Friday, the 19th, was when I was expecting (hoping) her to arrive. The earliest hours of that day were ushered in with contractions; she was right on time! The contractions came regularly throughout the night, but didn't disturb my sleep completely. I woke up and knew that labor was upon us, though it was early. We went about our business that day, baking bread, playing games, and making apple-cranberry pies (three of them) - the usual. We were short one of our pie plates and had to go retrieve it from our friends Rafi and Anne, who, when we stopped by, loaded us down with Anne's homemade (and all-but-bay-leaves-and-celery-local) soup and some baked local tofu that I scarfed down before we left the house. By the time we got home in the mid-afternoon, the contractions had grown stronger - still not painful, but were certainly gaining momentum. This was it.
By midnight they'd become painful. I knew the worst was still to come, but it was time to alert the midwives for sure. I called them and described for them my symptoms. They decided it was best to report for duty, and arrived around 2:30 am Saturday. Amy, our wonderful doula, was also present. All of them coached me through the contractions, and I was given a homeopathic remedy - I believe it was called Caulophylum - to help regulate the contractions and make them more bearable so that I'd be able to get a little sleep. Rob had been napping through some of this, and I retired to the bedroom to join him. The others waited outside and monitored my reactions to the contractions and I was able to get a little bit more rest.
I woke at 6:20, after about an hour and a half of decent sleep. Pam and Suzanne were awake and watching the beautiful sunrise. They seemed pleased with how my contractions had subsided, but I was discouraged; weren't they supposed to be getting worse? Amy emerged from Zoe's room where she'd been sleeping, and the three of them agreed to go, to let me rest for the day until things picked up again. They predicted that they'd be back again later that evening. So back to bed I went, and napped till nearly noon. Rob and I got up and spent a leisurely day, taking only a short walk because the pressure on my bladder made that activity difficult. Amy had wanted to come over later to go for a walk, but I wasn't up for the task. She did, however, come over that evening at 8 to learn to play Spite and Malice, one of our favorite card games. We sat around till 11, playing, talking, eating popcorn, and timing my contractions. We went to bed, though sleep never came for me that night.
I suffered through intense contractions as long as I could bear them. I'd been timing them all night, sleeping with a notepad, pen, and digital timer Amy had loaned us. Rob woke up around 2:45 to take over as timekeeper so I could focus on the contractions. One lasted fourteen minutes. I was reluctant to call Amy or the midwives at an ungodly hour, so I waited it out until 5 am. I gave Suzanne a call, and she prescribed a combination of homeopathic remedies, which I took. She called Pam for other options, and called back telling me to spend thirty minutes on my hands and knees with my left knee bent and hips moving, to let the baby shift more to the front, as she seemed to still be positioned with her back to my left side. The second instruction was to take an hour-long walk. I didn't think I could manage a 5 minute walk at that point, but who was I to do anything but follow their suggestions? Rob read to me while I leaned on my yoga ball with my left leg bent. It felt much better, though was tiresome to maintain for a half hour. We then bundled up to trudge through town in the early morning snow. Contrary to how I'd felt when we started off, we walked for 58 minutes - close enough. I was nearly falling asleep as we walked, leaning on Rob to navigate us while I closed my eyes. The moment we walked back in our front door my water broke. It wasn't a lot of fluid, but enough to know what had happened.
The birthing team reported for duty at noon on that Sunday. Contractions - one of which lasted a full twenty minutes at its peak - aside, it was a very pleasant day. Amy and I taught Pam and Suzanne how to play Spite and Malice, which was slow-going, as every go-round was interrupted by a contraction. Our friend Anne stopped by with a pot of green curry, none of which I could eat because the anxiety. Rob got to rest for much of this, thank goodness; I wanted for at least one of us to be getting some sleep.
The hours passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was past midnight. The contractions, by this time, were mind-numbing. They'd brought me to tears many times, and I thought I was going crazy. All I wanted to do was get in the full, hot tub that was waiting for me. They suggested I get in the shower, and Amy put my yoga ball in the tub so I could sit on it. It was a great idea - I think I may use the ball every time I shower now, it was so relaxing.
Soon, though, Suzanne began to worry. My contractions still had not established a pattern, which was unusual. I did not want to hear that anything about my labor was abnormal. We did not yet know how dilated I was, but we wanted to check; if I was at five centimeters, it would be a good sign that labor was progressing. If, however, I was only at two centimeters, going to the hospital would probably be necessary. If I'd been told this the day before, I think I may have panicked; one of my biggest fears throughout my pregnancy was having things go awry and needing to go to the hospital. When she said it then, though, I felt a sense of relief. I'd been about to request to go, myself, but wanted to keep being strong and let it happen the way we'd all planned. Suzanne examined me and, sure enough, I was only two centimeters dilated. She was discouraged, too, because what she thought had been the baby's head was not necessarily so; she wasn't certain that she wasn't in a breech position. We needed to go to the hospital.
