ocelot

Leif was born on June 29, 2003. He was 6 lb 11 oz, 18.5 inches long, and had a full head of reddish-brown hair.

I woke up at 6:10AM with a sploosh, as my water broke all over the bed. Actually, I'm not sure whether it woke me up, or whether it happened when I woke up to change position. Either way, it was messy. We had just bought a new bed, and hadn't yet got a waterproof mattress cover for it. That was actually on my shopping list of things to get that day. Luckily, the mattress seems to have survived without obvious harm.

It was a scary and exciting feeling, since I knew that this was it. The baby would be out soon, no matter what.

I was 36 weeks along. We hadn't really expected it to happen that soon, though at my last appointment the doctor had said I was a centimeter dilated, 50% effaced, and the baby could come at any time. I expected to be induced due to preeclampsia symptoms sometime in the next week or so. We hoped it would be longer - in addition to the baby being preterm, we'd just moved, and still had a lot of moving-in type stuff to do. The OB didn't really expect it to happen that soon either, though - she went out of town for the weekend, and said she wouldn't have if she'd known I was that close.

On the other hand, on some level we did expect it. We'd bought and installed the carseat the night before, just in case, and I'd rushed to set up a mailing list of people to contact after the birth. This was largely because I was having PMSy type feelings. No contractions, but an uncomfortable feeling of fullness in my lower abdomen. The same feeling I had when I first discovered I was pregnant.

We called the doctor, not knowing she was out of town. Her stand-in called back and told us to go ahead and go to the hospital. We then rushed around for an hour or so trying to prepare, since my nesting energy from the past week hadn't extended to packing a bag. I was still gushing water all over the place, which was an odd feeling. I ate some yogurt,

koyote drank some coffee, and we headed out to the hospital.

I'd decided on Reston Hospital, rather than Fair Oaks, for some reason that I don't really remember now. It's closer (a 5 minute drive, rather than 20 minutes), but that doesn't matter early on a Sunday morning. Reston is smaller, apparently less technologically advanced, and we've already had one less than wonderful experience there. I think I just didn't want to be leaking amniotic fluid all over the car for any longer than necessary.

I was admitted and put in a room. A nurse checked to see how far along I was, but her fingers were too short to tell. I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and an IV (my Group B Strep results hadn't come in yet, so they put me on antibiotics just to be sure) for a while. The nurses were a bit concerned about the lack of fetal movement, and wanted to keep me on the monitor longer, but thankfully the doctor said I could get up and walk around. This was important to me, since I'd yet to feel any real contractions, and they were going to induce me if I hadn't made reasonable progress by around noon.

We told her that I didn't want to be offered pain relief medication as long as things were progressing normally. She said that this was ok, but warned us that I might be underestimating the pain, and warned

koyote that I might try to kill him, or that he might try to kill her (Apparently some husband got mad at her for not doing more to provide pain relief for his wife!).

They're big on pain relief there. I was apparently the only person who delivered without an epidural during my whole stay (20+ deliveries).

We walked around the halls for an hour or so. I had a few contractions, but nothing serious. I was pretty tired since I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so we headed back to the room and rested until the doctor showed up at about 11. She found that I was dilated to 4 cm, and said I could keep going.

We walked around for a while more after that, until my contractions started getting stronger. I still could have walked through them, but I was feeling pretty exhausted and decided that rest would help me more than exercise.

While walking around, I ate a grape popsicle (I was allowed to eat popsicles or ice chips, nothing else. Not even water). It was good.

I got back in bed, and they hooked me back up to the monitor. I stayed there for the rest of the time, despite my original intentions to move around a lot. I was pretty exhausted, and didn't want to have to bother with constantly adjusting the monitor.

Exhaustion sounds like a bad thing, but I'm not sure it was. Up until near the end, I was able to rest completely between contractions, sometimes even falling asleep for a bit. I'm not sure I could have done that if I'd been more rested.

koyote went to get food, since he hadn't had anything that day except a cup of coffee. He had a chili dog. This is a very poor choice of food if you're planning to be around someone who is in labor. I made him go brush his teeth because his breath stank. He tried to kiss me before going to brush them, and I hit him.

