Last night when I asked Matt to recount Katie's birth story to see if I was remembering everything correctly, I realized that neither of us can quite remember what happened when. Before my memory fades any more, I want to give my account of the birth story.
By July 8, I had come down with what I thought was a cold or the flu. In hindsight, I think it may have been directly related to my body preparing to have the baby, but at the time it felt like a genuine cold/flu with all the aches and congestion. This came and went over the course of the next several days. On July 13 I slept in bed almost the entire day feeling like I had the flu.
On July 15, three days overdue, I was feeling better. I should probably mention that I'd been having braxton-hicks contractions regularly over the course of those days. I got a hair cut and went to a local Italian place for dinner with Matt. When we got home, I saw one of my friends had posted something on facebook about pressure points. Apparently if you massage pressure points on the inside part of your foot/ankle it stimulates your uterus. Thought we'd give it a try. Why not? Matt massaged my feet from 8:30-9:30 (God bless him!) and I did feel contractions as a result, but there was no knowing if they would be regular. At around 10 we went to bed.
But I couldn't sleep because I was having contractions and was antsy to discover if they were going to be regular or not. I forced myself to go to sleep but was woken up by mildly painful contractions at 11:30. I stayed up for an hour, facebook chatted with my sister, and timed them. Every 7-10 minutes. Surely I was going to be at the hospital by 8AM the next morning. Surely.
I timed contractions off and on the whole night. I didn't need to do it (because when you're in labor, you know), but I just couldn't wait to finally get this thing under way. By Thursday morning (4 days overdue) I had contractions at the same interval but they weren't bad and weren't long either. Matt didn't know how fast or slow this would go, so he called out of work. Some time before noon I called the midwife, Debbie, to tell her what was up. She said they weren't long enough to come in, so I should just take a nap to get my body rested for the true labor and delivery.
I did as she asked, but when I awoke the contractions had slowed to irregular intervals and for a while they had stopped. This was a huge let-down because mentally I had already told myself "this is it." Those of you who have had false alarms must know what I'm talking about. We went to Panera for lunch, saw two friends (told them we thought I was in labor, how exciting!), and then called our parents. By then the contractions had returned at normal intervals.
After lunch we took a walk, albeit short since a 9 month preggo lady can't walk very far before getting exhausted. By the time we returned (5:30 ish) the contractions were starting to get more intense. But I didn't want to be "that woman" who calls the midwife every hour so we waited and timed. I didn't call the midwife until 9:30PM after they were consistently 1 minute in duration and 5 minutes apart for two full hours. We left for the hospital at about 9:55.
When I got there, they gave us a room and the midwife on-call (Karen) checked me. I wasn't really dialated at all, barely even 1 centimeter. Because I had been having regular contractions but it was taking my body a while to get going, she was concerned about how much energy I was going to have by the time the hardest part of labor happened. She told me I could go home, go home and take some ambien (sleeping meds), or stay and have ambien along with morphine to manage contraction pain long enough for me to rest well. I decided to go home and take the ambien. But after talking to Karen and hearing her thoughts, I followed her recommendation to stay and get the morphine. I was not keen on taking meds but could tell the midwife had a genuine concern for my stamina so I entrusted myself to her care.
I remember that night having a very strange nurse who treated me a little bit like a child. I was not particularly offended because it was almost comical. "Now NO talking or staying up. Don't ask your husband to hold your hand every time you have a contraction tonight. When I leave this room you need to go to sleep and I'm not coming back till morning." So that's what I tried to do.
I woke up many times that night with very painful contractions, but I knew the worst was yet to come.
I woke up at around 7:00 Friday morning when a midwife came in. By this time Karen was leaving and Reina was coming on (Karen and Reina are the midwives). Reina checked me and I was still only 1cm. It was very frustrating to know I had endured well over 24 hours of regular (now very painful) contractions with nothing to show for it. She offered me a number of options (pitocin, cytotec, pain meds, do nothing). Again with no previous intention to take meds, I realized that this could go on for much longer than anyone desires and it might end up in a c-section. And I didn't want that. So I took the cytotec, a cervical ripener, some time that morning. I'm remembering 8AM but I believe Matt thought it was later.