I went and took another shower and woke up Rob, who seemed very confused about the turn of events. I was glad to be on our way to other options, and felt safe because everyone would still be there with me. Fortunately, too, it wasn't a state of emergency, so I was able to go to the hosptial of my choice - Downeast Community Hospital - rather than Calais, where they'd taken me two years ago when I had a car accident. I'd told the nurse that I hit my head, and nary a glance at my scalp was taken. Weeks later, I was picking splinters of glass out of my head. Needless to say, my confidence in their staff was severely compromised. Still, my doctor and friend, Kara Dwight, was not on call that night, as she and her family had just returned from their February break vacation. Her partner in obstetrics, Christian Inegbeniji, would be my doctor, which would do well enough.
Our motorcade made the hour-long drive safely down Route 1 in the heavy snow that had held off until that night. Rob, Pammy, and I led the train, with Suzanne behind us, and Amy bringing up the rear in her brown Caravan. We arrived at the hosptial at 4:30 am and we got set up in our room, which was spacious and comfortable. We were also the only patients in the maternity ward. Inegbeniji arrived at 9 - a long time to wait for the doctor, but I also found that, in this process of labor, time speeds along, rather than drags. Other nurses were attending to me, taking my vitals regularly. I was hooked up to an IV, wearing a blue hospital johnny (which, among all of the other linens there, Rob and I noticed, were made in Pakistan), and shuffling to and from the bathroom dragging along my IV tower while trying to keep the back of my gown from flying open.
He re-broke my water, found that I was three centimeters dilated, and an anesthesiologist came in to give me an intrathecal injection, which numbed me sort of the way an epidural works. I had to remain very still, even if a contraction came on, bent over Rob. Kind of nerve-wracking business. The anesthesia would last up to four hours, and when that was up, she returned to deliver another dose. It worked marvelously for alleviating the contractions; when they'd come I could only feel a slight bit of pressure, but no discomfort whatsoever. Occasionally I'd have to depend on the machine to which I was hooked up to tell me when I was having one, so slight were the feelings. Soon, though, I was indroduced to another anesthesiologist, Carl, who came in to recommend that I opt for an epidural, which Rob and I were both firmly against initially. The new talk of my requiring a cesarian section, however, was making an epidural sound more desirable. He informed us of the pros and cons of using both intrathecal and epidural anesthesia, and it was seeming like the epidural may be our best option. If a c-section needed to be done, I'd be ready for it. Carl seemed very experienced and we were confident in his ability to give me the best possible treatment. In the end I was glad of the choice we made.
Pammy and Suzanne peeking in on Rob and Olive in the nursery.
Amy, delighted with the sight.Just before Carl came in to give me the epidural, I'd gotten up to use the bathroom. When I was coming back I felt nauseated and lightheaded. The midwives told me that that was a good sign, that things were progressing. I threw up four times into a basin; there wasn't much, as I'd eaten only a few dried apricots that day. After that, Rob got on the phone with the local pizza place to order a few pies for our birthing crew; they'd been at it with me for over twenty-four hours by that time and deserved a treat. Amy went to pick it up and, just after she came back with it and the four of them were digging in, Inegbeniji came in to check on things and my dilation: only five centimeters. Very little progress was being made, and he declared a c-section. I wept.
It was the one thing about which I knew nothing. Not that I needed to physically prepare myself for the operation like I did the labor, but emotionally it was unexpected. Part of me was relieved to be doing it this way, without more pain, but another part was fighting it; it was the opposite of how I'd envisioned my birth. Not too much had gone as planned, except for my midwives, Amy, and wonderful husband getting to be with me through all of it. They then wheeled me in my bed to the Operating Room, with Carl behind me and Rob, in his white jumpsuit, puffy bag slippers and blue shower cap, following. He was the only one in our party permitted to stay with me during the surgery, which was fine. They lifted me from my bed to the table, and Carl commenced testing the effectiveness of the anesthetic. With what looked to be a 6-inch-long toothpick, he began making short little hatch-like scratches up the front of me until I could feel them. It was working marvelously. Eight days later, I still have scabs from the scratches - little railroad tracks winding their way up my torso. Inegbeniji rolled down a blue curtain just below my chin to shield me from the operation while Rob sat beside me. Just as I could feel them getting to work on the cutting, I told Rob that I wanted to give Olive a second middle name. We'd decided on her first name long ago, then liked Marigold for a middle name, but I'd been thinking a lot of Gi-Gi, my great-grandmother, a lot during the labor, and was referencing her quite a bit, to the point where the midwives were getting to know about her vicariously through me. I wanted to put Gi-Gi's first name, Alice, in our daughter's name, and he agreed. Soon after, we could hear her first cries - small and pretty and almost unbelievble. "That's our daughter," I said to him, in awe. Rob was told that he could come around and see her and cut the umbilical cord. I don't think he'd been too keen on the idea for the most part, but when it came time, he was there for it. He brought her over to me wrapped in a blanket so I could see her and feel her face against mine (my arms were strapped down to tables on either side of me) before taking her off to the nursery. He later said that she was the hardiest baby he'd every seen. Her Apgar scores were 9 and 10, so I was beyond thrilled.
I was so happy.Rob, Olive, and I spent the next three days at the hospital to allow me to recover enough to get myself out of bed more or less comfortably, and really wasn't too bad. The staff treated us very well, and doted on our precious baby.
A big-lipped waif of a man once said, "You can't always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you might find you get what you need." And Olive was just what we needed.
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