If you have not guessed it by now, we had our baby…little baby girl Freya was born on October 30th and to say we are overjoyed is an understatement (I seriously mean that!!). We’ve had a few amazing weeks and some time to adjust to the transition of life with baby and now that the third round of company is gone and our lives are a little quieter I’m able to get back to reality (in small doses). Each day I have a goal of one thing I’d like to accomplish and while most days the task of showering will be enough today I told myself I MUST jot down her birth story before I forget it all, even if I have to do it one handed and it takes me several hours. So, here goes:
October 29: 7:30am. I woke up feeling like I had to pee and maybe couldn’t hold it in. Little did I know this urge was my water breaking (super anticlimactic!). I went to the bathroom, walked Oslo for a mile or two and when I returned home my “systems” just felt different. I had a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions during the pregnancy so it was hard for me to know if these feelings were more of the same or not. Nonetheless, I semi ignored it all and started working at my job like I normally do (I’m a dork). When C woke up I told him things were “feeling different” and of course being the logical person he is he said I should call the hospital. I called and they said to come in. So, I lollygagged…and worked some more (major dork!). We left around noon and luckily the roads were clear …one thing I feared as much as labor…the drive to the hospital in rush hour traffic! (and just for the purpose of journaling this I have to add that C did miss the exit to the hospital, ha!) The gals in triage took a test and indeed my water had broken. So, the party was about to begin. I went to my labor/delivery room and tried to make myself at home, watched a little CNN, followed the little bit of hurricane Sandy that I could, listened to the presidential election coverage, etc (have I mentioned I’m a dork?). We brought all the things we thought I’d use to help me get through the pains, like a birthing ball, music, aromatherapy oils, massage techniques, breathing techniques, etc but I didn’t need any of it. My nurse suggested the one thing that got me all the way to 8 centimeters dilated: find a non moving spot on the wall and when a contraction begins focus on this spot, take a deep breath and three long breaths out. So that is what I did. I found two handles on a cabinet that in my delirious state my mind transformed into eyeballs and the line below the cabinet turned turned into a smiley face. No music, no TV, no massage, no nothing except for the comfort of having C by my side. All the while our parents (who were scheduled to come in two days later) did their darndest to change their flights to make it in time for the birth. Ctrons mom was able to go standby and make her way to the hospital on public transport and just to help buy her some time I elected to get an epidural (aka the pain was getting to me but I like to pretend that I got it so she could get there for the birth). I probably didn’t **need** the epidural, the nurse said I got through the difficult part of labor, now I just had to push the baby out, but I had major fears of the pain that was to come and if I’d reach a point of no return and regret it. So, they numbed me a C’s mom made it. At 11pm the midwife and nurse came in to help get me pushing. Not too far into the pushing stage I had a contraction that wouldn’t go away (I couldn’t feel it, thank goodness!) and this stressed the baby…so her heart rate dropped. Immediately they put me on oxygen and in rushed several doctors (i.e, scary!!). The midwife stimulated my belly and got baby’s heart going again but I’d have to say this was a moment where I said to Cooper “Whatever happens happens”…although my head was fairly calm through it all I had a fleeting feeling that we could lose the baby. A little while later a new midwife came in and said “I’ve read your charts and to be totally candid with you I think at this point because the baby endured so much stress already, you may want to consider a vacuum delivery. I think you’d be very successful in doing so but I have to explain the risks….etc.” The catch was I’d have three contractions to give it a go and within each contraction three attempts to push. If baby wasn’t out by the end of the third contraction I’d have to go in for an emergency c-section. So we went for it. I pushed and pushed and I guess the head started to come out but by the end of the third attempt of the third contraction we still didn’t have a baby out. My reaction head at this point thought “oh geeze” (that is the filtered way to say it!) But my doctor said “KEEP PUSHING!!” And about three or four pushes later at 1:03am out popped a cone headed BEAUTIFUL little girl. I’ll never forget her coming out like a limp noodle and it wasn’t until I heard her cry that I could breathe again. We did it! M a n a l i v e. The doctor had to sew me up which took a long time and apparently I lost a lot of blood…at one point I heard one doctor count all the blood filled rags and when she got into the double digits I wasn’t sure she was ever going to stop counting. And just to put on a show for everyone when they took me to the bathroom a few hours after Freya arrived I guessed I passed out like four times, ha! But, then I got back in my dirty bed and ate a plate of hospital food (spaghetti and meatballs) and drank juice! And ate pudding!! (Both of which I hadn’t had in months).
The following days with family around to help care for us I seriously felt like I was on vacation…minus the fact that I have to wake up every few hours at night to feed. Our moms cooked, cleaned, walked Oslo, did the laundry, fed me when I needed an extra hand…I didn’t have to change a diaper for the first 5 days! In no time we got out, went for lots of our usual dog walks, went out to eat, ran errands and ended every evening with a celebratory meal by my mom by candlelight. I would say one activity a day was enough to knock me out by evening and I did have a few moments where I was so tired I hit a major wall but overall life with baby has been just incredible and with mornings like today where we wake up to her smiling at us (probably just gas but still) we just melt. She has really been pretty easy on us so far…I’m waiting for her frisky side to emerge. But, we are in love and are completely embracing each moment and every day with our new baby girl.
I probably won’t be posting much about baby Freya on the blog since my husband is a bit more private than I am and we’d like to keep her off the interwebs as best we can but if you’d like photo updates I’d be glad to send you some visuals from time to time…just e-mail me and let me know you are interested! I’d love to share.