The Middle Chapters

Baby M is three weeks old plus a day. D's parents left this morning after almost a week of having them in town. Every day is the same and different. Sleep, eat, change diapers, do laundry, repeat. A night of four hours between feedings is followed by a night with hours of fussing (that was last night).

I needed my counseling session today. While I'm mostly up and happy, there are times when I crash and everything seems bleak. I have a history of depression (which started well before the miscarriages) so I'm at risk for post-partum depression. I think I've just been experiencing the baby blues so far. I just feel so alone and isolated sometimes. Then I don't. D's on the verge of starting a big project at work and I dread him being home even less than he currently is. Hopefully I'll bite the bullet and we'll talk about options this weekend. I assume that everything will get better - M will get a schedule, she will give me more feed back, my hormones will get back in check. I'm looking forward to all of this.

Baby M is a little over 2 weeks old now. It seems like ages ago that I was pregnant. I generally remember how uncomfortable and unhappy I was at the end. But, the memories are very vague. I know I had a pain in my lower right ribs for months. But, I can't picture the pain. The contractions - again, I remember I had them, but I can't remember them. The same thing is true about labor. I remember is hurt. I remember not being able to focus on anything but the pain, but I can't remember the pain. This is really a good thing I know, but I'm amazed that such strong experiences are gone so quickly.

Another thing, I wondered what M would look like. There was a bit of fear that she would inherit all the funny looking aspects of my family - my grandmother's lantern jaw; my dad's big head; my squinty eyes. I assumed that, like most babies, she would look like a little old man. I am totally biased - I think she's beautiful.

I think I'm finally getting used to the idea that we get to keep her. That she's not a loaner. That she's going to be with us for a long time. It's a different mind set - the fact that something essential to our lives is different - that we're now parents. Wow.

Today was a good day. Baby M had 4 hours between feedings last night. This was the first night that I let her go beyond 3 hours. It was wonderful. This followed a bad day and a night with little/poor quality sleep. So, we ran around today. Coffee with C. Lunch with L and N. Shopping for baby supplies. M's two week check up (where she gained 12 ounces from her last visit!) She's thriving, so no problem is letting her decide when to eat rather than waking her to eat. She lost her umbilical cord end last night.

D went back to work today. I was not looking forward to this day (yesterday I was very sad and upset about it), but it wasn't so bad. We started off with a wonderful morning. After M's 6:00 am feeding, I put her in D's arms for a pre-wake-up cuddle. They looked adorable. (Today one person told me how much M looked like me; another how much M looks like D - we look nothing alike, so it seems unlikely that both could be true.) Prior to today, I had always taken M out of our bedroom between 5 and 7, while D slept for another few (or several) hours. This was a great way to start a day.

It was a beautiful sunny, although cold day. All the company was great. I'll let D remove all my purchases from the car tonight. (Figuring out what to do with the baby, cart, and purchases was an interesting problem - one that would be easier to work out with more sleep.)

It's 6:15 pm. Is it bedtime yet? It's much harder to get around with only one adult per child.

Clearly this has been a blog about being pregnant after recurrent miscarriage. Since we now have our baby, the subject will continue to follow my life. It feels strange writing about the highs and lows of this experience after wanting it and pursuing it so long. But, since it's my life and might be of interest to some - whether they are heading in this same direction or not - I'll continue to write.

I think I'm getting better - I'm not crying at everything. But yesterday, I lost it. DH goes back to work on Wednesday. Life alone with a newborn seemed so lonely without him. While she's a wonderful girl, baby M just doesn't need that much right now. I'd always heard about the minimal feed back you get from young children and I guess this is what I'm experiencing. She sleeps most of the day. There's a fair amount of down time and a monkey could do the things I do for her.

I need to find a new way of looking at things (and likely need to come up with projects to keep me busy.) My team leader stopped by yesterday and we ended of speaking almost exclusively about work. I miss it - the effort to perform well for our clients; the team work. But, I can't imagine leaving baby M with someone I don't know (we have no family on this coast). She's not even 2 weeks old. I understand that she and things will change. Half of me is trying to appreciate where she is. The other half just wants to fast forward things.

Baby M was born a week ago today. I cry at the drop of a hat. She's asleep all day and awake late into the night. In the evenings, she's started feeding every hour. I've discovered pumping which is a life saver. I just can't handle four feedings a half hour apart. My attempt to do so made me beside myself with incredibly sore nipples.

I still can't believe we have a baby. It was easier to believe closer to the birth when the memories were fresh. Even after she came out, I was convinced that something would happen to take her from us. Now she just seems like someone else's.

