October 4, 2011

"And I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn't known before!" - Little Red Riding Hood from Into the Woods

Rocky and I need to shorten this story, so we can call Lydia every year like Mitch's mom does in City Slickers.

Special Note: I'm writing this first for my sister, who will be delivering in March, in order to help her be less clueless than myself. Secondly, I'm writing it for my daughter, Lydia, in case I'm not around to re-tell it to her every year. Thirdly, I'm writing it for all my mom-to-be friends (like Amy, Julie, Maggie, Wendy, and many more!) so they can be encouraged and empowered. Therefore, I'm including ALL the details. You've been forewarned :)

Here is it. My version of Lydia's birthday:

Bloody show. Now that's a happy phrase. Actually, in my case it was because that meant that my cervix was dilating on Sunday morning, Oct. 2nd, when I first woke up. I even started having contractions about 7-8 minutes apart, but they were very unimpressive... more like pre-menstrual cramps. We debated whether we should drive 30 minutes to church (we had really been looking forward to joining our adult Sunday School class for the first time in months... we'd been teaching the Youth class). In the end, I decided sitting around at home wouldn't help things move along. We missed Sunday School, but made it for the service and sat in the back - just in case.

Sunday was a special day already because Rocky's sister was celebrating her 27th birthday. We all thought it would be great if the baby arrived that day, so when the family found out I was having contractions nobody seemed surprised, but everyone was excited and kind of hoping we'd jump up and leave the birthday party at any minute to head to the hospital.

The birthday girl, Oct. 2, 2011

Alas, the party came and went with contractions all but disappearing after I took an afternoon nap. I was glad we hadn't stayed home. Keeping busy was a great distraction from how close we were getting to meet Lydia!

Monday morning brought on a new type of contraction. These suckers hurt (and I'm accustomed to some pretty severe, intense monthly cramps), but they were still spaced far apart... 20-25 minutes. Rocky decided to stay home from school and hang out with me. If you checked my Facebook updates on Monday, Oct. 3rd, you'd see my list of "Early Labor Distractions" as I posted what I did to keep busy throughout the day.

Activities included:

• a trip to PetCo (We needed kitty litter.) I had no idea how wonderfully distracting and soothing cute baby animals would be! I highly recommend this type of distraction in early labor if you're an animal-lover.
• online shopping (Make no mistake, I have no money, but I did have some store credit, so I used it.) 
• ironing (This is one of my least favorite household chores, but it was a good distraction, and something I could do standing up as sitting and lying down were getting uncomfortable.)
• arts & crafts (I finally painted the wooden letters I'd bought from Michael's.)

I was pretty sure that I was in early labor because I was experiencing every sign listed in What to Expect When You're Expecting including:

- intensifying contractions
- gastrointestinal-type pain which radiated from my back to lower abs into my thighs
- more blood every time I visited the bathroom
- diarrhea
- right before we decided to head to the hospital I threw up, twice

Rocky was fabulous all day while working from home. He made lunch and dinner and kept checking on me without hovering. Neither of us was really nervous. I genuinely believed Lydia was going to be born "late" (that is, past her due date, which was Tuesday, Oct. 4th). Around 7pm Monday night I began to have such intense contractions that I knew I would not be getting much sleep. The problem was that they still weren't consistently spaced when we timed them and I began to worry that I'd have to live another whole day dealing with them. I started to pray that they'd just get worse and worse so we could get this over with!

We watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles in the early evening while I sat on our exercise ball and occasionally asked for a lower back rub, or visited the bathroom while Rocky paused the movie. This movie has an excellent little bit about childbirth that made us laugh.

I got ready for bed semi-frustrated that I had no clue how long my pain would last. Sometimes contractions were 7 minutes apart, other times 20 minutes would go by with nothing happening. We prayed for wisdom to know when to head to the hospital.

I tried to convince Rocky to get some sleep in the bed while I hung out in our little front room dealing with my body, but he'd hear nothing of it. He didn't want me to wait until the last minute to wake him up and end up delivering the baby himself at home! Considering how clueless and tired I was getting that was a really smart decision. Ladies - listen to your husbands!!! He snoozed in a chair in the front room with me and I'd say "Ow" every time I'd have a contraction. He'd check the stopwatch on his phone and tell me how long it had been since the last one - again, they weren't very regular. And, in case you were wondering, my water hadn't broken yet. I tried lying on the couch in different positions to rest, but each "nap" was very short-lived.

I tried to drink Gatorade to keep from getting dehydrated. Around 4am, I threw up the first time. My body was emptying itself in both directions. The contractions were bad enough for me to get teary-eyed and pray harder. I prayed something to the effect of "Bring it on!" In case you didn't know, I was dead-set on having a non-medicated birth (barring any baby-threatening complications).

Rocky saw my tears, and the fact that I couldn't answer his questions until a contraction passed, and he packed our stuff into the car. I mentally started gearing up for the fact that I might have to labor a while in the  hospital, so when we started to head toward the front door 15 minutes later I was semi-composed... so much so that Rocky asked if I was sure I was ready to go - I looked a lot better. I told him I didn't mind waiting a little longer, so we wasted another 45 minutes in the front room, until he timed a few contractions at 6-7 minutes apart and told me it was time to go. We started driving to DeKalb Medical Center at exactly 5am (no traffic = awesome!) and arrived there 17 minutes later.

