After asking for a lot of advice and really thinking about it, I decided to have the version procedure to try and flip Baby to be head down. I figured as much as the risks freaked me out, they were very low chance and I didn’t want to regret at least not trying.
So yesterday I called and said I wanted to schedule it. I said the dr on Tuesday told me it would be Tuesday. The nurse called me back later and said, “Dr. Mollov wants to do it tomorrow.”. “Ah! I’m not ready for it to be tomorrow!” She laughed and told me to go to the birth center for 10:30.
I had read a lot about the procedure but still wasn’t quite sure to expect. I had to “prep” though as if I were having a c-section, just in case. So no eating or drinking after midnight, and having a back up plan for Cora in case we weren’t leaving the hospital. I at least thought about packing my hospital bag. But that just consisted of the essentials- my phone, my iPad, and their chargers. I figured if it really was an emergency hospital stay, I’d make due and the basics would be provided by the hospital.
Josh came with me. I wasn’t really sure if he should, I mean this was sort of minor right? I was just thinking if something went wrong I wanted him there. I’m so glad he was the though- the whole thing was a LOT more “hospital” than I thought it would be.
We dropped Cora off at school and made our way up to Newburyport. When I got to the birth center, they brought me to a room- the same room in fact where I spent 2 days after having Cora. I had a nurse- Katie, who had me get into a jonny and get into bed and explained everything that would happen. She then hooked me up to the monitors to do a non stress test.
“Have you experienced anything we should know about? You think your water broke, cramping…?” “No, nothing like that” “Any contractions?” “Nope” “Cause you just had one”
I guess while I was on the monitors I had quite a few small contractions. Katie and I decided though it was because I was dehydrated.
Then I had to have a line out in. I’ve never had that done before. Katie put the needle in my right hand, which really hurt and burned. And of course, something went wrong with it, she had to remove it and get it to stop bleeding. Ow. Another nurse came in to try the other hand and that one hurt too but at least it stayed.
By now it was about 1130. Katie told me about the shot I was about to get that would relax my uterus. She said it might make me feel jittery and make my heart race. I don’t think it did that, but I did feel odd and made my teeth chatter, but that could’ve also been nerves. Katie said thy give the drugs about 20 minutes and then start.
First up was the ultrasound tech and her student coming in. As they were setting up, the doctor came in and had me sign all of the releases- yes I know there are risks. Yes, if something goes wrong, I’ll have a c-section. Yes, if something goes wrong with the c-section I can have a blood transfusion.
They adjusted the bed so my head was down a little so it was almost a reverse incline. The ultrasound tech started probing to see what position baby was in.
On Tuesday’s ultrasound, Baby was Frank breech- her bum was on my right bottom, her head on my right at top, her feet against her face and one arm straight out on my left.
The tech exclaimed that now her head was still on the right, but more midlevel, her bum was on the left, her spine across the top of my belly and her arms and legs down, pointed at my crotch.
“That little stinker!” was all I could think! That meant she had not only just flipped, but had turned too, like rotated completely.
The doctor thought this was all very fascinating. He sad it was good. “well, good AND bad. The good news is that it will be easier to turn her. The bad news is, she’s a lot more likely to flip again.”
And then he got started.
The actual procedure took 2 minutes. But all of the other pieces and everything it took to prep made it all very hospital.
Those 2 minutes though… It was a controlled chaos of the tech reporting where the baby was, the doctor pushing on me and asking where the head was now. The pushing though was more single fingers than I expected- I though it would feel like pushing when it was more like the biggest, worst poke ever. It _hurt_.
He got her to rotate, had them lift the head of the bed quickly, but the tech said she had moved back some, so the bed went back down and he poked even harder, keeping the head between his fingers as he pushed and poked by her bum. Katie helped me take deep breaths and said encouraging things, but I was pretty sure between the chattering teeth and pain, I would just flat out start crying.