During the middle stages (4-6 cm or so), the silliest things pissed me off.

koyote was wearing a pretty tie-dyed bandana. He took it off to give it to me to tie my hair back, and tried to replace it with a black and red tie-dyed bandana. This completely freaked me out. The first bandana was pretty. It had good energy. The second was ugly, and I didn't want to have to stare at it for the rest of labor. I apparently yelled "Bandana no!" at him, and other rather incoherent phrases. Eventually he got it, and put the first one back on.

My verbal skills were somewhat lacking. It was a strange experience. I was thinking coherently (or at least I think I was), but I couldn't get the words out. I wondered if that was what it was like to be autistic, since some of my phrasings reminded me of autistic children I've worked with.

Every time another contraction was about to start, baby would kick, like he was warning me.

koyote helped me through the contractions using a technique we learned in a self-hypnosis class, where you mentally run a grounding cord from your spine to the center of the earth, and send all distractions (in this case, the pain) down it. It really helped. In the earlier stages, it actually worked some as pain relief. Later I wasn't able to concentrate well enough, but it helped me keep noises low (in pitch, not in volume. I suspect the whole maternity ward could hear me, which was a little odd since everyone else was silent), which did help. He also rubbed my back when I wanted it. I was very glad he was there - I'm not sure I would have made it through without drugs if I hadn't had support. It certainly would have been a worse experience. And the thought of killing him never once crossed my mind, except perhaps when he tried to kiss me with chili dog breath.

Because of the preeclampsia symptoms, they were monitoring my blood pressure on a regular basis. I hated this. It seemed that the tightening of the blood pressure cuff triggered contractions. Or perhaps the contractions were just coming frequently enough that it just felt that way.

For most of labor, the pain was centered in my lower back, around the tailbone. This wasn't what I had expected at all - it was nothing like menstrual cramps. It must have been what is referred to as back labor (the baby came out sideways, which supports this theory). This is supposedly the worst type of labor pain, but really, if that was the case, I can't imagine that regular labor would be that bad at all. I guess I must have just had easy back labor. When you read about back labor, the term is almost always preceded by the word "excruciating". Trust me, if you're experiencing back labor, try to forget that the phrase "excruciating back labor" exists. It just induces panic and makes things worse.

I got to transition, and there stopped being any real break between contractions. It always hurt, just sometimes more than others. At this point I started wondering why I'd thought it was such a bright idea to not do pain medication, though I knew that it must be getting near the end.

I threw up the popsicle at about this point. I was glad I'd eaten it, since throwing up purple is better than throwing up pure stomach acid.

At some point I switched from low moaning to angry yelling and felt like getting on my hands and knees, and I suspected this meant it was time to push, though I didn't particularly feel like I needed to poop, which is what I was told it felt like. The nurse said I had to wait for the doctor, who was on her way. It seemed to take forever for her to get there. The nurse didn't think I was ready, but this was the same nurse with the short fingers. I think she was just confused. Finally the doctor showed up, checked, and found I was ready to go. I don't think she really expected this, as she was still in her regular clothing and had to go change.

She came back, and told me to lie on my back, hold up my legs, and push when she told me to. I told her I didn't want to do it that way. She asked if I knew another way to push. I decided I didn't feel like wasting the energy teaching a natural childbirth class at that point, and just went ahead and did what she said.

Pushing was the worst part of the whole thing. The doctor said she could see a half-dollar sized piece of the head. This scared me to death. It already hurt like hell, and I didn't know how I'd go from half-dollar size to baby head size without doing serious damage to myself. Finally, I decided just to go for it and get it over with, since the baby was coming out one way or another regardless. She gave me an episiotomy because I was going to tear towards the urethra. I didn't even feel it. I always found that hard to believe when other people said it - how could you not feel a cut in that area? But it was true. There was just too much else going on for it to be painful. If anything, it was a bit of a relief.

I pushed again and felt the baby's head pop out. She told me to stop, because the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around the baby's neck. She unwrapped it, and then I pushed the rest out. It was a very strange sensation, feeling first the head, then the shoulders, then the rest of the body slither out.

