Birth Story: Lady Infant

For this #tbt, I'll attempt to ameliorate Lady Infant's second child syndrome. Unlike her older brother, however, we will not be linking up with anyone because, if you haven't heard already, Grace at Camp Patton has shut down her blog indefinitely. A vacuum in the internet that, unfortunately, will probably be filled with more pictures of cats.

My children seem to have a habit of choosing birthdays around some sort of disaster. Sir Toddler was born two days after a terrorist attack. Lady Infant tried to outdo her brother by following the first blizzard of many in New England’s snowiest winter on record. Fortunately, I had the foresight to call my mother when I saw the forecast the week of my due date, and she flew up to to stay with us the day before the snow hit.

As the snow drifts piled higher and higher, I fretted about going into labor and not being able to get out of the house. Lady Infant, however, rested easy all day. I vowed to do the same that night, so that I could be well-rested in case the next day was labor day. I didn’t, but I was still excited to wake up at 5 AM with contractions 7 minutes apart. My labor with Sir Toddler progressed fairly steadily once it began, and thus were my expectations.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Phone triage told me to wait. My contractions were pretty mild, so I waited for them to intensify. I waited, and waited, and napped, and watched the snow plows clear the streets, and waited some more.

In the early afternoon, we called again and were given the option of going to the hospital (30 minute drive) or to see my midwife (12 minute drive). I couldn’t bear the idea of being sent home during my second labor, so we chose the midwife. Mr. Husband and I left Sir Toddler with my mom and promised to update her via text.

At the office, they hooked me up to the monitor, and checked me. I was at 3 cm...progress since my last appointment, but not enough to to check into the hospital. My midwife suggested we go for a walk and come back in two hours. Since the sidewalks were under four feet of snow, we went to the nearest mall. It would have been a fun, toddler-free outing if I wasn’t horribly anxious about how long it was taking for me to move past early labor. I stated again and again how embarrassing it would be to be sent home from the hospital during my second labor. Upon our return, my midwife declared me a 3.5 and told us to go to Labor and Delivery because, “you’ll probably be a 4 when you get there.”

At Labor and Delivery, I spent more time on the monitor. Since the OB-GYN on call didn’t think that my contractions looked close enough together, she recommended we walk around for another two hours before she checked me. Mr. Husband and I had dinner in the hospital cafeteria and walked in many, many circles around the first floor. I had to stop and breathe through the contractions, but the OB-GYN thought I was actually at a 3 and sent me home, saying “You could check in, but you’ll probably labor faster at home.” At this point, I should note that I prepared for trying unmedicated childbirth more than I had with Sir Toddler by a) reading a book by Dr. Bradley and b) actually making a birth plan with my midwife. How fortuitous.

Off to the parking garage I went with my tail between my legs. As my husband and I stepped off the elevator a contraction hit me so hard that I dropped to all fours. They raged on through the (tearful) drive home. I almost ran from the front door to the shower. Under the hot water, I wound up on my hands and knees trying not to scream as pain radiated through my lower back and legs. When the hot water ran out, I moved to the living room rug, alternating between laying on my side and moaning on all fours with my mom and Mr. Husband pressing on my lower back. Mr. Husband convinced me to let him call triage, and when they asked me if I was planning on any medication, I said, “I’m seriously considering it.”

I told Mr. Husband that I was going to use the bathroom one last time before we left. Once I was there, I realized that what I was feeling was no full bladder. We threw my coat on over my pajamas and ran-waddled to the car.

I fought the urge to push for the entire 30 minutes of the drive. Mr. Husband pulled up to the ED, all but tossed me into a wheelchair, and handed me off to a doctor, who took me straight to a delivery room with several nurses and a midwife. There was no time for introductions or intake papers or gowning. I barely got my coat off before a contraction hit and I fell on all fours, pushed, and felt my water break. By the time Mr. Husband parked the car and got to the room, I was in a fog of delivery. It was the complete opposite of Sir Toddler’s calm and collected birth. The contractions were coming so hard and close together that I had to repeat my request for water three times before someone heard me. Half an hour after Mr. Husband pulled the car up to the hospital, Lady Infant crowned. (We found out the next day that I probably would have been admitted on my first visit, but the hospital was short-staffed after the blizzard.) A few “push...stop! push...stop!”s later, she was out at 10:28 PM.

They laid her on my chest and she screamed and screamed. (Her “vigorous cry” was noted on her discharge papers.) I held my new baby girl throughout the postpartum shakes, stitches (ugh), answering all of the intake questions (ha), and snacking on graham crackers and peanut butter (a treat since our house is now a peanut-free zone). After Lady Infant’s cord cutting, weighing, and first meal, the midwife gave me a Percocet and I was wheeled to my postdelivery room. Despite the late hour, Mr. Husband went home to relieve my mom of Sir Toddler duty, so Lady Infant spent her first night in the nursery.

Throughout my pregnancy, I’d wondered what it would feel like to love two children instead of one. When Lady Infant was brought back to me early that morning for her next nursing session, I was simultaneously in love with the baby in my arms and the baby that my almost-two-year-old at home had once been. I was ecstatic to have some time to bond with my new baby, but I missed Sir Toddler (and the brutal flu epidemic meant that he couldn’t visit me in my hospital room). Instead of my love being divided between my children, it was multiplied.