When her head was down, still between his fingers, they brought me up to sitting again and watched her heart beat on the monitor. It did drop- the tech at one point sounded a bit concerned but the doctor said it was normal and it would come back up. And it did. When she stayed around 140bpm, they all started packing up to go. The doctor said “well, it worked, but it was just a little too easy. Let’s just hope she stays head down.”
Katie hooked me back to the monitors and said I had to stay, slightly elevated, on the monitor for an hour. She warned me I might crash and I did- hard. Post pain/ adrenaline type exhaustion. Baby was moving a lot. I figured she was like, “well this is a new view!”. It felt like she was stretching and pushing, getting a sense of her new diggs. After about 45 minutes Katie said it looked good enough that I was cleared to eat. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and it was awesome.
Finally it was officially declared that it looked like Baby was doing great (“seriously- like the best I’ve ever seen after a version” Katie told me) and I could get dressed and go home. I had the needle in my hand taken out, the bracelet cut and got dressed.
So about 4ish hours from arrival to when I left, temporary extreme discomfort and pain, and then a grilled cheese sandwich. Now we hope she stays put! Come on baby, throw me a bone!
Given this sly type personality emerging, I’m adding to my list:
Harper (love this, only downside is a couple of celebrities used it) Pepper
I jokingly described this baby today as “quiet but devious”. Boy did I peg her.
From the beginning she has thwarted any plans I had. A couple I can’t really fault her for: my “plans” included more time between kids and that I’d have a girl and then a boy. Ok, ok, those two aren’t really on her.
But then she went and had a “complication”. Uh, no- I had a great first pregnancy. Is this her way of asserting early sibling rivalry? “Hey Mom! I’ll make sure you pay attention to me, heh heh heh”.
Alright, whatever. It was still just a chance. I could still have other plans.
So I started thinking about my birth preferences. I decided I wouldn’t be as opposed this time to pain meds. I’ve done the all natural birth, this time, maybe I’ll get some chemical assistance.
But then another major wrench: I’m 36 1/2 weeks along now and the little stinker is breech!
I started my antepartum testing today which involved going to he hospital in Newburyport (over an hour from my house), having an ultrasound to check 4 different biological functions and size, then a non-stress test to watch for 4 “spikes” of activity and then a doctor’s appointment to review it all. And I get to do this twice a week until the big day.
The ultrasound was up first. The tech touched the wand to my belly and within 2 seconds declared, “uh, she’s breech!”
“Ha! Of course she is!” I said. “But I still have almost 4 weeks, there’s time, right?”
“uhhhh…” she said, not committing to a full on no.
The good news from the ultrasound is that she’s already 6 lbs, 13 oz! And still has the potential of a couple more pounds!
So what I took from this news is her exclaiming, “that cord issue? Yeah, don’t worry, I got bored of that problem. I wanted to shake things up a bit and try something new!”
My choices are I can make an appointment to have an ECV or “version” done where the doctor will push and pry to try and manually turn her. It has about a 50% success rate. The downside is 1) it sounds painful and 2) there could be complications with detaching the placenta or breaking the water or the baby’s heart rate plummeting- if any of that happened they would do an immediate, emergency c-section. oh, and this would happen on Tuesday. So there is a small chance I’d have a baby in less than a week.
The second choice is to just schedule a c-section at 39 weeks.
I’m leaning towards having the procedure done. With a 50/50 shot, it would almost relieve me from making the decision. It will either work or it won’t and I’d have to schedule the c-section anyway.
Course that would be letting this baby decide. And so far, she’s just thrown wrench after wrench into my plans.
I need to add some more names to my list that describe this personality and appropriately personify her as the cunning, devious punk she is turning out to be!
Thoughts? Too bad Penn (as in “and Teller”) took Moxie for his daughter.
The days are counting down now and I’m feeling woefully unprepared. If I felt more confident on this little girl’s name I think I’d feel better! So help with suggestions!