She put the baby on my belly. It was a terribly pretty baby. Newborns aren't generally terribly pretty, but this one was. She asked whether it was a boy or a girl. We hadn't been able to tell from the ultrasound, and we'd asked to be allowed to find out for ourselves rather than have it announced, but I'd completely forgotten about that. I looked, and he was a boy. This surprised me a bit, since pretty much everyone had predicted the baby would be a girl.

I'd wanted to name him Erik if he was a boy, but looking at him, I decided he looked more like a Leif, which was

koyote's choice, and that's what we named him.

koyote apparently cut the cord at some point. I don't remember that at all, and had to ask him later whether he'd done it or not.

I delivered the placenta. I can't remember if the doctor did anything, or if it just came out on its own. She asked if I wanted to see it. I said yes, so she held it up for a bit. It was very surreal. I could say the same about the whole experience, but this was even more surreal than the rest.

Then they pressed on my belly to help get blood clots out. This hurt as bad as any of the contractions, and I yelled about it.

koyote was holding Leif, and said that this was the first time he really cried. I don't know if they did this because there was a problem, or if it's just standard procedure with this doctor/hospital. It isn't something I've read about often in other birth stories. In any case, it was pretty awful.

They gave me oxygen at some point during the delivery. I can't remember exactly when or why, but I think it was because the baby's heart rate was dropping too much during contractions.

After delivery I started shaking uncontrollably any time I was uncovered. I guess I must have been cold as well, because they piled a bunch of blankets on me, but I don't remember that part, just the shaking.

They took Leif away to do their tests and give him a bath. I didn't like having him gone. They brought me a turkey sandwich to eat, and then moved me to a recovery room. Several hours later, they brought Leif back.

Nights at the hospital were pretty awful. Partners weren't allowed to stay, even though I had a room to myself the first night. They stretched the rules a bit and allowed

koyote to stay until nearly midnight (the official rule was 10:00) since the baby had been born in the evening. They encouraged rooming in with the baby, but didn't really offer any support besides taking the baby to the nursery. I ended up doing that at about 4 AM. He was crying his head off, and I hadn't had much sleep in the past 48 hours and was pretty much falling apart. The second night was no better. I got moved to another, non-private room (a whole ton of people had gone into labor, and they needed my room for a labor room). Rooming in just doesn't work well in non-private rooms. Either one person's baby or the other cries all night, and keeps the other awake. I ended up sending him to the nursery the second night, as well, even though I felt terrible about it.

I have really mixed feelings about the whole experience.

koyote got a new job late in the pregnancy, which required us to move across country when I was 32 weeks along. Before that, we had planned to have a waterbirth at the Sutter Davis Birthing Center with a friend serving as a doula. Most of the care is provided by midwives, and they're very into alternative pain management, encouraging mobility, avoiding episiotomies, not separating the baby from the parents, and so forth. We ended up in a traditional hospital, where we were viewed as radical hippies who were slightly off our rockers.

On one hand, I'm really surprised and happy that they let me do so much naturally, given that the baby was a little premature and my blood pressure pretty high. I could easily have been confined to the bed for monitoring, and gotten caught up in the non-progressing labor/induction/pain relief cycle.

On the other hand, I think it could have been a much better experience if I had been able to move around more. I've read that continual fetal monitoring encourages the woman to take a more passive role in the birth, and I think that this was true for me. Though I was allowed up if I wanted, it just seemed to much of an effort to deal with getting the monitor off and on every 15 minutes. They also wanted the monitor on me whenever I was in bed, which didn't allow for any spontaneous movement. I'm almost certain the episiotomy could have been avoided had I been allowed to push in whatever position I wanted. Leif wasn't a big baby (6 lb, 11 oz). His head circumference was in the 15th percentile. When we first talked to the doctor, she agreed that she wouldn't do an episiotomy unless it was necessary, like if I was going to tear towards the urethra or something. And, whether it was the power of suggestion, coincidence, or a urethra obsession on her part, that's exactly what happened. His sideways presentation may have had something to do with it, but I suspect that would have been helped by moving around more, as well.

I'm not sure how much better things would have been at Sutter. I might have required the same monitoring because of the prematurity or blood pressure. I'm also not sure if the local birthing center would have accepted us with those problems, or if we'd have ended up in the hospital anyways.

In any case, I guess the most important part is that we're both healthy and doing well.