August 27, 2012 1:07am

Less than 20 hours after my water broke my baby boy came into the world.

I woke up at 5:30 thinking I had wet the bed. It wasn't wet, but I went to the bathroom just in case. I uncleanched my Kegel and there was a gush of fluid. I made no mess! I woke up Bryn and despite not having contractions to speak of and Martha's advice to rest, we were both awake and making sure we had everything we needed all packed up.

Boo woke up easily and we got her dressed and ready. My contractions got harder and regular at about 5 minutes apart. We called the midwife again and headed to the hospital.

En route I called and texted everyone who needed to know. My mom would meet us there. Bryn's mom was concerned for me but wanted to know how Bryn was holding up. Bryn's sister was MIA. This was not good. She was on Boo Duty. Turned out she was in class and would meet us at the hospital ASAP after class was done.

As it was a Sunday morning, there was no one at registration or information. I'm glad we had toured the hospital recently; we found the Birth Center without a problem.

I wasn't much more dilated than I had been on Friday, but I was 75% effaced. I walked. I sat. I watched TV with Boo. I played Uno. Bryn took me for a walk in the hospital proper. We looked at the art on the walls. We looked at the pretty garden. I didn't want to go out; it was too hot. We walked down the ramp towards the cafeteria and took the stairs back up. And we did it again. I tried to squat, but it just didn't feel right and I couldn't get back up. I wasn't getting anywhere. We talked about Pitocin.

I let the Pitocin conversation marinate for four hours.

I was at 2 cm at 11 am
I was at 2 cm at 3 pm
I agreed to the Pitocin at 7 pm

I resisted the Pitocin because it felt like failure. It felt like I was conceding. I was agreeing that I could not birth a child without medical intervention. My body, as rounded and feminine as it was, could not, on its own, give birth to a baby. I was also agreeing to a needle in my arm, a monitor on my ample waist, and a monitor for the baby. Instead of the happy-hippy ideal I had envisioned, I was getting a medicalized, monitored, machine-that-goes-ping birth. I'm not sure which I found more demoralizing, the failure of my body or the loss of my dream.

If I had been happy with Alex's birth, I may not have fought so long. As it was, I felt anger every time I thought about her birth. Artificially ruptured membranes, Pitocin, machine-that-goes-ping, IV fluids, episiotomy, and not seeing her for an hour after her birth all equaled me hating the birthing process - which was why I went with a midwife this time. To avoid all of that. The midwife nudged in the early afternoon, and then we flat out talked about it. Then I cried to Bryn about it.

Then I saw the worry and pain in his eyes during my contractions and when he saw the disappointment in my eyes every few hours when I was given the news that I hadn't dilated any further. I saw the worry and pain I was feeling reflected in his eyes and I knew that I needed the drug.

At 7:30 pm my drip was started.

This is when it was suggested that I labor in the tub. Hooked up to an IV stand, two elastic belts, hand itchy, contractions every three minutes is not when I would consider it to be the perfect time for a bath. Midwives are weird that way.

I was in the tub for less than an hour, shifting positions every few contractions, when I was told I had to get out of the tub. ...first you want me in the tub, now you want me out of the tub... I resisted just about everything the midwife asked me to do. Every position change was delayed by a couple of contractions. My main fear was that I would be mid-shift and a contraction would hit. I was afraid of being in an awkward position and being that much more uncomfortable if I was caught off guard like that.

At about 11:30 pm I was finally dilated to 9 cm.
At 12:30 am I had my midwife up to her elbow pushing my cervix out of the way while I was blowing instead of pushing. I really wanted to push. I mean, if you have never been in labor you will never know the difference between wanting to do something and needing to do something. There is a difference between wanting to push and needing to push. That line is filament thin and once broached, being told you can't makes one slightly homicidal.


At one point my midwife told me to try being on my knees. Suddenly, I felt really good about where everything was going. This was the position of my dream! I wound up (after dodging my IV line and threading around the fetal monitor line) on my knees leaning over the back of the raised head of the bed. I still wasn't allowed to push with every contraction - I wasn't fully dilated - but I was closer to my ideal birth position.

While I was on my knees I was alternately pushing and blowing through contractions. Martha wanted me to motorboat with my mouth. If your mouth is relaxed, the rest of your muscles tend to follow that cue. She wanted my cervix to relax so she could push it out of the way. I can't motorboat when I'm not stressed out. I just can't. I wound up just saying, "Bubububububububub..." and making Bryn and Martha giggle. It became a weird mantra for me to focus on instead of pushing. Om never meant anything to me; apparently, Bububub does.