The names on our short list are: –Ainsley (nickname??) –Kerrigan (doesn’t have a good nickname though. Anything like karen or Kerri just wouldn’t work for me) –Rhiannon
There are some names I’ve heard on tv recently that I love. I don’t actually want to use any of them, but they could be used as inspiration. Any thoughts? –Grayson (contestant on top chef) –Kenley (project runway. Love this one) –Piper (almost too common, but I do really like the name)
Help me brainstorm!!
Dumb internet. Dumb, silly, can’t-live-without-it internet.
My doctor’s appointment last week talked about the “antepartum testing” I’d need to “watch me closer” because of the 2-Vessel Cord defect (also called SUA).
“What does that mean, ‘Watch me closer?’”
The cornerstone of Brene Brown's "Wholehearted" lecture
“Starting at 36 weeks, you’ll basically live at the hospital. You’ll have an ultrasound every week, 2 non-stress tests a week, and your regular appointment.”
So I googled “Antepartum testing” and “2 vessel cord”.
After I read story after story after story of pregnant women losing their babies in the last couple weeks of pregnancy, I felt like crying. Or yelling. Or that I’d already been crying and yelling.
It seems I’m not out of the woods- that with this defect, one of the main times things can go wrong is at 36+ weeks, and by going wrong, it’s just suddenly the baby’s heart stops beating.
This is the blog post who’s comments had me most alarmed.
I knew I needed to let it go, there was nothing I could do, but I also needed to allow myself a bit of freaking out before working on calming down.
Last week I had the incredible pleasure to go to a talk by Brene Brown. Her Ted Talk on vulnerability is one of the most inspirational talks I’ve ever seen. It resonated so loudly… I even wrote and printed to hang in my office one of the quotes from the talk:
Remember the…
The phrase “lean into the discomfort” was also a powerful one for me to hear.
In her talk, she reiterated many of these concepts, but added a piece called “Joy becomes forboding”.
“Imagine this movie. Happy family is bundled in car, singing Christmas carols. They drive down a dark road on their way to grandmother’s house. Outside it’s cold and dark, but the camera pans over each family member’s face to show the absolute joy each is feeling… What happens next?”
70% of respondents say “car crash”. She said most of the other 30% respond with something more creative, like serial killer has attacked grandmom. Regardless though, it’s a macabre prediction.
“Why is joy forbidding? Why do, when things are at their best, do we assume something terrible will happen? We have this nature to beat vulnerability to the punch. ’I will squander this moment just so you can’t hurt me.’ Why do we lose joy every day for safety and certainty? If you talk to people who have ‘gotten that call’, they always say that no amount of planning prepares you. So why squander the joy preparing for something that will hurt no matter what?”
I thought about the call from Kay when she told me my dad had just died. Regardless of his illness and that I knew it was coming, it didn’t hurt any less to actually hear it.
So I let myself freak out a little after googling everything that could go wrong with Baby #2. But Brene’s words keep coming back… if something does go wrong, it will hurt whether I worry about it or not.
Here’s to practicing the “not”!
When I told Kathy at work I was expecting, she congratulated me, and then said “I just have one request. Please start thinking of names now!”
So we’ve been thinking, brainstorming and searching.
My basic criteria: can’t be common and needs to either be 1) Celtic (Irish or welsh), 2) scientific (something astronomical or geological would be awesome) or 3) be a word (as in not a name, but the word for something). Oh, and it should go with Cora.
So here’s the chance to give us suggestions! What’s a name that meets those requirements!
Our top choices so far:
Ainsley Kerrigan Seren Devanney Rhinnon Niamh Nia Peregrine Moira
Thoughts?? More to add? Help!
On friday I hit the 3rd trimester. This pregnancy is flying by! And that’s not a good thing, there is so much to do to prep!
This pregnancy has had a lot of differences from that with Cora.
First, it’s not the picture perfect pregnancy I was spoiled with first time around. There is a defect with the cord, and I’ve had to have 4 ultrasounds already to confirm. The Cord is supposed to have 3 vessels and mine has only two. This means that all of the blood and nutrients need to get to baby in only 2/3rds of the method to get there.
