I was 2 days away from Emily's due date, which was June 7, and the midwives and I had been trying some things to see if we could get labor going on its own, because they were going to have to induce labor on the due date if I didn't go on my own before that (thanks to gestational diabetes). I had been induced with Hannah and it was a terrible experience, so we were trying to avoid that if at all possible. Over the prior couple of weeks they had started me on some blue and black cohosh tinctures, and then one time applied some Cervadil (which didn't start labor but gave me very painful contractions/cramps). Jon and I had tried the usual "home remedies" too; sex, spicy food, lots of walking, and so on.
Anyway, 10 years ago this morning, I woke up and didn't feel completely normal. Shortly after getting out of bed, I felt crampy and restless. By the time Pam came over, it was starting to feel pretty regular and more like contractions, but since I hadn't had a "normal" labor before, I wasn't entirely sure. When Pam pulled in, I stepped outside with Hannah and the first thing Pam said was, "Wow, that baby has DROPPED!"
I carried the girls pretty low, but apparently that morning it really looked like something was about to happen. So she drove off with the girls back to her house, and I tried to settle down, read or watch TV or something, but the contractions were just enough to keep me from being able to relax. They weren't super painful -- more like very bad cramps -- but they were about every 10 minutes and I felt like I had to walk them off. I ended up pacing in circles around the house; they remained steady and finally around 11 or so I called Jon and told him he might want to come home. I also called the midwives and they said to give it another hour or so and if it continued, to head over to the hospital to see if things were progressing. I also called my mom and sister (both were living in Lansing at the time) and let them know that we might be getting ready for this to happen.
J came home and nothing changed, so I called Pam and told her we were heading over to the hospital, and arranged logistical things (having my mom pick her up, etc.) in case this was really it. Pam did something I will never forget -- she pulled out her video camera and turned it on, and then told Hannah we were going to the hospital to have the baby. So I got to see Hannah's reaction on video -- she was jumping up and down and so excited and saying, "My baby sister is coming! I can't wait!" I need to find a way to get that into a digital format -- I have wanted to show it to Emily ever since then.
We got to the hospital about 1 or so, and they checked me and I was only about 2cm dilated, so they hooked me up to a monitor for a bit to see how the contractions were going, then had us walk the halls for a while to see if that helped things progress. We did this until around 3 or so and clearly nothing was imminent, so they sent us home. By then my mom and sister had arrived and brought Hannah home. Hannah was VERY disappointed to see us arrive home with no baby, but she got over it.
I was still having the regular, crampy contractions about every 10 minutes or so, but I was fine in between and so we hung out at home; I made potato soup and some biscuits for dinner, we played outside, had some time together, and then Jon put Hannah to bed and Zoe and I sat and watched TV. The movie Airplane was on, and in between contractions we were laughing and enjoying the movie. As it progressed, I got to the point where during contractions I didn't want anyone talking or laughing and I'd kind of put my head down and go quiet.
Finally, around the scene where the controller says "Bad news; the fog's getting thicker" and then a guy jumps in and says "And Leon's getting LARGER!!!" I started getting kind of quiet and not into the movie any more. I got up and started pacing again but the contractions seemed to be coming a bit faster, every 5 minutes or so, and I stopped talking to anyone or laughing at the movie at all. This was about 10 pm. I don't remember a whole lot of what was going on around me by this time, but Jon said my mother finally spoke up and said "Well, I don't know how to deliver a baby so maybe we need to get her to the hospital."
At this point I suppose Jon called the midwives and let them know we were heading in. I don't remember much about the drive, except that I was incredibly uncomfortable and was getting upset whenever we had to brake or shift gears (we had a stick-shift car at the time). Apparently Zoe followed us in her car and brought a couple of things. We got to the hospital and they put me in a wheelchair and that's about all I recall until getting up into the triage part of L&D. Zoe says there was a guy who looked like Jon's identical twin that helped us with the wheelchair, but I was pretty oblivious by then. The contractions were coming hard and fast and I was just hunkered down and ignoring everything else.
So in triage, they checked me and I was close to 7 cm, so they took us up to the L&D room. Jennifer was the midwife on call (I liked Cheryl better) and she got us situated quickly. We kept the room pretty dim. By this time I had my eyes mostly shut, just to keep calm and ignore everything else around me, so I have very little recollection. This would have been around 11:30 pm or so. Jennifer was great -- she set up a bar for me to hold onto and pull during the contractions, and she helped me to groan/breathe very low from deep down, which helped the pain. I hadn't had any expectations about what I would do pain-wise; I wasn't hard-core anti-meds any more but I was hoping to avoid an epidural. The regularity of the contractions, plus Jennifer's coaching and Jon's support, got me through pretty well. Finally around 2 I was fully dilated and ready to push, but exhausted. They gave me a very small hit of Stadol through the IV, which gave me a 5-minute total pain-free break, and that helped give me enough energy to start pushing.
So I pushed for about an hour, but was getting kind of wimpy and giving up easily (I had been up since around 7 a.m. and it was getting towards 3 a.m. the next day, so on top of everything else I was really tired anyway). Jennifer very nicely but very firmly sort of verbally kicked my butt and encouraged me, and I redoubled my efforts. As it turned out, there was a bubble of amniotic fluid in the sac right in front of Emily's head, so once they popped that it was much easier and she came right out, at 3:20 a.m.
She was really gorgeous. Her head hadn't gotten stuck much thanks to the fluid, so her head was nice and round. She weighed 8 lb 9 oz and I think was 20 1/2 inches. She had dark hair and brown eyes. They put her in my arms and she had her eyes closed; then she stuck out her lower lip and began bawling -- she looked really mad! I got her to latch on and start nursing and she took to it like a champ, and stayed on for a while, as they were getting the placenta out and cutting her cord. After that they took her over to the warmer and wiped her off, weighed her, etc. She threw an absolute tantrum at that -- I could hear her banging her heels on the warmer! Meanwhile, I had to go to the bathroom and was DYING of thirst, so I made my way over to the bathroom (with some help) and when I got back they gave me what I think was the single most delicious red popsicle in the world. I was so incredibly tired and thirsty and that was the best thing I had ever tasted in my life!!!
I realized that I had had my eyes closed almost the entire time I was pushing, because I didn't even recognize the nurse who had helped hold my legs. They kept the lights reasonably dim, which was nice. I looked over at one point and saw the midwife examining what I thought was a big round pizza and remember thinking, WTF, who ordered pizza and why didn't I get any? Turns out it was the placenta. What can I say -- I was exhausted.
Anyway, as was standard procedure for gestational diabetes cases at that time, they let us hold Emily for a short bit longer and then took her off to the NICU (to check her sugars, etc). I was a bit upset because I was worried that it would get nursing off to a bad start; I insisted they wheel us down there and let me have some time to try nursing again. They did, but I was so exhausted and E was too, so finally we went back up to my room and got a couple of hours' sleep. Later in the morning they brought her to my room; and in the afternoon my mom came and brought Hannah, who instantly fell in love with her baby sister.
We spent the next couple of days hanging out and working on getting nursing started -- she really did have the knack so it wasn't too bad.
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