The Birth Story

I just realized that while I wrote about my slightly traumatic after-the-birth story, I never posted the details about how Katelyn came into the world. For those of you that are interested, here's how Katelyn's birth day went down...

I had zero signs of impending labour when I woke up on the morning of the 12th. It was business as usual with getting Joel ready for school. Our plans for the morning included going to Sears to pick up the glider for the nursery once Joel was on the bus. As we were getting into the van at 8:30am, I felt a strong menstrual cramp but didn't pay it much attention. Until it happened again five minutes later. We ended up getting stuck on the 6th Ave. viaduct (sp?) since the Olympic torch parade was blocking traffic. During the half hour that we waited for traffic to clear up, I noticed that cramps were happening every five minutes and getting a little more intense. Mike wanted to just go home, but I really wanted to get the glider. We picked up the chair and we were home at 9:30am.

By this time, I was positive these were no longer cramps but, in fact, full on contractions. They were consistently five minutes apart and lasted for about 20-30 seconds. I climbed into the tub and sat in the jets for an hour or so. Then, I decided I should try to sleep since I had no way of knowing how long labour was going to last or how long I was going to be awake. The contractions continued to intentsify at an astounding rate, to the point where by 11:30, I couldn't take the pain anymore and wanted to go to the hospital. Because I had only half-assed packed my hospital bag, we spent a little time running around the house filling it up. We phoned my parents to say that we were leaving for the hospital, but I guessed they were just going to send us home again.

When we got to the hospital, I wasn't impressed that I had to stand in line at Admitting to get the stupid little bracelet on. Every couple minutes, I would double over and squeeeeeeeeeeeze Mike's hand. We were originally standing behind four other people, but one kind worker pushed us to the front of the line. I was so grateful to her that if I hadn't been in so much pain, I would have stuck my tongue in her ear.

We walked down to Maternity where Nurse Bev hooked up the monitor-things to watch the contractions. I white-knuckled my way through 20 more minutes of contractions. They were getting stronger and stronger and less bearable. Mike tried rubbing my back at one point and his actions were quickly re-buffed. I did NOT want to be touched. When Bev finally did a cervical exam, she said, "This can't be right! You're not going to believe this but you're already 7 centimeters!", at which point Mike and I high-fived in celebration of my superior cervix! Because we were at the hospital to stay, I immediately opted for the epidural.

The first administering of the epidural was PAINFUL with a capital p-a-i-n-f-u-l. Every time the anesthesiologist tried poking his needle in, it felt like he was grabbing my spinal nerves and tweaking them. He finally got the needle in and we waited for 20 minutes to wait for the meds to kick in. They never did. The first epidural didn't work. I then asked for pain meds to block the pain of getting pain meds...how's that for being a wimp?! :-)

Once the fentanyl AND the epidural kicked in, my afternoon got a whole lot brighter. I made phone calls, I played games on the iPod, and cracked jokes with the nurses. Life was good. Until we realized my labour was stalled. My doc was called in once his office closed for the day (5:45pm). He checked me over and said he was going to break my waters in attempt to get my contractions to intensify (they were still lasting for only 20 seconds). I remember hearing the bag literally pop and thinking that was pretty cool. Of course, everything was cool with the drugs :-)

There was meconium in the water so my doc quickly said that if Baby didn't drop down in the next 10 minutes, I would be going in for a C-section. When he checked me again at 6:00pm, Baby had dropped and it was time to start pushing. Let me just point out that I felt absolutely no desire to push. The room was prepped and I was slid into "go" position (when I grabbed onto the little handles, I commented that it felt like I was on a go-cart). The nurses watched the machine and told me when to push. In between pushes, I would lay back and we would all chat and joke until it was time to push again. I remember commenting that I wasn't even breaking a sweat. My doc said Baby would be out in 15 pushes. I had her out in eleven :-)

Katelyn Alexandra was born at 6:26pm after a total of 10 hours of labour. I was so happy to hear my doc confirm she was indeed a girl. Because Katelyn had swallowed some of the meconium, they whisked her to the nursery where she was hooked up to the nose-oxygen thing and she stayed there for over an hour. My arms were aching to hold her and to meet her face to face. One of the nurses snuck Katelyn back to me where I got to hold her for a total of ten minutes. All I could do was cry. I was so happy to finally meet my daughter.

I've replayed the day over and over in my mind. I know I had talked about wanting to attempt a drug free delivery but I also knew I would keep an open mind. I had no idea what contractions felt like and when they finally did kick in, holy hell did they ever hurt. Kudos to those women out there who are able to have drug-free deliveries, but that just wasn't for me. With my next baby, I'm starting the epidural a week before my due date.