The midwives and doctor have remained very calm about the situation. Reading about it online was … Not calming. I’m not thinking about it too much though. They’ll watch me closer to make sure she ( each ultrasound has confirmed this is another girl) is growing ok. If she is, it most likely means she’s compensated and is doing just fine. I had an ultrasound last week and she’s 2 1/2 pounds and in the 77th percentile so she’s growing great and I’m not too worried.
I’ve also felt worse this time around. With Cora, I felt great almost all pregnancy. This time I’ve felt pregnant. My sciatica was terrible almost from the beginning an it’s harder to move around. I’m sore and tired. Still, all considering, it’s a pretty good pregnancy.
Third, she feels different than Cora did. Cora danced. This one thumps. Cora would move all around and was pretty active. This one just punches enough to remind me she’s there, but overall is quieter. She also thumps in spots Cora didn’t. Cora as an inside baby had a foot in my rib age right under my left breast for months. This one, ahem, punches straight down so it feels like she’s hitting me in my vagina. I also feel a lot of pressure very low which I didn’t before.
Another difference is I’m not sure I’d I want to do the all natural thing again. Good to experience, but thinking maybe I want to experience the more comfortable side this time around…
We’re making the name list again. I’ll post about of that soon, but we may have a name picked out in advance this time around…
I’m different this time to. I worried about everything with Cora. In my gut I felt like so,etching would go wrong and it was all too good to be true. I’m so much more relaxed this time. I had to make a calendar to show how far along I was because I could never remember. I’m probably too relaxed about the whole thing, but it feels good to just sit back and let it all happen instead of trying to control it.
I predict she’s going to be more laid back too. Wishful thinking maybe, but I think she’ll be a better sleeper (I say after another difficult night getting Cora to bed).
Regardless, I can’t wait to meet her! If she’s half as cool of a little girl as Cora, she’ll be amazing!!
Surprise!!
The Friday before father’s day I took a pregnancy test. I didn’t think I was pregnant, but I had a suspicion- I felt sick, I was more tired than normal, and the symptom that made me get the test- my breasts really hurt. So before I went to bed I took a test. It was positive.
I hadn’t told josh I even suspected. That night was interesting. I tossed and turned- I wasn’t expecting this. Unlike with Cora, when we had been trying to get pregnant, we were trying NOT to this time. I wanted to live in a real house. There is NO room here for the 3 of us, much less another child.
All day Saturday I was moody but still kept my lips sealed.
Sunday morning I took test #2, the official proof. After it too showed up,positive, I wrapped it and had Cora help me write 2 cards for josh.
The first said “daddy, I decided I want something this father’s day…” The second was inside the gift bag and said “I want to be a big sister”
Cora didn’t cooperate. I told her to give the bag to daddy while I got out the camera and hit record to watch his reaction. She decided she wanted the bag. Josh had to wrestle it away from her.
When he finally read the card and looked at the stick he again had the “reaction took too long for a smart guy” dumb look.
Finally, he looked up in shock. “you’re pregnant?!” “it would appear so” “When did this happen??”
We very quickly decided that while baby #2 was a surprise and we aren’t where we wanted to be for another baby, we’re really excited. We’ll manage fine- at least we have a house, albeit small, and great jobs. A lot of people do this with much much less!
I also told him that I call this one. Cora is SO daddy’s girl. I’ve decided I get to have this one
The adventure begins… Again!
It isn’t a holiday game, so naming a baby was a really big deal. So big that we went in with a couple of ideas, but when we met her, we weren’t sure if any really fit her.
I said we needed a day to see who she was after she was born, but that day came and went and we still weren’t sure who this baby was.
For me, I was unprepared for how unlike me she would look, and I felt I was starting from scratch. I felt like she was a total stranger when I was expecting a long-lost relative. I had been stuck on the name Nia but I guess inadvertantly associated certain facial features with that name, and when Baby exhibited none, I was lost.
