The Birth Story

I really need to write the Alice's birth story before I forget!

Disclaimer: Even though I'm actually editing some parts of this story for the internet, I'm sure this will still be too much information for some people (e.g. Jeff, Dad), so go ahead and skip this post if you want.

So, nothing really happened the entire day after my midwife appt. on Thursday, April 3rd. Until the evening. I started feeling some painless contractions around dinner time. I just had the sensation of my belly getting harder but I couldn't really tell if it was all in my head or not. I tried to go to sleep that night but couldn't. Around 11:30p I started having contractions that were painful enough to keep me awake but not enough to get out of bed. I think around 12p I finally told Tom that I couldn't sleep and that he should try to sleep on the futon downstairs.

I'm a little fuzzy on the timeline but I think from 12pm until 3:45am I was having moderately painful contractions around 8-10 minutes apart. I knew that I needed to wait until contractions were hard, painful, impossible to talk through and were about 5 minutes apart for one hour. So, I spent most of the night laboring on the toilet waiting for that to happen. I guess that sounds gross, but it's really the most comfortable place to get through a contraction.

The contractions I had were very different than the ones I had with Lucius. They definitely weren't as painful so I never really entered "labor land", as they call it. I didn't get that contraction wave and cramping sensation. They didn't last as long either. I really thought that I was just gearing up for the real deal to happen.

Around 3:30am I was getting tired of sitting on the toilet so I thought I'd get back into bed. That's when I had one mother of a contraction and ran back to the bathroom. At that point I started to have the "bloody show" (ok, that's gross, I know). But more importantly, contractions started coming right after the other. I would guess they were about 1 minute apart. They still weren't as bad as they were with Lucius but definitely something that I had to moan through. I thought that the timing was just a fluke until the contractions really weren't stopping. I started to get a little nervous because the midwife specifically said not to wait until contractions were 2 minutes apart. Well, they were never 5 minutes apart! I kind of skipped that whole period.

During one of my minute breaks I managed to get downstairs and tell Tom that we should think about going to the hospital. Around 3:45am I posted to the blog about having contractions all night. I still didn't think that anything would happen for quite awhile though. I just wanted to get to the hospital and checked out. Plus, since I was GBS positive I was supposed to be laboring at the hospital for at least 4 hours so I could get my two doses of antibiotics.

Tom started packing up the car and making some phone calls. We had planned to call some friends to take care of Lucius, but unfortunately I'm dumb and never got their landline number and they obviously didn't hear their cell phones ring at 4am. At this point I had managed to move to the downstairs bathroom and contractions were getting pretty serious. I had the brief thought that this could be transition. But how could it have gone so quickly?

Tom had talked to the midwife and she said to come in (of course). I was ready to just bring Lucius with us when Tom asked if I remembered our neighbor's number. Just to back up, since we moved here late July we really haven't had a chance to get to know our neighbors. On Tuesday or Wednesday before the birth we were walking outside and happened to talk with our neighbors across the street. She yelled out her phone number in case we needed help with Lucius. I truly didn't think we'd be calling her, but when I got inside I wrote down what I thought was her number on a sheet of paper on the fridge. So, fast forward to ~4:30am Friday...Tom asked if I still had her number and I said I think it's written on the fridge. 5 minutes later Tom said that the neighbor was taking Lucius and he was going to walk him over there. Keep in mind, Lucius barely knows these people and has never been to their house. He was woken up at 4 in the morning, told he's going to strange neighbors' house, and was walked over there in the cold and raining dark. I was still on the toilet and really didn't have time to worry about Ol' Lu.

Tom finally got back...I had a few more contractions before I could quickly get into the car and we were off to the hospital. I had about 2 or 3 contractions on the way to the hospital...it's only a 7 minute drive. I had to hold onto the roof to get through them, but I was aware enough to tell Tom not to speed.