The best and the worst times are breast feeding. In the mornings, she's sleepy, soft and cuddly. Those feedings are wonderful. In the late evening, she's repeatedly hungry, fussy, and cannot be calmed. Those feedings are not so wonderful. I'm hoping the pumping combined with a changing schedule (everything is moving to earlier in the day) and hopefully calming hormones will help things.

We took M on her first stroll through one of the local parks today. The last time we were there was the day we found out we were pregnant for the first time - April 2003. I remember thinking that the next Spring we would have a child. While that didn't happen, it was wonderful to walk through the park, think about the excitement and subsequent sadness of that first pregnancy and think about the wonders of our current life.

Back on January 31, I was having a bad day. With medium contractions from 4:00 am to 10:00 am, I was seriously grumpy and sleep deprived. Being a Tuesday, my husband had band practice, so was out for the evening. Argh, I was seriously unhappy thinking that I was likely weeks away from giving birth and that those weeks would be spent in serious discomfort with minimal sleep.

I went to bed around 10:00 and read for a while. At 11:18 pm, I had a sharp, strong contraction that actually felt pointy. I had had these pointy feeling contractions with more frequency in the late evening. I swore that the baby was trying to swim her way out and would periodically give me a big poke.

Just a few minutes before midnight I had another strong pointy contraction that was followed by my water breaking. The gush woke me from dozing instantly with an attempt to avoid leaking all over the bed and everything else. Once I got past the ick factor the excitement set in. Hurray - we were going to have a baby! DH was home from practice, but still up. I got cleaned up and went downstairs to tell him and call the doctor. The doctor told me to head into the hospital. At this point, my contractions were not regular and although I'd heard about people staying home through early labor, I jumped at the offer to go in.

Unexpectantly, I kept gushing. Laughing or the baby moving set off a gush. After changing my outfit twice, I gave up and brought a towel to sit on in the car. What an exciting time.

We got to the hospital at about 12:45 am. At the hospital, we checked into triage and they confirmed that what I was leaking was amniotic fluid. After very few minutes, they moved us to a labor and delivery room. By then, my contractions were between 5-10 minutes apart but not that bad. I was 80% effaced, but only a finger tip dilated. They put in a hep-lock, sent us on a walk, then I took a bath. The contractions got worse - to the point that I had expected from serious labor - where I couldn't do anything else when they hit. The hours passed slowly. We didn't sleep. Slowly, the euphoria of the idea of the baby coming soon wore off and the pain started tiring me out. They sent us on another walk. I can't remember if they checked my dilation during the morning, but they must have. I think I was 90% effaced, but no change in dilation.

We tried to have breakfast around 8:00 am - just toast and yoghurt. But the toast made my gums seriously bleed (an annoying habit in late pregnancy along with daily bloody noses), which distracted everyone and caused some questions over my coagulation. (This was checked and was fine.)

Late morning, the nurse and doctor started offering a narcotic to take the edge off the contractions and so I could hopefully get some sleep. At about 11:00 am, I took them up on it. It lasted about 15 minutes. No sleep, but the limited pain relief was wonderful. That's when I decided to go for the epideral which came at about 11:30 am. I always knew I wasn't stretchy, but the doctor had some serious problems inserting the catheter for the epideral. Apparently, there just wasn't room between my bones and ligaments. Each new attempt to get it in was further down my back. After the 3rd or 4th shot, he got it in; they taped me up; and I started feeling heat and then pins and needles. Some time mid day, they started me on IV antibiotics.

After the epideral, they started pitocin. At about 1:00 pm, my cervix finally measured 1 cm dilated. (Not much, but at least something.) The epideral affected my right side more than my left. They kept me shifting sides every so often to keep the epideral working on both sides. Of course I could no longer get up out of bed and they wouldn't let me drink or eat anything other than ice chips.

They also inserted a catheter - something I'd totally forgotten would happen and had been dreading. It wasn't the least bit bad as I couldn't feel a thing. (At this point, I had no modesty. Everyone in the room had seen it all by then.)

Time past slowly. I remember that at 5:00 pm I was 5 cm dilated and at 7:00 pm I was 7 cm dilated. They kept upping the pitocin to increase my contractions. We watched TV. I remember being thirsty and wanting all of the drinks that the people on TV had. Yum - soda. Oh - juice. The ice chips were better than nothing, but not much. They had me on some hydrating drip the whole time, so I couldn't have been dehydrated.

At some point, I started feeling serious pain north of my belly button on the left side. While I had a button to increase the epideral medication, it didn't help the pain, and simply made my right leg feel more dead. I did get an "add" to my medication during some point in the afternoon/evening which actually helped for a while. I did doze.