When the woman from the registry came to visit and gave us the paperwork for the birth certificate, we told her we didn’t have a name, expecting her to give us a hard time, but the first thing she said was, “That’s ok. You don’t have to decide before you leave. You have 10 days.”
So we went home without a name, much to the dismay of family members. It wasn’t a big deal to us- she was Baby, the baby we’d been talking to and wondering about for months. She was just… her. We didn’t need a name to get to know her.
But on the Thursday after she was born, we decided and on Friday had a naming ceremony. Josh’s mom Beth was with us and I wanted my mom to find out at the same time, so I called her and put her on speaker phone. Brother Colin and our friends Zeke (aka Uncle Pork), Matt, Colleen, and Rob came over, Zeke got his mom- Nana Peggy on the phone and Josh wrote a script, including everyone guessing what Baby would be when she grew up (I voted Plucky Girl Reporter- other votes included a Neurologist, a Teacher, and a transhuman- that one came from Josh), wishes for her and then finally the revealing of the name, which was followed by the Ceremonial Facebook Posting.
The whys behind the name:
Full name is Cordelia Maebh McGinley Crowe but we call her Cora.
Cordelia was on the list- it’s Welsh, it’s a name people know but isn’t used too often, and has great uses in entertainment- from Shakespeare to Joss Whedon (our favorite storyteller) to what Anne of Green Gables wished her name was- and Josh and I met doing a production of Anne of Green Gables. It also has the science background being a moon of Uranus.
The nickname is what sealed it for me though. On the drive home from the hospital I was looking at her, trying to think of names, and thought back to one of my favorite words- a word that I thought would be great for a character in a book or if I was really daring, a child- Cormorant. Don’t love the bird, but love the prosody of the word. That lead me to think that Coral is also a great word and tada, Cora was the flash of inspiration I’d been waiting for. Josh and I both love coral (the animal) and I love the color, and throw in Cormorant for me, AND the fact it goes with Cordelia and we were set.
The middle name was hard. I sort of threw in the towel because I didn’t want a middle name that ended in a with Cordelia and I had sort of given in to Isabella. I LOVE the name Isabella but it is overused, and with the popularity of Twilight I knew that all through school, she is going to have several Isabelle’s and Isabella’s in her class. It was like #3 on the most popular girls names this year.
I wanted something that honored my dad and our little Bella- but something that also honored our Irish and celtic ancestry. I stumbled on Maebh (pronounced Maeve) on an Irish name list and first thought it sounded great with Cordelia- and Cora Mae sounds good too- but the meaning is what sealed it for me. Maebh means “One who brings great joy.” This has been a tough year, and a year of many transitions for me. Losing my dad and my best friend (yes, she was 4-legged, but honestly my best friend) was really hard. Being pregnant for both loses meant my emotions were heightened but it also gave me something to look forward to. Without Baby, I’m not sure how I would’ve made it through that grief. I’m still not through it, but having her to look forward to definitely helped. Cora Maebh was definitely someone who brought joy when I was convinced there could be none.
I don’t care that McGinley isn’t a “name”, it’s still her 2nd middle name. It’s just there for show and because I’m not going to let go of it and I still think women taking men’s names is sexist and out of date, but a tradition to which I acquiesced. But not without putting McGinley in her name- at least legally.
She’ll be able to tell a good story about how her parents came up with her name- and how they drove everyone crazy with not deciding. And good stories are great things to have.
Introducing Cora!
1 week ago today, baby Crowe was born on December 6th at 10:09 AM- 8 lb, 1 oz!
The nitty gritty:
My due date, December 2nd came and went without incident. Thursday, December 3rd I met friend/co-worker Nicole at Starbucks with her adorable twin 8 wk-old boys and walked around, enjoying the 70 degree weather.
That night, while at my computer I felt a huge rush of oxytocin- just an incredible sense of well-being and tenderness. It was extremely powerful. A couple of hours later, I had a contraction. Before I went to bed I felt two more, but they were mild.
