Corinne's Birth Story

This is Corinne's birth story, as I wrote it for her scrap book. It's for the women who, like me, enjoy reading about other women's childbirthing experiences to determine if their own was worse/ scarier/ longer/ more painful, as thought this wins you some sort of an award. Men, you'll probably just want to skip this one. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Officially Corinne was due on Friday July 31st, although there was some confusion on this, and August 4th was also a possibility, depending on who you talked to. Either way it was a moot point, because that girl was in no hurry to leave the womb. My last day at H**** was Wednesday July 20th. I wanted to allow myself plenty of time to do my final cleaning/ organizing/ shopping/ nesting. I decided that she was welcome to come any time on or after Monday the 25th, which would give me plenty of time to prepare. By then the house was spotless and I was ready. I went to the doctor on Wednesday the 29th only to find that there was absolutely nothing going on down there. Now I was starting to get antsy. I had done nothing but watch episodes of “A Baby Story”, seeing other women give birth time and time again, crying every time, getting progressively more impatient as I awaited my turn. I had a couple false alarms, where I thought for sure I was getting crampy when I went to bed, expecting to wake up in labor, only to wake up in the morning just fine. I tried all the things I had heard could induce labor: long walks (in the unbearable heat and humidity), foot rubs, spicy foods, sex… still nothing.

I was scheduled to come in on Friday August 5th for a stress test. I brought my packed suitcase just in case they decided to induce. It was a good thing I did. The stress test consisted of being hooked up to a fetal monitor, and they would observe the baby’s heart rate whenever the baby moved. I guess the results were mildly concerning because they decided to do an ultrasound to “check the fluid levels”. Again, borderline troubling. They decided to let my doctor make the call. Well, my blood pressure was higher than normal, too, so that clinched it- she decided to induce as opposed to waiting for Monday, which had been her original plan. We got ourselves lunch at Au Bon Pain at the hospital, anticipating a long haul, and then checked ourselves in.

First we went to triage around 2:00, where they inserted some sort of drug that would “ripen my cervix”. Then we had to kill 2 hours before they would check again to see how we were progressing. They warned us that this process could take hours, sometimes even an overnighter at home, before they would officially admit me. So we went to Pete's work so he could tie up loose ends. We planned to go see “Willy Wonka” and get dinner to kill time after our next check-in. The whole time it felt so surreal. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that soon, possibly that night, I would finally give birth.

We left our car in Pete's work parking lot and headed back to the hospital via shuttle. When they rechecked me, again there was some concern about the baby’s heart rate and the effect that the drug was having on the baby. They decided to admit me and start me on Pitocin rather than giving another dose, because if the baby was having a bad reaction to the drug there was no reversing it. So much for dinner and a movie. Either way, I was excited and glad that we didn’t need to go home for the night. I had all my stuff with me and plans had already been squared away for someone to take care of Seven. Pete didn’t have any change of clothes with him, but we figured he could go home and get something the next day once the baby was born.

That evening was fairly uneventful. We called the parents to give them the heads-up, and then it was time for walking the hallways and rocking in a chair to try to get the baby to start to move down. I had minor cramps, but nothing I couldn’t deal with, and I actually said something to the effect that this child birthing thing wasn’t too bad. Ha!

Some time around 10pm or so I was walking the hallway with the nurse when she casually said that we should head back to the room and sit down. After sitting down she casually said I should lie down. Then she said I should curl up on my side as much as I could. Then suddenly there was a roomful of people and I was on oxygen. The baby’s heart rate had dropped alarmingly and wasn’t going back up, and then they lost it all together. Well, to make a long story short, the monitor had come unplugged, thus the disappearing heartbeat, but it took an agonizing several minutes that seemed like a lifetime to figure this out, all the while with well-hidden panic on the part of the medical staff. And the baby was in distress, that much was clear. Following that Pete and I had meltdown number one, as the scary reality that there might be something wrong with our daughter hit home. She seemed to be going into distress every time I sat up, so I became bed-ridden, and suddenly I was filling out authorization for surgery forms “just in case”.

We had one or two more similar incidents like that that first night. I could only lie on my right side, and could only move to use a bed pan. My plans to walk around and shower and use the birthing ball to kill time and make myself feel better were no longer feasible. My legs were cramped from not moving and I was still showing no signs of dilating past the initial 1 cm that I started at.