The pain was building again in the late evening of 2/1/06. It was continuous in my back and wrapped around to the front. At this point, I couldn't feel either leg, but agreed to another "add" because I just couldn't deal with the pain. Finally at 11:00 pm, I was 10 cm dilated and it was time to push. They added stirrups to the table on which they rested my legs between contractions. Watching the monitor, the nurse held one leg and my husband the other when it was time to push. I grabbed both legs and pushed to the nurse's direction - three pushes for every contraction.

The back pain was almost non-existent once the pushing started. While I still had pain in the upper left front, it was reasonable and helped me sense when the contractions were coming on (everything south of my belly button was dead to the world by then.)

The pushing was a big relief. At first, I felt energized and excited by the idea of being so close to having the baby. But, after an hour, I started seriously losing steam. The day and the pain had caught up with me. I certainly didn't want to stop, but wasn't sure how much longer I could go on.

At some point, my husband got to see a bit of the baby's head. We learned that she had dark hair so took after her father. That was a great moment.

At 12:30 am, someone started bargaining with me (either the doctor or the nurse) about how much longer I could go on. My husband suggested a half an hour. I offered 15 minutes. At about the same time, the doctor started asking about my tail bone; whether I had ever broken it. I hadn't that I knew of. She was concerned that something about my tail bone might mean that the baby couldn't fit coming out. She started talking about vacuum or forceps, but stated that if she used them and it didn't work, we'd have to switch to a c-section. At that point, I didn't want any of it. I felt a bit doomed; that things just couldn't work out whatever they did.

After asking questions about the potential side effects of the vacuum and trying to understand the tail bone thing (I never did), we agreed to the vacuum. The idea being to use the vacuum (in addition to my pushing) to get the baby on the way and then switch back to me pushing alone.

The vacuum part seemed to last about 5 pushes and things must have progressed because we went back to me pushing only. Around this time, they offered me a mirror to see the baby being born. I agreed, then spent my pushes trying to tell the second nurse which direction to move the mirror so that I could see. Everyone was so supportive during the pushing. I felt like a champ. (I also felt like I was going to blow a blood vessel in my head or neck from trying to push as hard as I could.)

A few more pushes and the baby's head came out. After seeing just a bit of her head, the whole thing looked huge. The next part passed in an instance. She had the cord wrapped around her
neck, so the doctor cut it. (My husband said that blood went everywhere, but I didn't see it. I think I was too focused on the baby.) Either before or after that, they had me slow down and get her shoulders out. The rest of her just slid out. I felt pressure with her head coming out, but no real pain. They put her on my chest for a moment and then took her away to be suctioned and given oxygen. She didn't seem to be breathing well. Her cries were small and rattled. They said she had a lot of mucus in her lungs that wasn't coming out immediately. The 2 nurses worked over her while the doctor delivered the placenta, I think. Although, maybe the doctor worked on her for a while too. I can't remember.

Although it seemed scary at the time, apparently things were pretty okay; Apgars 7 and 9 and she eventually started a hearty cry. Prior to that I kept asking my husband to take more pictures. I was so convinced that something was going wrong and I wanted as many photos as I could get of her while things were still relatively okay. (He kept looking at me like I was crazy.) Although I still had limited feeling in my legs, I did manage to swing one off of a stirrup so I could watch the nurses work on the baby. The doctor wasn't impressed and it got put back up.

I had no tearing, just a few lacerations up front, so the doctor stitched those up while the nurse measured, weighed and washed the baby.

The baby was born at 12:53 am on 2/2/06 - about 25 hours after the whole thing started. Strangely the longest and shortest 25 hours of my life.

I keep planning on posting and then the day is gone. Baby M is doing great. I actually gone a few hours of sleep in a row last night. My mom came for a surprise visit and is leaving shortly. The time has gone too fast. I will write about the birth because I need the help to remember things - suddenly there was another person in the room. But, of course, I don't have time now.

I am the shrinking woman - which is good. Leaving the hospital looking 5 months pregnant but having a bowl full of jelly where the baby used to be was strange, but now I'm down to about 4 months. All the discomforts of pregnancy are gone! I do have the aches of post-pregnancy (and the sorest nipples in the world) but these pains rock compared to those last few months.

My water broke around midnight on 1/31/06. Twelve hours later, I got an epideral. Thirteen hours later, I had a baby. After a lot of worrying, she's here and she's precious!

I'll definitely write the birth story. It was a lot of what I'd heard about stretched over a lot of hours, followed by this wonderful bit where a baby comes out. I know I'm sleep deprived, but I still can't believe she's here.