Laboring at home
At 4 am, Dec. 4th I woke up realizing that I had been having contractions and they were getting stronger. I tried to go back to sleep to no avail, and had a powerful urge to get ready for the hospital. While Josh slept, I finished packing the hospital bag and got something to eat. At 7:30 I laid back down and was able to doze for about an hour until Josh got up and I told him that things were starting, but slowly and asked him to put the carseat in the car before he went to work.
Throughout the day, the contractions would get more consistent, and they die back down. I was able to sleep for another 2 hours but when they went from 8 minutes to 20, I got a little discouraged. Josh checked in throughout the day and I told him I was ok and would let him know if anything sped up.
That night, they hit every 4-5 minutes, the milestone I was waiting for, but after 45 minutes of that, they went back to every 8 minutes. It was getting much more uncomfortable however, so I called the midwife at 2 AM, hoping she would tell me to come in. She didn’t. She said stay home and wait.
I was able to doze a little Friday night and Saturday, they went back to every 20 minutes for much of the day- however, it was like a dial was turned up and they were much more intense. I practiced my relaxation techniques and they helped about 75% of the time, but some of the surges were so strong, I couldn’t breathe through them and would vocalize my pain. I tried to eat- I would go from having incredible nausea to feeling famished. It was a very uncomfortable day. I tried laying on the bed, I tried leaning over pillows on the bed, I laid on each side in the recliner and just sat on the couch. When the strong contractions would come, I felt like I was trying to crawl away from the pain and would squirm around, trying to find the position in which they subsided. They didn’t. We listened to music and comedy podcasts and eventually my hypnobirthing cd’s. The intensity of the contractions was increasing, but the time wasn’t. I used the stopwatch feature on my blackberry to keep a record of the timing and it stayed steady at 8-10 minutes between. Around 10 PM Josh, seeing my pain and not being able to help said, “This isn’t how I thought it would be” and I said “Me either.”
Around 11:00 it began to snow with force and I worried about the drive. Josh dozed and I sat in the recliner, practicing my breathing. At 2:00ish I woke him up and asked him to draw me a bath. When I got in the tub, a contraction came just 3 minutes after the first, so I sat in the tub for an hour timing and each one was 3-5 minutes after the first– I had finally met the threshhold.
I got Josh up and told him it was time to go. He packed and cleaned snow off the car and I continued to try and escape the pain by standing, walking, and sitting on the edge of the bed. At 4:30 we got in the car, an hour-long car ride I was dreading (though it had stopped snowing at least). Throughout the day, I found sitting straight up to be the most uncomfortable position, so I got in the car, grabbed the Jesus Handle with my right hand and the back of Josh’s headrest with the left and held on. I’m nervous when Josh drives on a good day, so I’m sure he wasn’t looking forward to the ride either, especially when I started off by making him get out and clean off the side mirrors properly. I asked him repeatedly to go slow- the speed seemed to make the contractions more uncomfortable. When we were on the main road I called the hospital to say we were on our way so they could alert the midwife on call. Pressure on my belly increased the pain significantly so while at home I had been sitting with the drawstring on my sweatpants completely undone and shirt pulled up, having the seat belt touch me was a whole new level. Through it all though, I continued to back seat drive with Josh, telling him which way to go and lanes he should be in. At one point he began to turn. ”Where are you going?!” I yelled as the contraction hit. ”I’m getting on the highway!” he yelled back. ”No you’re not! This is is friggin’ parking lot!!”
We got to Anna Jacques and I realized I wasn’t sure where to go. There was no parking for the Emergency Room entrance so we had to go into the regular parking lot and turn around. Josh pulled up to the entrance to go in and ask where to go. A nurse came out with a wheelchair and I got out and looked at the bags of stuff to decide what I should carry. The nurse and Josh told me not to worry about it and just get inside. I declined the wheelchair as standing and walking felt better than sitting and we made our way through the hospital to the Birth Center. A nurse met me as soon as I walked in and brought me to a large room where I would stay for the next few hours.
