Happy Birthday Alaina! (labor and delivery from Amy's POV)

One of the drawbacks of having a smooth pregnancy is the fact that I had no idea when Alaina was going to decide to make her appearance. There is plenty of controversy these days about people who schedule C-sections or even just inductions to fit their own schedules or desires instead of letting nature take its course. And then, of course, there are plenty of people who schedule their babies' birthdays because of medical issues. Personally, I always wanted to wait until Alaina--and my body--were ready, even if it meant going well past my "due date" (which is really just a "guess date," btw). Not knowing when our baby was going to arrive started to take its toll on us, though. Personally, I was getting more uncomfortable and just overall frustrated with my body, but I didn't know that I was really ready to move into the next stage. Philip, on the other hand, had been telling Alaina for weeks that he was ready to meet her and couldn't wait to see what she looked like. For two people who are not particularly good at planning and who like to get what they want when they want it, waiting for Alaina to come was a challenge.

Our last picture as a family of two

All along Philip seemed sure that Alaina would come early. I think this was reinforced by the fact that everyone we knew who was due to have a baby before us had their baby early (including his cousin, who's wife was actually due on 1/15, the same day as I was). The medical community considers babies to be "full term" at 37 weeks, so once we hit that magical number, it seemed like we needed to be ready to go at any time. I think that's around the time when we finally got serious about packing our bags for the hospital. We made plans for Christmas, New Year's Eve, and beyond, but we made sure to tell everyone that we might or might not actually make it. The last "formal" event that we had to go to was our friend Kathleen's surprise birthday party on January 7th. Philip and I had a frustrated conversation on the way to the party because he was stressed over not knowing when labor might start and just generally tired of waiting. Somehow, I was feeling pretty patient about the whole thing and didn't want to rush things. I was enjoying the time that we had been spending alone together, making plans and preparations and just generally enjoying the fact that we didn't have to go to work knowing that we probably wouldn't have so much free time together again until we retire.

In any case, Philip didn't have to wait for long for the fun to start. At around 1:30 a.m. on 1/8, I woke up because I felt a strange sensation. I had a suspicion that my water had broken, but wasn't sure because I didn't experience that dramatic flood that everyone expects. I stayed still until I felt it again, and then I got up to investigate. A few minutes later, I stood looking at my sleeping husband thinking, "here's the moment you've been waiting for..." I shook him awake and told him the news. His reaction? Lots of shock as his brain tried to process what I was telling him (he doesn't always register conversations he has when he's half asleep....who does?) followed by lots of questions about what we should do. The medical community seems to be split on what a woman should do when her water breaks--in several directions, in fact. Most of the paperwork I got from the doctor and the hospital said that I should head to the hospital as soon as my water broke. Other sources I'd read said that there's a 24 hour window between when the water breaks and when infections can set in, and that if labor doesn't start on its own within that window, a trip to the hospital is in order. Still other sources claimed that for most normal (i.e. responsible, clean) people, infection is more often that not introduced by all the checks they start doing when you get to the hospital, not by sitting at home patiently waiting for nature to get started, and that woman can go for days after their water has broken because the body keeps producing fluid the whole time. Knowing all of these things and hoping to labor at home for as long as possible, I chose not to panic and race to the hospital. Instead, we texted Nancy, our doula, to let her know what was going on. I went back to sleep (no surprise to anyone who knows me), and nervous Philip got up and started cleaning the house (apparently he felt more like nesting than I did).

Sunday passed without much of interest happening. We tried several things to get labor to start--taking long walks, cleaning the house, etc.--but nothing worked. All day I had the kind of "squeezy" Braxton Hicks contractions that I'd been having for months, but they didn't get any stronger or change much at all. All day Philip kept his eye on me for any signs of a change while also keeping Nancy informed about what was (not) happening. Nancy came over around 7 so we could talk about what we should do. She used our kitchen to make cookies for the nurses in L&D, and fed us dinner while we discussed the options. I think Nancy and Philip wanted to go to the hospital within the 24 hour window, but knowing that that would likely mean going to the hospital in the middle of the night, I voted for waiting until morning. My reasoning? I wanted to get some sleep, of course! (knowing that I was probably facing a challenging day ahead) I think I managed to convince both of them to wait a few extra hours until Nancy checked in with a midwife she knows who, after hearing that my Group B Strep test was positive, suggested that we should get to the hospital sooner than later. (For those who don't know, Group B Strep is a bacteria that many people carry without knowing it. It's one of those things that came come and go, so you might test positive for it this month and negative several months later. They test pregnant women for it because babies can get seriously ill if they get it. The solution is to give the mother IV antibiotics during labor so the baby doesn't get sick.) After hearing the advice from the midwife, we decided to try to take a short nap and to head to the hospital around 2 a.m. That conversation upset me because it was starting to sound like deciding to wait 24 hours in the first place was the wrong decision, and I felt like the safety of my baby was out of my hands. I guess that was my first true taste of the helplessness that comes with being a parent sometimes.