Birth Story: Sir Toddler

In the spirit of Throwback Thursday, I'll join the ranks of many mom bloggers and post a birth story. And like the fangirl I am, I'm linking up with bigger and better blogs--today, Camp Patton.

Sir Toddler’s birth story comes with a small amount of necessary exposition. To start, the hospital where I was planning to deliver was by far not the closest to our home. It was close to where I worked. My husband and I were planning on finding out the sex of our child at 20 weeks. However, Sir Toddler did not cooperate at my fetal survey ultrasound, remaining stubbornly cross-legged for the whole procedure. I was convinced, although not committed, that we were expecting a baby girl.

Four days before my due date, on Marathon Monday/Patriot’s Day in New England, I decided to go for a walk to see if I could get labor started. I managed to induce some mild Braxton-Hicks, but I decided to just give up and walk home when I got a phone call from my husband. He’d been watching the Boston Marathon on TV and saw the bombs go off. I hurried home and we watched the news coverage in shock. The rest of that day is a blur to me, except I voiced aloud to my husband my reluctance to go to work the next day.

I woke up at 4:00 AM, with contractions much more intense than any I’d experienced. Was this really happening?! I timed the contractions for an hour before waking up Mr. Husband. We called my OB-GYN practice endured 30 minutes of the ridiculously complicated phone triage system before we were told to time the contractions for another hour and call back. By the time I got through with the second phone call, we were both up and showered. The contractions were starting to hurt my lower back and we were nearing rush hour. “Are you ready to come to the hospital?” asked the nurse on call. Yes! Please.

Off we drove to the hospital, as I made all of the necessary phone calls to inform my employer. The midwife who checked me declared me 1 cm dilated, and sent us out for a walk. It was a warm, sunny spring day, marking the beginning of the short window in which New England has enviably beautiful weather. However, I was distracted by pain radiating around my legs with each contraction. Despite our best efforts to help things along, I did not progress and we were sent home.

I did everything I could to ease the pain of the contractions. I tried to nap, but I woke up every five minutes with each contraction. Taking a warm bath provided some relief, but our cramped bathroom space wasn’t the most comfortable. I tried to eat, but didn’t have much appetite for anything besides peanut butter on graham crackers. Mr. Husband and I worked our way through episodes of Justified as contractions continued to intensify, and a few less savory labor signs made their appearance. The nurses on the phone suggested we make another venture to the hospital before afternoon rush hour began.

This drive was considerably less comfortable than the last. I was relieved to find out in triage that I had progressed to 4 cm and could be admitted. I gowned up just long enough to get me to my room and take a picture, and spent the next hour in the shower.

When I couldn’t bear the steam any longer, I tried walking around to help with the pain in my legs and lower back, but it was unbearable. The nurse who checked my progress said that Sir Toddler was occiput posterior (face-up), and I was still at 4 cm. It was at that point that Mr. Husband convinced me that I needn’t be a martyr, and I asked for the epidural.

When the anesthesiologist arrived at around 6 PM, they asked Mr. Husband to leave, and suggested that he order dinner before the cafeteria closed. I asked him to order for me too, but they told me, “No food with the epidural!” (I wish I had known that beforehand, because I was ready to eat my own arm!) I got the epidural and accompanying IVs, and then settled in bed with completely numb legs. I spent the next few hours sleeping and being turned from side to side to convince Sir Toddler to flip to a face-down position, while my husband tried to sleep and watched the Red Sox lose spectacularly. At some point, my water broke, which was a very strange sensation. Around 12:45 AM, I woke up and suspected that I was complete. The nurse who came in confirmed my suspicions, and off we went a-pushing.

This part of childbirth in movies is a crazy intense-a-thon of screaming and sweating and doctors scurrying around, but my experience with Sir Toddler was very relaxing. Mr. Husband and I chatted with the nurse, and in between pushing she had me breathe through an oxygen mask. At about 1:20, Sir Toddler was just about ready to arrive. More nurses poured in to warm blankets, set up a mirror, and the OB-GYN, a slim young woman with a nose piercing, rushed in and saw me pushing. 

“Blow this one out!” she said.

Mr. Husband remarked, “It has to be a girl! Look at all that hair!”

“One more push to deliver,” and suddenly they lay a very slimy and confused looking baby on my stomach. The baby had a FULL head of hair, a cone-shaped head and… 

“It’s a boy!”

“What do you think you’ll name him?” asked the doctor.

I grinned and looked at my husband as I rattled off this brand-new boy’s name. He settled onto my chest and stopped crying. After a blur of stitches (ugh), cord clamping, weighing, measuring, and his first meal, Sir Toddler was wheeled off to the nursery with Mr. Husband for his first bath. I was left alone to eat my sandwich (the most satisfying hospital meal I’ve ever had, I was so hungry!), the nurse helped me into the wheelchair (which was hilarious because she was my size and I couldn’t feel, let alone move, my legs) and I was reunited with Sir Toddler in my new hospital room.

As it turned out, the nurse in the post-delivery wing was the mother of my husband’s classmate’s roommate (say that five times fast), so she “got us the room with the best view!” At this point, it was about 2 AM. My husband and I settled in to try to sleep, although I woke up every time Sir Toddler breathed with any noise, paranoid that he would die of SIDS. We were exhausted, but so full of joy. After all of the tragedy we had seen two days before, we had witnessed a miracle.