I was Bububub-ing a lot, and not doing much pushing. I was getting pretty ticked off. Then I heard it! A baby crying! The woman next door had stopped screaming and I could hear her baby crying. If I listen to Martha and keep my focus, I'll have a baby too! Baby! There is a baby at the end of all this pain! Focus!

I needed to change position again. I was so focused on the baby, I didn't mind, much. I did have a contraction while rolling and navigating the lines and leads connecting me to the machines. It was just as miserable as I'd imagined.

I wound up on my back, slightly propped up. Not what I'd thought ideal, but everyone seemed to like it better. Martha, not the contractions, nor the cervix, was making me uncomfortable. She was trying to widen my pelvis and was sitting on the bed, with her hand in my foreshortened vagina and smack up against my bent right leg. I fought very hard against my desire to straighten that leg and send her onto the floor. I hated her hand. I was hating her. It was all her fault. It was her fault I had the Pitocin, it was her fault I was on my back, it was her fault I couldn't push, and it was her fault I was so uncomfortable. And then, I was allowed to push!

I don't remember how many times I pushed, but I ignored a lot of directions to push again. Sometimes I could only push once in a contraction, I was just too tired. I remember watching my mom. She was standing at the far side of the room, against the wall, with her hands at the small of her back. That is her pose when she's uncomfortable or unhappy. Something was wrong. I asked her if she was alright. She said she was fine and I had another contraction.

I pushed and pushed and eventually there was a baby on the bed with me. I was not really with it. I saw Bryn smiling and crying and cutting the umbilical cord. I thought we were going to wait for it to stop pulsing. Had it stopped pulsing already? You're restarting the Pitocin to help me deliver the placenta? I didn't speak. I was too foggy. Baby! Where is he? I can hear him! Martha was checking my placenta. It was whole. Here's the baby. Huh?

He was awake and alert, but with no desire to latch and nurse. That's okay, we'd get to that later.

Apparently, the Pitocin had been stopped at 10:30. I'd done the last 5 cm on my own. But the baby's heart rate had been dipping with every contraction at about the same time, that was why a lead had been put on his little head at that time. I was so concerned about the lead in his head that I hadn't noticed that my medicine had been stopped. The lead in his head was what was making everyone so anxious. Well, it was the numbers the lead was providing. His heart rate would dip to nearly 40 during contractions at the end. It would bounce back up, but it was really concerning everyone who could see the monitor. The rate didn't fall so much while I was on my back. Yes, I felt less productive, but it put less stress on the baby. Fair trade off.

Bryn cut the cord while it was still pulsing because the baby had to go to the warming table and be checked by the pediatrician who had swooped in with a pediatrics nurse at the last minute. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He hadn't even time to throw on a white coat. The baby's initial APGAR was a 3. They gave him a little oxygen and his second APGAR was a 9. The pediatrician looked just as happy as Bryn when he handed over my baby boy.

My perfectly healthy, beautiful baby boy.

Sleep; or Why I Don't

Everyone knows that pregnant women don't sleep well. It all gets chalked up to the squashed bladder and the basketball strapped to the abdomen, but it's so much more than that.

First of all, for me, is the fact that I am a face-sleeper. I normally sleep flat on my stomach with my head under the pillow. Bryn thinks this is terribly weird and it worried him at first. Yes, I can breathe. No, the boobs don't get in the way. (But they will the entire time I'm nursing)

Now that there is a belly, I have to sleep either on one side or the other. Back sleeping is not an option. For those of you who don't know: sleeping on ones back while pregnant can pinch an artery and squishes lots of organs and, for whatever reason, makes it hard to breathe. And it's impossible to sit up from flat on your back. So, left or right are the only options.

Now, all health care professionals are going to tell a pregnant woman to sleep on her left side. That artery in her back is least compressed and the blood flow to the uterus is best if she lies on her left side. I slept on my left exclusively for the nine months I was pregnant with Alex. I can't do that any more.

Since I have to get up every couple of hours to pee anyway, I switch sides. I start on my left, but depending on how many times I get up in the night, I may finish the night on my right.

Not only does my hip get sore, my ear hurts. If you didn't know me as a child, you may not know quite how far my ears stick out. Lying on them hurts that cartilage that makes them stick out.