We were pre-registered, but Rocky still had to answer a few questions at the front desk for me. After changing into the hospital gown and getting onto a bed the nurse who checked me in asked me if I was planning to have an epidural. I said "No. I won't know if I can do this unless I try." She responded that she *knew* she could never have had her kids naturally, but she left me alone about it, and nobody asked me that question again (Praise God!). She informed me that I was 6cm dilated. Rocky came in to collect my clothes. The nurse prepped my IV. Let me tell you now, I've been in TONS of hospitals in the past 5 years, but I've never been a patient and I've never had an IV. I was actually more anxious about getting an IV than having the baby. My nurse did a great job putting it in quickly and relatively painlessly. I could still feel it a bit after it was in, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. (I still hope not to need one for subsequent births.)

I began getting fuzzy-headed at this point from the pain, but remember some weird TV show playing in the corner of the room and thinking it wasn't a very good distraction. I think someone reminded me to breath, because I started focusing on taking deeper breaths and on the idea of "opening" like it says in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (thanks for the book, Leah!). I also remember hearing "She's in transition," but I didn't know if that was in reference to me or another patient.

I was wheeled down a hallway to an L&D room, and somehow I maneuvered onto a laboring bed. I met a nurse (Ingrid, I think) who only took care of me for about 30 minutes. Nurses change shifts at 7am and I was making progress quickly. Rocky was told to go move our car NOW so he didn't miss the birth. Ingrid stepped out of the room to page my doc about the same time Rocky left and I remember thinking it was pretty dumb of them to leave me all alone at 8cm dilated... it seemed like an eternity, but I focused solely on my breathing, and remembered how I had bragged earlier that I could have my baby alone in the woods if I had to (I was trying to make some point about how my body would know what to do and needed no intervention). Well, I thought, that's what I get for being prideful. Now, I really will have to have this baby all by myself!


Thankfully, my new nurse, Elizabeth, arrived before I had time to psych myself out. Elizabeth was actually a new-hire, a few years younger than me, and she was in training. Her mentor, a seasoned nurse named Robin, was also there explaining the arrangement, but I tuned-out the details because the contractions were coming so fast. The nurses paged my doctor again. He was upstairs taking his time... new moms take forever to have babies, remember? Elizabeth was AWESOME. She was so attentive and caring. I'm forever grateful to her.

About this time I started getting a charlie horse in my right calf. Great. On top of the contractions, my leg was screaming. Elizabeth worked some massage magic on my leg and kept my foot flexed so the muscle didn't stay tight. It took less than 5 minutes for the same thing to happen in my left leg. Rocky was assigned to that one and he did the same massage and flexing. For a while, the pain in my legs distracted me from the impending contractions. Elizabeth checked me and announced that I was 9cm dilated. She said it was time to try some "practice pushes."  I'd never heard of practice pushes before, but it sounded like a great idea. She had briefly told me that she could count for me if I wanted, but thought I might want to push when I felt like it. I agreed, so that's what I went for on the next contraction. I pushed and my water broke. Or gushed, rather. The pushing felt exactly like what I'd read about - pretty much like going to the bathroom, only you've really trying to move something BIG.

My doctor arrived and got ready about that time. Somebody asked me if I wanted a mirror to see the birth and I said "Yes." I never had stirrups, I just had a person on each leg massaging my stupid calves and holding my feet while I pushed. I thought I'd want to try different positions (squatting, side-lying, etc.) but I couldn't imagine moving from my slightly reclined position. I hit 10cm pretty quickly. I remember being a little hesitant to push because I felt a burning at the top of the opening where the baby was coming out and I just knew I was going to tear. My doctor assured my "Your body is just stretching" and he worked with my perineum a bit. Finally, I was told to look at the baby's head (in the mirror), put my chin to my chest and PUSH that kiddo out! It took about 10 pushes and 27 minutes (we checked those stats later). I admit I closed my eyes while pushing her head out. I didn't want to watch myself tear. Once her head emerged it took one more push, some twisting from the doc, and her shoulders were free. She slid down the slip-n-slide mat onto the bed! Lydia Violet Dunlap was born at 8:11am. She cried immediately. Rocky cut her cord. He was my rock, so excited and encouraging!

We had established earlier that I'd like to have Lydia put on my chest right away and attempt to nurse her. That's exactly what happened. The doc pretty much pulled out my placenta. I don't remember having to do any work to deliver it, and then he went about sewing me up. I don't know how many stitches I needed, but despite my time working on perineal massage, I did tear. My kid had a small head, too (4th percentile)! Oh well. Hopefully kid #2 won't be as bad.

It was amazing to hold her for the first time and marvel at how perfect she was! I've read a zillion stories of mom's describing that first meeting and I still don't have the words for it...

Here is our first family photo:

Moments after birth

We are thrilled to introduce you to our daughter!

Being held by her Aunt Rochelle

Settled in our Mother/Baby room

Our immediate families were the first to visit us and we had sweet times of prayer over Lydia. And even though that's where I'm ending this story it's really just the very beginning.... :)

"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."  Hannah's words in 1 Samuel 1:27

For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 
Psalm 139: 13-16