Almost immediately the birthing experience was probably different than the traditional hospital birth. I was hooked to a fetal monitor, but only for 20 minutes and it was the only time during the whole stay that I was hooked to it. It was sort of cool though for others to just watch numbers and be able to tell when my contractions were coming and when they were ending. I felt like pointing and saying, “See, it’s real! I’m not making this up!” I was asked the standard set of questions and waited until the midwife arrived. When she did, I got nervous- I was so afraid she’d check me and we’d find out I hadn’t dilated and I still had a long ways to go. When she said, “Well look at who’s been working hard! 7 cm and 90% effaced!” I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was so grateful that the pain and discomfort was actually doing something and I was in real, active, soon-there-will-be-baby labor.
The next 3 hours are somewhat of a blur. I was very aware during the whole process and time seemed to move very slowly, but the contractions got progressively worse and it was harder and harder to remain in a calm, relaxed state. I spent time in the tub, trying to get the jets to blow on my back, but soon I just got cold and uncomfortable. Josh and I had been practicing massage and light touches that were supposed to help, but during a contraction, I didn’t want anything touching me so we didn’t use much of that. I’m thankful I didn’t have any of the “back labor” I had heard about. My back was sore from laying in weird positions, but that was it. My overall impression of labor was that at least it built fairly slowly (too slowly in my case) so I had time to adjust each time the dial was turned up. In those couple of hours which were the 8-10 cm dilation mark, the few contractions I had that hours before had made me gasp, now seemed positively tolerable. I was reminded of a video game’s learning curve, and it was set at a nice pace- it wasn’t 0-60 with no warning.
Midwife Jessica checked me a total of 3 times- once when she first got there, once to see that I had moved to 8 cm, and once towards the end when I was at 9. When I was at 8 she suggested she break my water to get the process moving a bit quicker and I immediately nodded, as I felt a contraction come on. She had to do it during the contraction, which was uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel anything in terms of the actual instrument that broke the water. I did feel the gush that I had read about, and for about 20 minutes afterwards, whenever I’d rock my hips or move to a new position I felt sort of like I was peeing myself, but that whole sensation was exactly what I was expecting. This artificial rupturing of the membranes was the only “intervention” I had.
Most of the time I dealt with the pain by moaning, and was a bit shocked when I heard myself uttering the guttural moan that our birthing instructor had said would happen, but there were a few times I cried out. I felt like a bad hypnobirther when I did that, but everyone kept encouraging me and telling me I was doing a good job, so that helped. Josh and his mom, Beth were a great support and I feel like they really helped me through the process.
I wish I had been more prepared however as to how to deal with the pain at this point since it was so much worse than before. I had talked with people and read a lot and rewatched “The Business of Being Born” the previous day and had heard that most women going through a natural birth reached an altered state- I did experience that, but the state wasn’t nearly far enough away. I was still intricately aware of everything, I just didn’t want to participate in the conversations that were happening around me. I also continued to try to escape the pain when I should’ve been embracing it. It was so counter-intuitive, I would squirm and hyperventilate when it would get bad when I should’ve been finding the positions that were uncomfortable because those were what my body needed. Midwife Jessica had me kneel on the bed which hurt my knees and was much more painful, but was what needed to happen right then. This was also finally the point where I let the pain wash over me and tried to ride it instead of escaping it and could feel an almost immediate difference. (Though I did call out “Oh Shit!” at one point- again, bad hypnobirhter)
About this time I tried to give up. The pain just kept getting worse and I didn’t know how much more I could handle. If they had offered me drugs at this point I probably would’ve taken them. This is something that I’ve read too- a lot of women hit a wall where it gets to be too much, and then viola, baby. I think it’s because the ramp of pain kept increasing and I had no idea how close I was to the end- if it had been another 2 hours of ramp, it would’ve been too much. In retrospect, however, it really wasn’t too long where the pain was at a level that I really didn’t want to experience it at all.