And if I'm not careful with how I position my arm, while lying on my left, the top one gets tingly and I lose the sensation in my fingers. I have an old shoulder injury that makes positioning my right arm crucial or it's uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

Then there's the heat thing. A pregnant woman's volume of blood is a lot greater than it was a year ago. I'm a freaking furnace. I remember being hot with Alex, but at least in March and April, I could just turn down the heat or open the window. I sleep with a fan pointed directly at me. (Since I can't take my allergy meds, this dries out the stuff in my nose and makes my nose hurt - so not directly related to sleep, but makes it harder for me to get a good stretch of it since I need to clear out my nose so I can breathe without drooling) I still sweat a lot, even with the fan. I get up to pee and the pillow needs to be flipped over because it is all cold and damp. The body pillow I put between my breasts also needs to be flipped, for the same reason.

The body pillow. It needs to go between my breasts or they are smooched against one another and they just pool sweat. It runs from between them and I get rashy. The pillow also has to go between my knees and ankles so my hips don't ache quite so badly. It also keeps me away from my husband... I don't like that part. However, considering how much heat I throw, he doesn't want to snuggle with me anyway, so it's not a really big deal. I guess.

And there's the peeing. I need to get up somewhere between every 45 minutes and 3 hours. I am grateful for the 3 hour stretches. Getting from horizontal to vertical takes a lot of energy and logistics. This leg has to go here before that leg can go there and this arm has to support the whole structure before you can lean that way. And then when you get to the bathroom, the trickle that is produced is so unsatisfying that you sit there longer than you need to and your legs fall asleep because you did too, accidentally. You know there has to be more pee - that tiny amount could not have been the urgency that got you out of bed. Seriously.

And then you have to climb back into bed and try to get comfortable all over again, except now your spot is all cold and damp from the sweat. But at least, by this point, you're exhausted and drop right off to sleep. Usually.

Anxiety

The diapers arrived this morning. I have 80 small prefolds, a diaper can with liner, 2 brand new Snappis, a tiny bottle of baby powder, a little tin of diaper salve, a new cloth shopping bag, and a thing. It's a little wafer of something in a plastic package. I'm not sure what it is; I should probably email the nice lady from the diaper service about it...

Eighty diapers is a lot of diapers. I had to do some serious rearranging of stuff. But I also now have diapers so I packed the baby's hospital bag.

My hospital bag is already in the car. I'm bringing my own johnny coat. It's been washed so many times that it's super soft, unlike the new ones that hospitals stock. I've also packed my black wrap dress, old but clean panties, the super soft and comfy sleeping/nursing bra that Bryn's mom sent me, toothbrush & toothpaste, Tylenol, comb and hair ties, and the really sweet pj set my mom got me. I probably won't wear all of the set - I'd hate to get it messed up with bodily fluids, but it has a short nursing top and a jacket for keeping me warm.

We have a cosleeper, we just have to set it up. We have a cradle in the living room, we're just waiting on a mattress for it. I found the Amby and washed all the bedding and set it up in the living room. I took it apart again because it takes up a lot of room. Push comes to shove: the cradle can go into storage and the Amby can go where the cradle is now. So we do have a place for the baby to sleep if he comes this afternoon.

We have diapers, clothes, a bed, a sling, I'm making colostrum (I leaked a bit last night)... Why am I so scared?

The midwife and my therapist both say it's because I've done it before. The first time, you don't know what to expect. What does a contraction feel like? How much could it possibly hurt? How long could it possibly go on? Women have been giving birth for millenia, how hard could it be? And that's just labor and delivery stuff. That doesn't even include the baby stuff.

I think I've mentioned that Bryn is looking for work. His contract wasn't renewed, so he's on unemployment. But that didn't kick in until last week because he had to go through an adjudication period before his waiting period. My ex-husband hasn't paid child support since May. The Office of Child Support sent me paperwork about taking him to court. Again. My loan disbursement isn't due for at least another week. This all might have something to do with the anxiety, on top of the stuff I know to expect.

I will not have Pitocin this time, so that should make my contractions more bearable. The lack of pitocin should also make my labor more productive. Since I won't have the pitocin, I won't need the Stadol, which should mean that the baby won't have a slow heart rate. Hopefully, this time there won't be meconium in the waters. Hopefully, this time I won't need an episiotomy. Hopefully, this time the baby will cry and I'll be able to hold him within an hour of birth.

