Actually, not so far at all . . .

It was nearly a month after Greta was born that I updated with her birth story. My goal this time around
is to get this birth story up before Piccola turns 2 weeks old.

When last I updated on June 25, I was growing convinced that I was going to be doomed to two or three more weeks of prodromal labor. I had woken up in pain the previous evening and was taking the day to rest. 

At the end of that day, Ben picked me up from home and we went down to his parents' house to have dinner and pick up Greta. On the way there, we talked about how frustrated I was with all the prodromal labor, and how I just wished I knew if all these contractions were doing anything productive. I decided that I would believe that they were -- that the fact that I had that horrible pain the previous night meant that maybe I'd have just a little less pain during labor. He picked me up at 4pm and we arrived at Ben's parents' house around 4:45.Just as we were pulling up into the driveway, I felt a strong contraction that took my breath away. Ben went into the house while I took a moment to breathe. 

I hadn't been inside the house for long before I felt another strong contraction and felt a small gush. I abruptly left the room and waddled to the restroom, concerned that my water was leaking or that I was bleeding. Upon inspection, it was just watery mucus, so I put on a pad and didn't think much of it. 

Throughout the rest of the evening, I continued to have sporadic contractions. I didn't think much of them for awhile, though. I asked Ben to warm up a heating pad for me. I took an opportunity while Greta was getting a bath to take one of my own and timed my contractions as being about 10 minutes apart. I crouched on all fours and rested my head on the couch. By the time I was having a little dessert and found myself doubling over the kitchen counter and swaying, I was starting to wonder if this was the real deal. Greta was scheduled to go to her occasional daycare program the next day, though, and so although it would have made a lot of sense to leave her in the care of Ben's parents for the night, we figured even if it was real labor, it would still be a long time before we went to the hospital. We'd labor throughout the night and drop her off at daycare in the morning. 

We left around 8pm and on the way home, my contractions continued to get stronger. I was wiggling my toes and having a hard time breathing through them. Construction made the trip home extra long and so when we arrived home Ben transferred Greta to her crib and I called the midwife right away at 8:40. I described the strength of the contractions and explained that most of them were around 3 minutes apart, but that some of them were still more like 6 or more minutes apart at that point. She said I should wait to come in to the hospital until they had all been 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. I felt a little skeptical, but, armed with my trusty contraction app, I worked on timing them. 

Ben was making preparations for finding someone who could come stay with Greta for the night and take her to daycare in the morning while I timed my contractions and waited. Sure enough, I had been right to be skeptical -- two hours later, my contractions were getting more and more intense and while they were almost all less than 5 minutes apart, every time I started to come up on one hour of all contractions less than 5 minutes apart, I would get one that would be six minutes or so past the previous one, causing me to restart the clock. Finally, at 10:30, I called the midwife back and said that, although the contractions were still not all 5 min or less apart, I was coming in. I needed support. 

By this time, our friend Flannery had come over to watch Greta. After a few more contractions, I made it down the stairs and out the door. Contractions were stopping me in my tracks on the way to the car, some of them quite long -- what the midwife had termed "coupled" contractions that had no break in-between. Finally, we got in the car and headed out into the night, leaving the driveway at 10:40pm. 

I'm not positive about what time we arrived at the hospital. I would estimate that it was sometime between 11pm and 11:15pm. I was leaning against the doorway of the emergency room entrance having a contraction when someone at the desk noticed me and asked me if I needed a wheelchair. They wheeled me up to labor and delivery and I checked in. At first, the nurse came and took me to triage, which was strange to me because I had bypassed triage when I arrived in labor with Greta. But I suppose since my contractions weren't consistent when I had been on the phone with the midwife, she probably wasn't positive that I would be staying. The nurse went to peek in the room she was supposed to take me to and as she did, a really intense contraction hit. As I was panting and moaning, she whisked me away down another hallway and into a labor room. I asked her later if it was because I was making too much noise (the triage rooms are small and don't really have real doors) and she said it wasn't because of me at all -- there had been another patient in the triage room she'd been directed to take me to! The upshot is that I bypassed triage and was now in a labor and delivery room. As we arrived in the room, I was still timing all my contractions on my phone. The last contraction that I timed (before being hooked up to the monitors) was at 11:25pm. 