At 2 a.m., we packed up the car and headed to the hospital. Uncle Boots had come over to take care of Chloe (and had an interesting run-in with the baby gate at the top of our stairs in the process....one that left him looking like he'd gotten into a bar fight), so we said our good-byes to them and left. As Philip pointed out, it was kind of nice driving calmly to the hospital in the middle of the night with no traffic and no worries. But it was also pretty surreal knowing that our lives were about to change.

On that ride to the hospital, I had myself partially convinced that maybe my water hadn't broken after all. Some women have a hard time knowing whether their water actually broke, or whether they are experiencing a leaky bladder. Given the fact that I hadn't really had an overactive bladder during my whole pregnancy, nor did I ever leak at all when I laughed or coughed, I couldn't imagine that I could get to 39 weeks and then suddenly start leaking that much. But if my water hadn't broken, that would mean that I still had time to get used to the idea of being a mom (as if 9 months wasn't enough time). So part of me had some doubt about what was going on. However, when they checked me at the hospital, there was no doubt that my water had, indeed, broken, and that I was likely going to be having a baby that day (assuming labor didn't take longer than 19 hours).

Because my labor didn't start on it's own, the doctors decided to start me on pitocin to induce me into labor. Using pitocin was never part of my plan because it's an artificial means of starting labor and also because the going wisdom is that contractions caused by pitocin are stronger and more difficult than "natural" contractions. However, part of my plan was to accept whatever needed to happen, so I didn't stress about it too much. After all, pitocin-induced contractions might be harder than natural ones, but I'd never had a natural one, so how would I know the difference?

Anyone who knows me should know that one thing I had been stressing about was the need to get an IV. Hospital policy requires all maternity patients to get a hep lock so they'll have an open IV line in the case of an emergency. I had been trying to figure out a way out of that before I found out about the Strep B, but that little twist meant that I'd need to get a few doses of IV antibiotics during labor anyhow, so there was no longer any possible way out. Adding pitocin to the mix complicated matters even more. Getting antibiotics meant that I'd be hooked up to an IV for about 20 minutes every 4 hours or so. But having pitocin meant that I'd have to be hooked up through my whole labor. When I asked the nurse how that would restrict my ability to move around, she pointed to an area of about 3 square feet and said I'd be able to move around there and in the bed. I could also walk to the bathroom and back (toting my IV pole the whole way....weeeee). But of course the worst part was just getting the IV in place. I guess you could say I have a fear of needles, but I don't know if that's exactly accurate. I know needles don't hurt that much, and that practically no one has died from having a blood test or getting an IV, but some part of my brain believes that those types of activities are the most dangerous ones imaginable. So I shake (uncontrollably), and I sweat, and I get lightheaded. And this can last for quite a while after my run-in with a needle. It's just a bad scene. I explained all of this to the nurse who was waiting to stick me, and I have to give her credit. She spent a lot of time examining my left arm and hand, looking for a decent vein. She finally decided to try working with one in the back of my hand, but warned me that there was a chance that she would "hit a valve." Let me tell you, this is not the kind of thing that anyone should be discussing with a person who is afraid of the procedure. Further more, you should then try to avoid going ahead and hitting a valve, thereby turning the patient's hand into a bloody geyser, which is what happened to me. Luckily, I wasn't watching, but I could feel my hand getting all wet and hear that something wasn't going quite right. After slowing the bleeding and bandaging my hand, said nurse was off to find someone else to try again. Boo. The second nurse to come in and try was also very kind. She offered a shot of lidocaine (i think) to numb my arm, but since that was still going to be a shot, it didn't seem all that appealing to me. Instead, she called down to the ER and asked them to send us some numbing cream to see if that would help. Turns out it didn't help much with the discomfort, but her kindness and patience with me made the process at least a little better.

So after being hooked up to 3 different IV drips (through the same tube, thankfully) and 2 different external monitors (one for contractions and one for Alaina's heartbeat), it was time to get the party started. Philip and Nancy decided to try to get some rest before the hard work started, and suggested that I do the same. I think we all got about 15 minutes or so of "rest" before I had my first contraction. That first one really freaked me out. It hurt! I remember calling for Philip and Nancy, hoping that they would convince me that everything was all right. It was at that point that I shut my eyes and got to work. I hardly opened them again for about 11 hours.