The next morning at around 6 am my water broke and there was meconium in it, which is a sign that the baby is in distress, but the doctors didn’t seem concerned and were glad that finally something was happening. I was still only 1cm dilated, though. After that the cramps started to kick in. I was glad at first, because at least something was happening. That day seemed to drag on forever. It was Saturday, so there was nothing to watch on TV. I couldn’t concentrate on reading anything, so I couldn’t take my mind off the pain that was starting to build. By 2 o’clock or so the cramps were starting to get bad, coming every 2 minutes or so. I asked for pain meds and they gave me something by IV that allowed me to sleep for a couple hours, but it was a restless sleep and I dreamed about contractions. When I woke up, it got bad pretty quickly. I was tired and uncomfortable and scared and discouraged. Still at 1 cm, I finally asked for an epidural. They tried to talk me out of it, saying that they preferred to wait until I was at least 5 cm’s because an epidural could slow down the labor. I didn’t see how the labor could possibly get any slower, given that it had been over24 hours since we checked in (Pete had read the entire new Harry Potter book in the time it had taken so far!), and I insisted on it. I felt like a wimp for needing pain meds at only 1 cm, but it was taking so long, and the contractions were coming too fast and furious for me to regroup in between.

Getting the epidural seemed to take forever. It was almost an hour before the anesthesiologist came. It then took him awhile to get ready, opening packages, creating a sterile field, and God knows what else. I couldn’t sit up and bend forward, the traditional way of positioning for the insertion of the catheter. I had to curl up on my side, not an easy feat when you are ten months pregnant. The anesthesiologist had to wait to insert between contractions, but there was only a minute or so between each one, so it took 7 or 8 contractions to even get started. Then, the final horror, just as he was inserting the catheter, the CD we were listening to (“The World’s Most Relaxing Classical Music”, ironically), which happened to be playing an opera song, started to skip on a high note. It was like being in hell. No one could smack the radio because it was behind me, in the sterile field. We just had to wait it out until he was done. I imagine this only made it more difficult for him to do with a high note playing over and over again. It would have been funny had I not been in agony. Finally he got the stupid thing in and the relief was instant and complete. It really is heavenly. Suddenly you can think rationally again and life seems OK.

The rest of that day and evening are a complete blur for me. I must have slept a lot because I don’t remember much of anything other than nurses occasionally coming in to check on the contractions, now that they were able to crank the pitocin levels. I was at 5 cm’s when I called my parents and told them they wouldn’t hear from us again until morning regardless of what happened(they were going crazy waiting and wanted frequent updates, which was driving me crazy).

Sometime around 11:30pm Saturday night the doctors were huddling around talking and checking the monitors and then the next thing I knew they had decided to do an “urgent C-section”. I just wasn’t progressing and the baby’s condition was not getting any better. The stress of the birth could be dangerous at that point. Part of me was relieved, because I felt so tired and didn’t think there was any way I could go through pushing, but part of me was disappointed. I had pictured delivering vaginally all along, and felt a little bit cheated of my romantic vision of how it would be to hold my daughter immediately after she was born, like I had seen so many times on “A Baby Story”. Also, I was frustrated because after all of the pain and waiting the outcome was going to end in a C-section regardless, so I wished we had just done it on Friday night when the trouble first began.

It was a scary few minutes as Pete was rudely awakened to a room full of doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists (poor Pete and his chair, in the way once again!) and I was whisked off to an operating room. Pete was given scrubs to change into while I was prepped. My arms were tied spread eagle and a drape was put up so I couldn’t see anything. Pete was brought in (I was so afraid they were going to forget about him in all the urgency) and apparently he had a very good view. I felt pushing and thought they were just cleaning me off and then I heard a baby crying. Pete reports that they literally pulled out my uterus and laid it on my stomach, and then one doctor pushed on it like a tube of toothpaste and the other doctor caught the baby as she came out. He said it was pretty horrifying. It was exactly midnight when she was born, and only about 20 minutes from the point when they had decided to do the surgery. Because it was midnight we actually got to pick the birth date, either August 6 or 7th. Well obviously we had to go with the seventh. Pete got to hold her right there in the OR, but I had to wait until they finished stitching me up.

After that things are kind of a blur again. I remember being absolutely freezing, and so tired that I could barely stay awake. They brought me back to the labor room and then finally I got to hold my baby for the first time. She had a head of dark brown hair, which was a surprise (so much for punnett squares!). She was such a tiny little peanut at 6 pounds, 15 ounces. I tried nursing her and she took to it right away like a little champ. We knew the time had come to finally pick a name, so on the count of three we both said the name we were leaning towards, now that we were seeing her for the first time. I chose Corinne, because for the past few months that was the name in my head whenever I thought of her. Pete chose Avery, but he said it was really Virginia, his grandmother’s name, as the middle name that he was leaning toward (it just sounded better with Avery) so we compromised and went with Corinne Virginia. They took us all up to our room on the maternity ward and then the baby went to the nursery for the rest of the night so we could get some much needed sleep. We called all the parents at around 3 am to give them the news (my dad slept through the phone call and will never forgive himself), and the rest is history!