The midwife came in and began talking to me about some of my birth wishes. She asked me when I was ready to be checked to let her know. I'm not sure what time she checked me -- probably 10 minutes or so after we arrived in the room and I was hooked up to the monitors. It was a difficult check -- not only did she have me stack my fists, but I had to lift my hips up into the air for her to reach my cervix. I was 3-4 cm, 80% effaced, and the baby's head was at 0 station. My cervix was still very posterior. So barely active labor. After a 28-hour labor with Greta in which my cervix stayed posterior until the very end, this was really bad news to me. Going into this birth, I had already had in the back of my mind that I'd want an epidural if my cervix was still posterior when I arrived at the hospital  -- just because the cervical checks were so awful last time. But at the same time, I hadn't labored at home for very long this time. Last time, I labored at home for hours and hours and arrived at 5 cm dilated. This time, I was in so much more pain that I had come to the hospital much earlier -- maybe my cervix would move soon, I thought. 

Looking at the monitors, the midwife was concerned because the baby's heart rate was decelerating every time I had a contraction. For being only 3-4 cm dilated, this was particularly concerning. She told me that she felt she should warn me now that some of the things I was hoping to avoid (IV, continuous monitoring, pitocin, even cesarean) might be unavoidable. She was very concerned about a potential cord issue. 

There's nothing like the words "cord issue" to bring up my absolute worst birth fears. I tried to process this as quickly as possible and come to terms with how my labor was going to change from my ideal. I asked if this meant I couldn't try for a waterbirth, expecting a brisk confirmation. However, she provided me with many more details about why a waterbirth would be off the table -- that they'd potentially have to get me out of the tub in a hurry, etc. I remember being in so much pain and thinking that I just needed less information from her -- I wanted "just the facts." For me to want a medical professional to be "brisk" means that I must be really out of control of my pain. Normally, I want all the details. The fact that she was giving me all the details (using phrases like "if the baby's heartrate is still decelerating at the time of birth . . .") was an indication to me that she didn't expect me to give birth for awhile and I was starting to wonder if my instincts (which were saying that this baby was coming fast) were wrong and it really was going to be this excruciating for a long, long time. 

Now that I knew that a waterbirth was unlikely I asked if getting an epidural might help the baby by allowing me to relax. I will be honest, I was in a lot of pain. I was ready for some pain relief at this point. But I also was getting frustrated with them telling me to "Breathe! You need to breathe to help your baby's heartrate stay up," during my intense contractions and I was starting to panic that I was going to hurt my baby by not being able to relax. The midwife said it might help, but she couldn't say for sure. 

She suggested the possibility of an IV of fluids to see if that helped support the cord and prevent the baby's heartrate from decelerating. Our conversations at this point were really choppy because I was stopping to have intense contractions. I don't know if I'd agreed to the IV or if we didn't confirm. It was hard to communicate at that point. I asked if I could use the restroom and they unhooked me from the monitors so that I could go. I asked if I could get in the tub and see if that helped me relax. The midwife brought up the IV of fluids again and I remember being very confused because I thought I had already agreed to that. She also asked about keeping up with the continuous monitoring. I asked if I could do these things while in the tub and she said I could. I said, "Yes, yes, yes. Whatever gets me in the tub!" She started to explain that I could get in the tub even if I refused these things, but I think I interrupted and said that I was fine with whatever she thought might help the baby. Again, this was one of those situations were I could feel myself growing impatient -- why not start running the bath while we're chatting about IV fluids and continuous monitoring? I just remember being so confused because I thought I had already agreed to these things. 

(Thinking about it later, I think she was just being really careful to be respectful of my birth plan, which had included requests for intermittent monitoring, no IV placement, and time to process and discuss when changes to the plan became necessary. She probably felt that by leaving the room and coming back and asking again, she was following my requests. I feel bad that I felt so frustrated with her when I'm fairly certain she was trying to do what she thought would make me most comfortable.)