I'm just anxious. I was up for over an hour last night just trying to breathe and stop crying. We all know everything is okay. Bryn tries very hard to soothe me. Alex is excited. Why can't I stop panicking and enjoy this?

Bumpy Canadian Roads and Other Concerns

We made it to Canada safely.

We were at the airport an hour early for our 45 minute flight to Newark. Bryn and I got to see my brother and his wife for most of our 4 hour layover in New Jersey. That was really nice. The big brother gave me grief about my grey hair, but I smacked him, so it's all good now.

We sat on the tarmac for over half an hour while the ground crew hauled out all the luggage looking for bags from a family of four who were not on our flight anymore. The pregnant lady with the tiny bladder was not amused. Two hours later, we were in Halifax. Two hours later, we were at the house.

Three hours in the air, two hours in the car, four hours in Newark and we shaved nearly seven hours off the usual time to make it up here. Bryn said he'd have rather driven. Aside from getting to see my brother and his wife, I'm inclined to agree. I like the scenery, the navigating, the Tim Horton's. But I do like flying, even after 9/11. I was positively giddy leaving the runway the first time. Bryn kept telling me to calm down, but he smiled when he said it.

We are here to settle Bryn's father's estate. Bob died last August, three weeks after Bryn and I had started trying to conceive, one week into our frantic move to Burlington. Needless to say, this has been a really rough time for Bryn. His father will never meet our son. His father will never see us settled into a real home. He will never have Yankee Thanksgiving with us. Nor will our son get to ride on the tractor with Grumpy Bob (the nickname Bryn's nephew gave him many years ago), or go fishing with him, or just sit in the truck having an ice cream cone. Grumpy Bob will never teach him to drive a nail or change his own oil. Bryn had obviously planned on teaching these things to our son (and Alex), but they were the things his father had taught him, and the values that his father had instilled within him that will never be shared in person. I was very fond of Bob. We had a very comfortable relationship. I am very pissed off that he is dead.

Anyway...

Bryn and I were pretty stressed out come the second day of this trip. Things were missing, feelings were hurt, and I haven't been sleeping well. Bryn's sister decided we needed to go to the beach. As much as I hate my bathing suit, I had to agree with her. Cool water fixes many ills.

There is something wonderfully practical about Nova Scotians. They farm or they fish, historically at least. The shorelines are largely undeveloped and the water is cool enough that very few people go to the beach. We were there two hours and about fifteen minutes before we left a couple of girls showed up with a blanket. That's it. Two hundred yards to the western point and as far as I could see to the east - no one else. Just us.

Let me describe the beach. We parked just off the "road", which was really two ruts through the rough. Climb a slight rise through the sea grass to a swath of rocks that go all the way that way and all the way the other way, but it's only about thirty yards wide. The rocks are almost all rounded with a few pieces of rectangular sandstone and all between softball and kickball sized. The rocks in Nova Scotia are wonderful. They are completely colorblind. Pure white ones nestled amongst the blue, grey, black and pink ones. Pale blue, slate blue, dark blue; pale pink, rose pink, orange-pink; light grey, dark grey, grey with stark white stripes all there together not caring who they trip. Then there is a coarse sand beach with small rounded pebbles thrown in for good measure and one or two bigger rocks just so you can't put down a blanket without covering one. Then the water line starts. Lots of the little pebbles with the rough sand for about five feet. Then the bigger rocks start again for another five to ten feet. Then sand. Not rough sand, like the beach, but soft silky sand like you want to dig your toes into or make sand castles with - except it's at least three feet underwater.

The water. Bryn, standing chest deep, could see his toes. Me going in as far as my toes made me gasp.  I did brave it though. Walking across the rocks under the water was a little scary. They shifted with the waves and under my weight. Not knowing the beach and how far out the rocks went and how shallow it was further out made traversing them scary and a little dangerous. Gratefully, I am buoyant. I got to my navel and made a very shallow dive. After having been in the warmth of the sun, with it beating on my shoulders, that water was COLD! My fingers hurt. Oddly, my toes were fine.

Swimming in the ocean is so different than swimming in lakes and ponds. Rivers are close, but salt water cleanses the soul in a way that no other water does. Just bobbing and floating along healed a lot of what needed to be healed Tuesday afternoon. Maybe we can stop again Saturday morning.