I called my friend Val at around 9AM, just after my omlette breakfast had arrived. While on the phone I threw up all over the room because I tried to make it from the bed to the restroom unsuccessfully. Matt happened to be gone at this moment, so he discovered a surprise when he returned.
Things were progressing. By lunch time I was at 3 cm. But then it started to become unbearable.
I wish I could say there was something special about my labor that made mine more difficult than the next woman's, but other than the duration (which I suppose could be considered a valid hardship) there was nothing. It just hurt. A lot. By 1:30 I was screaming and crying with every contraction. Somewhere in the 2 o'clock hour Matt asked if I wanted drugs and I pondered for a minute. Yes, I would like drugs. Even though I wasn't going to take them before, the tables have turned and I want out of this misery. The epidural was ordered.
I felt guilty for a minute that I had chosen the "lesser" option but those thoughts were shunned away with each passing contraction. Where was the anesthesiologist?? After over a half hour of waiting, I think I actually yelled this during one of the contractions.
When he came there was a mad rush. Clearly he had been held up elsewhere, but the nurses were ready. During a contraction he was babbling about the risks, which range from minor to catastrophic, and he was making me sign papers. It was comically ridiculous. Who wants to think of these things at such a moment? Right when he was going to put the needle in, I had a contraction and he had to wait. All I remember then was how awful it was to have a contraction while sitting on the side of the bed, and I wanted out of my skin. When it was over he put the needle in. There was a twinge of weird pain during the process, but it was there one moment and gone the next. Epidural successful!
Within minutes I felt relief. For some women the epidural does not provide complete relief. I was one such woman, but the pain from that was nothing compared to what it had been. I simply felt a patch of maybe six inches in diameter on my stomach where the epidural wasn't working. But everything else around it was so I was happy. Some time shortly after the epidural I was at 6 cm.
At that point I was willing to talk to people on the phone, so I talked to my mom and Matt's parents. I might have spoken with my sis as well but I just can't remember the details. I remember wanting to eat really badly but now that I had the epidural I couldn't until after the baby was born.
After two or three hours on the epidural, I could tell the contractions were right on top of one another. I didn't feel much pain, but I could feel the tightening sensation. At about 6 o'clock I told Matt I wanted the midwife to check me, but she was no where to be found. Reina was my favorite midwife and I really wanted her to deliver my baby. But she was to be off at 7PM.
I'm going to talk about pushing and stuff in the next paragraph, so you can skip it and go to the next if you don't want the details.
At about 6:45 she came in to say she was going to be leaving but checked me while we chatted. "You're at ten plus two," she said, which in layman's terms means "time to push!" She didn't really assist with the pushing (which began at 6:50) because Debbie was about to be coming in, so Matt and the nurse helped me out while I did the first few pushes. Then Debbie came in and got everything all ready to deliver. It was quite anti-climactic after all that drama from before. Everyone in the room was calm and the pushing seemed easy to me.
At 7:34 I Kaitlin Janette Modaff was born. They put her on my stomach immediately after and I remember her being so small. "She's a big baby," they said, but she seemed so small to me. I don't think I will ever forget how her skin felt when I touched it for the first time. I didn't cry (not sure if Matt did) but it was obviously an incredibly special moment.
And at the special moment while on my stomach, Katie pooped on me. Matt cut the umbilical cord and I believe she pooped again. The nurse had to go do something, so after getting cleaned up we basically got to hang out with Katie by ourselves for an hour before they did the measuring and weighing. I also had the opportunity to nurse her within the first hour of her life, which was something I had hoped to do. 9 lbs 3 oz, 20 1/4 inches. During the 8 o'clock hour I called some family members to let them know she had finally arrived. And wouldn't you know, I also ate a chicken pot pie for dinner, and it was yummy.
By 9:00 all the official stuff had been done and we were moved to a different room for the night.
The story could keep going because I remember all the details of being in the hospital as well, but I should probably save that for a different entry. Thanks for sticking with me till the end.
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