Birth weight- 9lbs 3oz
Birth length- 20 inches
Apgars- 8/9

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 I had my 40 week appointment at 9:15am. I was 3-4cm dilated and 80% effaced (I found out the effacement later) according to Kim Storey the midwife. It was a painful exam. She didn’t think I’d make it to the weekend. She said she could send me over to the hospital to have my water broken if I wanted but I declined and went home grumpy. Tuesday our air conditioning had gone out and we had someone come out to look at it and we did a temporary fix. We hoped it would hold for at least a month but after our appointment on Wednesday our air started to get too hot again and we had to call the guy back and arrange to have our HVAC unit replaced on Friday.

Thursday, July 26th, 2007 So on Thursday it was just getting hotter and hotter and I was thinking about going to the grocery to find cool foods to eat for dinners when I had to go to the bathroom. I wiped and noticed quite a big glob of greenish looking mucous, more than I’d ever had before. I told Brian I thought I was losing my plug. This was around 2pm. By 3pm I had decided to go up to my mom’s with the kids because I was having contractions 10-15 minutes apart and it was just too hot. Brian stayed at home to finish his work for the day. I was already exhausted and fighting off a headache. I’d been up hourly the night before to use the restroom and with the windows open and the rain we’d had, I was dealing with a sinus headache. The contractions felt like menstrual cramps with some tightening so I knew these were more of the real ones. At 4:30pm I called Brian and told him I thought he should come to my mom’s house. I was still losing my plug and the contractions were still coming. I was going to call Margaret in a bit and see what she thought. He finished up work and set out for my mom’s. At 5pm another big glob of mucous came out, this time it was orangey in color. I decided to call Margaret and let her know. She agreed that I was probably in beginning labor and said to come in at my leisure. Brian got to my mom’s around 6pm and we said good-bye to the kids. Traffic was really bad on the way up and we talked about how we were glad I wasn’t in active labor. Contractions were slowing down a bit and I felt maybe we were wasting everyone’s time. But I figured they could break my water and we’d be going anyway so it was probably going to work out. We got to the hospital at 7:25pm. There were no rooms available. L&D was jam packed. There was a woman using the birthing tub and when we told them we were there for a water birth they said they’d get her moved. They suggested we walk around so we made many, many rounds of the hospital. While walking my contractions would come every 3-5 minutes but if I sat down they would stop completely. I was still thinking we were wasting everyone’s time and now I knew L&D was full so they didn’t need me there but we stayed to see what would happen. We walked until 9:22 and got into the room. By this time the contractions were getting painful and I was sporting a really bad headache. I was having a hard time dealing with both at the same time. Margaret and Robin (midwife in training) showed up sometime around here and I got hooked up to check on Stella at 9:55pm. She sounded really great but the monitor wasn’t picking up my contractions at all. I don’t know how often they were coming, they had slowed down a little bit but they were more painful. Margaret checked me at 10:45pm and I was 4cm and 80% effaced. So basically I’d made very little progress and I was already in more pain, sooner than with either of my other two labors. I ended up just lying on the bed hoping my headache would go away and trying to relax through contractions. Brian was napping but I couldn’t sleep. I got up to use the bathroom at 1:05am Friday, July 27th, 2007 and noticed blood in the mucous this time. I thought “Yay!” I’m finally making some progress! The nurse came in to check me at 1:40am and I was 6cm but she could stretch me to 8 she said. By this time though I was seriously beginning to doubt I could do this anymore. I was so tired from not getting much sleep the night before and having a full day. My evening had been full of contractions that were surprisingly strong but doing very little. They weren’t getting closer together if I was lying down but walking was hard to do with the headache making me dizzy and being so tired. So at 2am I decided I needed to change my plan and I opted for an epidural. I was disappointed and so was Brian but I couldn’t stop thinking about how badly something needed to stop hurting and since nothing was working on my head, I decided to kill the contractions pain. I got an IV at 2:13am and we gave up the water birthing room at 2:30. Turns out there was someone else who could use the room so I hope she got her water birth. We moved over just one room to LDR5. They filled me with fluids and at 3:00am the epidural was put in by a lovely Irish doctor. It was kicking in shortly afterwards but only on the right side, which was nice but the left side