I was buoyant and happy. Coming out of the water over the rocks was awful. Not only were the rocks shifting, but I was suddenly much heavier. The baby seemed to be riding much lower. I was off balance and scared. I actually plopped down in the water and told Bryn I was staying because I couldn't do it. I couldn't walk across those rocks with all that off balance weight. Bryn came and gave me his arm. I was still unhappy.

We sat on the beach for a bit and then decided we should head back to the house. We all jumped in for one more quick dip. This one was quicker, but it took no time to get submerged. Cold Northern Atlantic waters be damned. We all got soaked and happy.

Getting out was even worse this time. My pelvis started the separation thing the instant my stomach was out of the water. My hips hurt. I wanted to be on my hands and knees and just crawl. I was in a lot of pain. And I still needed to get back across the sand and the rocks and more sand to get to the car. Bryn held my arm and nudged me to walk in the sea grass rather than on the sand where my shifting weight on the shifting sands made my pelvis scream and terrified Bryn that I was going to fall. My mantra, "I'm fine," was repeated for both of our benefits. I tried to say it with conviction. I told Bryn it was a good thing. He started saying, "Peeled grape," with as much conviction as he could muster. We made it back to the car. Getting in hurt, but sitting was good.

We had to go out to dinner. The realtor was showing the house at six, so we decided to go to an Indian restaurant in town that had been getting rave reviews. I was slightly uncomfortable on the trip into town, but the worst part is that the trip takes about half an hour and I stiffen up in less time than that. Bryn has taken to giving me the passenger seat and sitting behind me because he is convinced it's easier for me to get in and out of the front seat. I don't know if he's right or not, but it's nice having him behind me to hold my shoulder.

We parked just beyond the restaurant and Bryn heaved me out of the car. By the time we got to the restaurant I was pretty limbered up. It was closed. No hours were posted. No Closed sign in the window; just dark and locked up tighter than a drum. So we debated going back the way we came to an Italian restaurant or keep going to the restaurant that we had eaten at after the wake last year. We went to the one with a bit of history for us.

The walk went well. Dinner was lovely. Dessert was fantastic. Turns out that it was bought by new people in May and they just reopened a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if it's the pregnancy or what, but I got halfway through my sandwich and decided that I wanted Bryn's mashed potatoes. He switched plates with me. Something about denying the incubator of his only child nothing. I'm glad he liked my sandwich.

I was stiff from the restaurant, so everyone went on ahead of us. Bryn, as usual, stayed by my side and walked the extra five feet to the button for the crosswalk. He held my arm when I was wobbly and helped me down into the car.

When we were about five miles from the house (thank you Mother Webb for your roadside signage) I got a sharp constant pain from what I can only assume was my round ligament. It went from my groin, around my hip, and all the way up my left side to my rib cage. It hurt so badly that I couldn't speak. I just gasped and clutched the armrest. My toes were curled the entire ride home. Bryn had his hand on my shoulder, as usual, and I just clung to it. There was nothing else to be done. It ebbed a bit after a few minutes, but the pain remained until after we arrived at the house. I remember saying something about delivering in Middlebury and Bryn conversed with his step-mother and sister about where we will be delivering, where our closest hospital is, etc... It kept the focus off of me, which is all I really cared about.

We got to the house and I was hoisted out by Bryn. I sent him into the house to get my belly-strap and I walked up and down the driveway as well as I was able. It occurred to me that it was the first time in a long time that I hadn't worn a belly-band, or something similar, all day. Bryn was disappointed in me that I had left my brand new belly support at home. It had come in the mail on Friday and I misplaced it almost immediately.

I slept poorly. There are swalls in the upstairs bedroom. I had to get up four times last night and I hit my head on the slanted ceiling/wall at least once. The rise on the stairs is such that I have to crawl up them with my hands on the step ahead of me. I have to go down them sideways. And the railing is so loose that I want to pull it like a tooth. I'm sure it would come. And the bed is tiny and creaky. It's a double that sags a bit in the middle and the frame is not built to support the weight of both my husband and myself. Bryn has offered to put the mattress on the floor, but that would just make it harder to get up out of it.

This morning, just as Monday morning, I got my last two hours sleeping on a loveseat because I couldn't bear the thought of crawling up the stairs, ducking my head, creaking into the overly hot bed, and trying to fall back to sleep again. I just couldn't do it one more time. I was rewarded with screwed up pregnancy dreams. They were very weird. I may post about them later.

Anyway. Canada. I love Canada. I will gladly return when all is said and done. Right now. I really want to go home.