There are lots of things I can say about my labor experience, but I'm not sure how much people will want to read about the down and dirty parts. One thing I can say is that no matter what you do to prepare for labor, I don't think anything can truly prepare you for the experience until you get there. Instead of taking childbirth classes, I opted to get a home study course called Hypnobabies, which taught me how to use "self-hypnosis" to relax and focus. The course included a bunch of hypnosis tracks that I listened to (and fell asleep to most of the time) leading up to my due date, and that I was also supposed to listen to to keep me focused during labor. As it turned out, I had no interest in listening to anything. However, I do think the techniques I learned helped me through. Another way I prepared for labor was to gather a supply of Sport Beans, Honey Stinger Waffles, drink mixes, and so on, to keep me going. I knew that the hospital staff would frown on me eating anything (and it turned out that they didn't even want me to drink anything), but knowing that labor could technically take days...I approached it like I would any other endurance sport. But as with the Hypnobabies stuff, I really had no desire to eat or drink much of anything (after the initial grape popsicles that got me through the first few difficult parts). This resulted in me having the most horrible taste in my mouth after hours of serious breathing (and apparently a ring of purple around my lips from the popsicles).

I can't sugarcoat it though, labor was HARD. Contractions HURT. And being hooked up to a bunch of machines made things just that much worse. There are lots of things about labor that I definitely didn't read in any book or on any blog, so I wasn't quite prepared for what was happening there. Modesty definitely went out the window that day, and all I could do was concentrate on getting through it. I am so grateful that we decided to hire a doula to help us through the whole thing, and we are both so lucky that Nancy was able to work with us. Without Nancy, I'm afraid both of us would have been lost. She took away a lot of our stress and helped us to be comfortable with the whole process of preparing for labor and working through it, and we couldn't have had the experience we did without her help.

In the beginning of labor, I was lucky to be able to use a TENS unit on my back to distract my body from the pain (thank you Christopher), and that helped a lot (although it also added lots more wires). I also quickly found that the most comfortable position for me during contractions was on my hands and knees. Don't ask me how I figured that one out, but once I did, I was afraid to try any other way. In fact, I spent so long in that position that my arms and legs felt like they were going to fall off. And I'm pretty sure that's the reason that two weeks later I still don't have feeling in several of my finger tips.

For the first few hours of labor, I remember fighting through the contractions on my hands and knees and lying down in between. While I was lying down, I somehow managed to drift off into oblivion...almost a dream state. I think that had a lot to do with my Hypnobabies training, so I think that did actually pay off. Eventually, contractions got harder and the TENS unit started to annoy me more than it helped. At some point, Nancy brought out one of her secret weapons. Although I never actually saw it, I think it may have been tennis balls in a sock. Or something completely different. Whatever it was, I wouldn't blame her for regretting that decision because it resulted in she and Philip taking turns rolling that over my back for the next however many hours and I yelled "lower," "higher," "harder," and Philip's personal favorite "stop being distracted!" As the contractions got harder and closer together, I spent more time on my hands and knees and less time lying down. It got to the point where it seemed like too much effort to move that much, so I just stayed up. Many times during this process the nurses checked my "progress," and slowly but surely I got closer to holding Alaina for the first time.

I guess now is the time to note that throughout the whole process I never had any pain medication. Given my already rocky relationship with needles, it should be obvious that I wouldn't be too excited about having one inserted into my spine for an epidural. However, when I'd thought about epidurals before, I figured that there certainly could be a point where the pain of labor was bad enough that I would suck it up and deal with the needle to get relief from the pain. So I never said that I would never get an epidural, it just wasn't part of my conscious plan for labor. Nancy helped us write our "birth plan" with our desires for how labor and delivery would go, and I specifically asked that no one offer me pain meds. And no since no one did, I kept focused on the task at hand and pushed through (quite literally at the end there) until it was over.

So after all of that detail about labor, I'm not really sure what to say about delivery. For one thing, it was kind of like what you see on TV. There was pushing, and people counting, and a doctor in his special doctor garb waiting to catch the baby. I did end up lying on the bed, which wasn't exactly how I wanted that to go, but I was so weak and ready to be done by that point that I didn't care about much of anything. Including when the doctor announced that I'd be better off with an episiotomy instead of a potentially nasty tear. I have no idea how long I pushed (my eyes were still closed at that point), but I do know that after the talk of the episiotomy, Philip had to sit down to avoid passing out on the floor (which was somewhat surprising given all that he'd already witnessed from me that day). In any case, after 11+ hours of labor and who knows how much pushing, Alaina Catherine Kanjuka entered the world at 5:21 p.m. on January 9th, 2012 weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces and measuring 17.5 inches long.