Jessica checked me once more and said I was at 9 cm and the Doppler to listen to the baby which they did every 15 minutes throughout the labor showed she was much further down than before. To get to the last stage, Jessica told me to sit on the toilet and try to pee. I had read about this technique too and at the time wished she had told me the whys behind instead of offering it as a causal suggestion- realizing that even in a state like this I want to know details. It made a huge difference- muscles you don’t even think about relax naturally when you sit on the toilet and I could feel myself opening up. Josh sat with me and though I very much focused on keeping my jaw and hands relaxed in encouragement to the rest of my muscles, I did grab onto him a couple of times. When during a contraction, I felt my body (without consent from me) pushing, I opened my eyes wide and said, “What was that??” The nurse came in to check on me right at that moment and rushed to get Jessica to tell her I was pushing.
When I came out of the bathroom, I sat on a birthing stool- which was just a metal 3-sided frame that they had wrapped in the blue pads for a little bit of comfort- and pushed. It was again amazing how the pain changed again. The contractions didn’t hurt at all anymore, instead I could feel the stretching as she came down the birth canal. I was also surprised at how relaxed I could get between pushes- it was like a brief reprieve of all pain. When I began to crown, I heard the nurse and the midwife comment that they could see a lot of hair on her head, which was encouraging. I pushed about 4-5 times on the stool and then got in the bed to finish, pushing another 4-5 times.
This phase I was also unprepared for. I’m not sure what I expected, but I guess I thought I’d just feel “pain” but instead I kept thinking to the scene in Knocked Up when Katherine Heigl’s character screams out, “I can feel EVERYTHING!” because that’s exactly what this was. I could feel exactly where everything was, including the midwife’s fingers because I said that something was poking me. I couldn’t really feel the baby moving down, though when her head came out I definitely felt a huge sense of relief. I tried to slow down at Jessica’s insistence, and I knew if I went too fast at this point I might tear, but on the next contraction my body took over and I finished pushing my baby out.
Meeting Baby
She went right to my chest and my first, immediate thought when I saw her was, “Who’s this?” I felt almost like I didn’t recognize her- a strange sensation. I then noticed how pink she was, how big she was, and how she was looking around in wonder. I was still intimately aware of everything still going on with my body and hers- including the umbilical cord that was attached to her and still inside of me. I had worried about the “what happens next” phase and was very grateful when I expelled the placenta without any pain- it was like a braxton hicks contraction with the tightening and I felt it exit, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I got to look at it afterwards and it was much larger and there was more stuff than I pictured a placenta. It was really interesting. The pushing on my stomach and getting a couple of stitches (not on my perineum but on my vaginal walls) WERE unpleasant however, and definitely distracted me from the bonding process. When it was done pulsing, Josh cut the cord (he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to do it) and I nursed Baby for the first time. We were able to relax as a family for about 20 minutes before the nurses took her to weigh her and smear her eyes and do the normal newborn stuff.
Happy Daddy
The neonatologist gave her a 9/10 on her Apgar which means she got an A+ on her very first test. I ordered lunch and Josh’s father and brother came to visit on their way back to Maine from Boston. Soon after my mother arrived so the room was full of family meeting the newest, nameless member.
Josh asked me later if I was glad I went through the process without any drugs and I said yes, mostly because I felt energized and besides the pain in my vagina (which I also wasn’t expecting though I don’t know why), fine afterwards and if I had had any drugs, it probably would’ve been very different. Her high Apgar score was also due in part to the drugless delivery. Now that I’ve experienced it, however, I’m not sure I’d do it for #2, but then again, maybe having an idea of what to expect would make it easier. Or is the satisfaction that I’ve “been there, done that” enough? I have plenty of time to decide.
Our Outside Baby!
See more pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghan.mcginleycrowe/BrandNewBaby#