still felt everything. I wondered if I was going to have half a natural birth. The nurse assured me the epidural would catch up but I was skeptical after about an hour. Finally it made it most of the way across but I still felt everything on the very left side of my body. It wasn’t so painful that I couldn’t deal with it but it made sleeping pretty hard, which is what I was supposed to be doing so my headache would go away. My contractions had all but stopped again, or at least that’s what their monitors said even though I could feel them. So they started Pitocin at 3:56am to get me going. Remember L&D is full and more women are coming in and even the recovery rooms were jam packed. There was only one bed left at all. So they needed someone to give birth and since I wasn’t feeling pain, they could get me going faster. Only Stella had no intention of moving faster at all. They checked me and I was completely effaced but only 8cm. I stayed at 8cm until around 6am. At 4:25am they upped the Pitocin from 2ml to 4ml. And at 4:50 they upped me to 6ml. Finally they decided to break my water since I wasn’t moving along at all. It was 5:17am. Finally my headache began to recede and I kept feeling pressure but every time I made the nurse check me, I was still not at 10. It was so frustrating because I wanted to be done and be pushing and doing something instead of just laying there. Brian was bored and I was bored. After she had broken my water, Margaret told me to lay on my left side to get Stella to move because she was facing my left and she wasn’t moving down into position. Well that finally made the epidural kick in all the way and I didn’t feel contractions anymore but I felt all the pressure. They told me not to push though because I would just swell my cervix if I wasn’t dilated fully. So I lay there feeling exhausted and bored while Brian snored. Margaret came in at 7am and asked how I was doing. I said I felt pressure but it didn’t seem that anything much had changed. She checked me and I was nearly there. She said I should push with the next contraction and see if I could get past the lip and I did! I yelled over to Brian to wake up as we were finally going to get this thing done! They moved the mirror over so I could watch, something I’d never had the courage to do before and Margaret said to push on my next contraction. I had her crowned with that one. I couldn’t believe how much hair I saw! This little girl was born with a decent head of hair and the cutest Mohawk. I gave a couple more pushes with my eyes shut (I forgot to be watching) and when I opened them her head was out and she was being suctioned. It was amazing to see. I felt the burning but Margaret said I did not tear. I pushed again but couldn’t get her body out. I gave another push and a half at 7:10am and she slid out but the cord was wrapped all around her and she wasn’t doing all that well in breathing just yet. Margaret had Brian quickly cut the cord and she was taken to be suctioned. She was crying though. I did have a 2nd degree tear in the perineum when her shoulders came out though. A few minutes later I delivered the placenta but we didn’t record the time. Margaret stitched me up while they tended to Stella. They brought her over to me but she was grunting and had gunk coming out of her still so they took her back and suctioned her some more. Her apgars were 8 and 9. She was eventually all cleared out and I was sown up and we began nursing. The epidural was cut off and they got the entire bag of pitocin in me to help with getting the rest of the big clots out, which it did. They took Stella to be weighed and measured and she was 9lbs 3oz and 20 inches long! My biggest baby! I got up to use the restroom and was a bit shaky on my feet but not too bad. After that we were wheeled into the only bed left in the ward. We did get moved to a private room that evening. At discharge Stella was 9lbs 1oz and perfectly healthy! She looks very much like Nick as a newborn but has a lot of the same mannerisms as Elly. She likes to keep her hands up near her head and a couple of times she grabbed a fist full of hair and then began screaming because she wouldn’t let go and it hurts!

So now 7 weeks after her birth I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on her birth. In some ways it was much easier. I wasn’t afraid of the pushing stage, I felt like I was in control. Since it was a much slower pace I had time to pay attention to the whole process and memorize it. Boring as it may have been, it was quite peaceful. That being said, I still wish I could have done another water birth. I wish my head had not hurt and I wish I had been braver. I couldn’t overcome my fears of being out of control in Elly’s birth though. My head was full of thoughts of my Jennifer and Ronnie and all the other things I couldn’t fix and I just wanted to be out of pain. There were no lasting effects from the medications though. I did not have a migraine for days like after Nick’s birth. I guess the worst part is the hospital bill but it’s a small price to pay for a beautiful and perfect new life.