to push 3 times with each contraction, but by the 3rd push I was out of energy. I think I would have done better with one long push, and my birth plan DID say I wanted to push on my own, but at that point I was just doing what they told me to do. After awhile I got worried Dr. Footer was only going to let this go on for so long. In fact, the contraction before Amelia came, he said we would need to consider an episiotomy if she didn't come soon. But I pushed hard with the next one and she came. I think he would have tried the episiotomoy, then soon wanted to do a c-section. But luckily, we didn't have to worry about that! She came in the nick of the time. And mom and Luli had sent Heather back to spy at that point, so she got to hear Amelia being born.

Once she came out it happened very fast. It was like her head came out and then the rest of her body just slipped out so easily. Dean said "Look!" (I had my eyes closed. At one point they gave me a mirror but I could see so little of her head that I did not find it encouraging at all.) I opened my eyes and there she was! They put her on my belly for just a second. Dean and I stared at each other in a kind of shock. I touched her and got the vernix all over my hand. Then they whisked Amelia away.

In the meantime I delivered the placenta, which was very easy. They threw it away before I could see it--Dean said it was not worth seeing but I had wanted to see it. Then I got some stitches while they did the usual baby things to Amelia (her Apgar score was 9.9). They did that kneading thing to my belly, which was uncomfortable, but not as bad as I'd dreaded. Finally they brought Amelia back to me, someone showed me how to nurse, and she was sucking away as Jim and Luli and mom and Heather came back to meet their new granddaughter/niece.

My baby has been very patient, and I am going to let her out of her carrier now. Soon we'll get part 3, the story of our FOUR NIGHT STAY at the hospital.