As they started to fill the tub, I gripped the side of the hospital bed as I stood next to it. I started having painful, intense contractions that were piled on top of one another. I was shaking. My moans were turning into screams -- something I hadn't expected to hear coming out of my mouth. When a particularly screamy contraction had ended, I laid down in the bed and said I wanted an epidural. They said okay and said that the first step was to get that IV placed. It was torturous to hold still for the IV, but I knew I could do it, having held still for the epidural while involuntarily pushing during Greta's labor. Once the IV was in, I rolled onto my side and continued to moan and scream through contractions. I started feeling an intense urge to push and I repeated that I wanted the epidural. The midwife said that it was okay to feel that urge to push and that I was probably close to having the baby, that there might not be time for an epidural. 

At this point, I noticed that a lot more people were in the room and the midwife said that they were getting ready for the baby. I remember that moment so clearly, as I realized that I was about to have this baby soon and that everybody knew it. This was no longer just a gut feeling on my part, but that even the midwife, who had seemed to think we had hours and hours ahead of us, was preparing for my baby to be born. I started involuntarily pushing and said, "I'm pushing. My body is pushing." The midwife said, "That's okay. It probably means you are close to having your baby." 

I felt liquid between my legs and said that there was "something" between my legs. The midwife asked, "What do you mean by 'something,' Arden? Did your water break?" I suppose I could have meant a crowning head or something, but I remember being frustrated, once again. How was I to know whether it was my water breaking or not? I've got my eyes closed! (In my labor with Greta, I had thought that my water had broken when, in fact, it was blood. Later on, when my water actually did break, they weren't positive that it broke because it broke while I was on the toilet and then didn't leak anymore. So between those two experiences, I wasn't about to declare that my water had broken with absolute certainty, knowing that all kinds of liquids can come spilling out of a laboring woman.) In any case, I said, "I don't know. Liquid. Maybe my water. Maybe blood." I asked what time it was and was told it was ten minutes to 1am. 

The midwife checked me and said my water had broken, I was complete and that I was going to have the baby now. She flipped me onto my back from how I had been lying on my side, and pushed my legs up. It felt good to be able to push, but it was also very confusing. There were a lot of people in the room, or so it seemed, and they were all telling me to do various things. I felt like people were pulling my legs in all kinds of directions and yelling and me to hold my thighs back. This was a very different experience from pushing with Greta -- in which other people were holding my legs and I just focused on pushing. I was shaking way too much and asked if someone else could hold my legs and they said no, that I needed to hold my own legs for leverage. I'm not sure what the rush was -- whether they were concerned about the baby's heart decelerations, or whether they were trying to spare me more pain or tearing, or whether there was something else going on, but I felt like they wanted this baby out fast. At one point they were asking me to look at something -- one of them, perhaps, or maybe down to see how close I was to having the baby? But I couldn't open my eyes. I was completely out of control of my body. Finally, I felt someone lifting my legs up high and then, in what felt like I had a million body parts flying out of me, she was born at 12:57am. It's still amazing to me that I only pushed for 6 minutes. With Greta, I had pushed for probably about 2 hours.

They put her on my chest right away and I felt instant joy and relief. As soon as she was out, the contractions stopped and I hugged my slippery little baby to my body. She was tiny and wet and looked so much like Greta. I couldn't believe she was there -- it had all that had happened so fast. It was only 90 minutes since I had first arrived in the labor and delivery room and even less time since my first cervical check in which I had been declared to be "barely in active labor." I still wonder what would have happened if I had been a stickler for the 5-1-1 rule and waited until I had more regular contractions before coming to the hospital. Especially since I was experiencing so many long contractions and coupled contractions, all the way up until the very end, I can't imagine how challenging it would have been to try to get an accurate read on what was happening using my timer alone. As it was, the only good indication of how close I was to birthing was the intensity, and so I am glad that I followed that as my guide. 

Lydia turns 2 weeks old today. There is more to this story, but it relates more to postpartum recovery and breastfeeding and sibling adjustment, so I'm going to wrap this up here and get it posted. As hard as things have been, we are totally in love with our girls.