We got to the emergency room around 5am (???). Of course as soon as I stood up to get out of the car I had a contraction. It seemed like walking made me have contractions. As I was getting through it (while hanging onto a cement structure) I noticed that the delivery guys were watching me. I'm sure it was an interesting sight to see. Some guy came out of the ER with a wheel chair for me. Um, are you kidding me? There's no way I'm riding in a wheel chair to L&D while contracting. I just shook my head no and started to quickly walk to admissions. Yes, admissions. Tom had to answer some questions for me while I was contracting in the hallway. I finally made it to Tom when the woman was giving us directions to L&D. Go down that hallway, take your first right, then a left into the elevators, up to the 2nd floor, yada yada yada. Are you kidding me? Can't they design a hospital where the L&D has their own entrance from the street?? And the fact that I had to depend on Tom to remember these directions and get us their was even scarier. So, from the time we got to the ER until we actually got to my L&D room I had at least another 4 contractions.

During the next 1/2 hour things moved quickly. I changed into a gown (in between contractions) and the nurse started prepping me for my IV for my antibiotics. Diane (the midwife) came in to check me and said that I was 8cm dilated. In between contractions they got the IV started with my first dose of antibiotics and then preceded to ask me all of these health related questions. For the love of god people. This is why most hospitals have you pre-register. I'm guessing they don't deal with women that are in active labor without pain meds very often. They asked if I wanted an epidural or other drugs but even if I had said yes I doubt they could've gotten the anethesiologist there in time. Oh, I also had to sign some consent forms. Tom, bless his heart, kept asking "do you really have to do this now?". I had them put the pen in my hand and I signed some stuff in between contractions. Who knows what I signed.

I labored in the bed and on the toilet for about 1.5 hours while all of this was going on. Diane and the other nurses waited outside of the room and periodically came in to ask if I needed to push. They were nervous that I would give birth on the toilet ;)


My water broke as I was getting back into the bed and it had meconium in it. That's not a pretty sight. That meant that I couldn't hold Alice immediately after birth. Instead they had to call for a pediatrician to be present so her airways could be suctioned out. After my water broke (around 6:45am) I asked Diane to check me again and she said I was fully dilated and that I should try to start pushing. So, push I did. I ended up pushing for 45 minutes due to some issues I won't go into here ;) I wasn't standing; however, I was laying on my right side holding my left knee up to my chest. It was interesting because I could actually see her head coming out...something I did not want to do with Lucius. It made me push more and more, even between contractions, because I could actually see the immediate results. At some point I asked what time it was because I was starving and really hoped that I could push her out before breakfast. That was my goal.

At some point I noticed that Tom was standing to the right of me with the video camera. He surely was not videotaping the birth, right? I had asked him to take a couple of pictures during labor...just some shots inbetween contractions. He somehow took that to mean "video tape the full on birth". I'm pretty sure that will be locked away in a vault. I'm not sure that I'll ever watch it.

Anyway, I knew that I was getting close because about 4 more people entered the room, Diane got in some major scrubs get up, bright lights were shining and everyone was just watching me. So, I just kept pushing and didn't stop. Little Alice's head came out and Diane quickly suctioned her out. And then I was waiting for the rest to just slip out like it did with Lucius. Well, that didn't happen. I remember Diane tugging on her to get her out. I wasn't sure if I should still be pushing or not. I just know that getting her shoulders out didn't feel so good. She finally came out and I immediately looked down to see that she was, in fact, a she! I was really nervous this whole pregnancy that the ultrasound tech had gotten it wrong.

Off Alice went to the special table across the room where the nurses and pedi. suctioned her out more. She gave a couple of little cries and Tom got to cut the cord. Alice was fine. I got to hold her about a 1/2 hour later where she immediately nursed for 10 minutes. They took her to the nursery to get weighed, measured, etc...and I got my breakfast! Coffee, juice, french toast, bacon, and some other things. I was real excited about the coffee.

Around 8am Tom went back to the neighbors to pick up Lucius. They couldn't believe that I had already given birth. Tom and Lu ate breakfast at home and put up the "It's a girl" decorations and then made their way back to the hospital. Lucius did really well at the neighbor's. He actually went back to sleep there! I can never thank them enough.

We all reconvened in the postpartum room where our friends (the ones who we had originally called at 4am) found us. They couldn't get a hold of us on our cells so they came straight to the hospital to see if we needed them to take Lucius. Well, I had already had little Alice at that point but they were oh so helpful in taking care of Lucius that entire day. Thanks again Bonnie and DJ!

I think that's about it. I may add/subtract to this if I ever make another read through. No time now though.