(That's 34 hours from induction to birth, in case anyone was counting. That's got to get me at least an honorable mention!)

Loser Family Builds a Nest- Pregnancy Update (month 9)

An email I sent out to family and friends a month before Corinne was born. I got a lot of positive feedback on this one from all the fellow mom's, and I always did feel like it captured that irrational nesting frenzy of a very pregnant woman and her poor husband.

Hi everyone,

Since Pete and I collectively owe a lot of people emails and phone calls, I decided it would be easier to just send out another update to everyone, even though I feel like there's not much to tell.

Seems like this is the calm before the storm right now. We've both been furiously working to get long withstanding projects finished (or started and then finished, in some cases). We know that life as we know it is ending (yes yes, and a new chapter beginning, blah blah blah, insert "bringing baby into the world, yadda, yadda, best thing you'll ever do, yadda" here) and we won't have time to pick our noses, much less clean the bathroom, once the baby comes. It's amazing how strong the need is to tie up loose ends. My work has benefitted from it the most- I've been trying to organize all my files, documents, training programs, etc to the point of bordering on unhealthy obsession. Partially I want to leave everything in order so that they all realize what a huge mistake it was to let such a wonderfully organized person go (yeah right), and partially it's because I'm putting together a portfolio of all the work that I have done in the past 2 years for these ingrates so I can use it to get my next job.

At home I have organized and cleaned the garage, both cars, and the basement (because you know how much babies hate cluttered basements). I stare hungrily at the attic from time to time, too, but the heat has kept me away from tackling that one. As for the baby's room, I have sorted, folded, refolded and resorted all the cute little outfits, hung some up, sorted them by age, changed my mind and folded them in a drawer. I have rearranged the stuffed animals on the shelves by size, species and color. I have sorted supplies by use (bath, feeding, toys, small items) and placed then in baskets, which I have moved from one location to another, to different parts of the house and then back again. I have arranged and rearranged the curtains, the pillows and the bedding. This past weekend I assembled the swing, stroller, and a night table (which I decided yesterday that I absolutely could not live without). I am so ready for this baby that it is ridiculous. Mice do this quirky thing where they sometimes overgroom each other and themselves as a dominance thing. You can always tell who the dominant one is because he will be the one with all his hair while his cage mates are covered in bald spots. Every once in awhile you will see a mother mouse who has a litter of pups that have been groomed bald except for their scrawny little heads and feet. In this case I think it is more of an obsessive-compulsive thing than a dominance thing. All I can think of is the mother or grandmother who is forever spitting and dabbing at their children's filthy faces. I just hope I get over this frenzy once the baby is born so I don't clean and organize her to the point of baldness, or sort her into a basket by color and size.

Pete is no less guilty. This weekend he single-handedly painted the entire exterior of the house by himself, and then did the garage and shed too, for shits and giggles. Prior to that he rebuilt (and painted) our basement bulkhead and tore down and replaced several dozen shingles on the house. His real obsession, though, is weed whacking. He has waged war against unsightly grass growing in the cracks of the sidewalk and along the flower beds. He goes at them with his giant weed whacker with a vengeance, lest our home look like a "ghetto-house". We must look like a pair of freaks, the big fat preganant lady and the crazy man. Last summer we had a robin who was determined to build a nest in the tree in our front yard, even though she was convinced that her reflection in the window was another bird moving in on her territory. She spent about two weeks attacking the window and flying back and forth with loads of twigs and string that she never could seem to assemble into an actual working nest before she finally just gave up and moved on. We were so amused by her and her mindless behaviors, driven solely by instinct. I suspect that that same bird, who this year, incidentally, has successfully built her nest, laid and hatched her eggs, is now watching us running around cleaning and organizing and sweating and bumping into each other like clowns in a circus, is equally amused by us.

So that about sums up our lives the past few weeks. I don't know what we will do when we run out of projects. Relax while we still can? I doubt it. God forbid the baby comes past the due date, I think I'll go out of my mind. Maybe we'll start a new mural- haha. Or maybe I'll read a few dozen more books on childbirth and parenting. I'm almost up to college-age in terms of child development.

Pregnancy symptoms-wise, I am huge. I am like a giant orb. Soon I will have my own gravitational pull. My ankles resemble those of an elephant, they are so swollen with "fluids". My doctor said there's not much I can do, and to only be concerned if I get headaches and chest pains (like from a stroke???). I am a vision of sexiness. Other than that, though, I thought I'd be feeling much worse right about now. I have developed the pregnant lady shuffle, but I don't feel nearly as heavy and cumbersome as I thought I would. Only four weeks to go (theoretically). I'm convinced that she's going to come late, though. That's just the way my luck goes. As of this Friday I will be to term (37 weeks) and it could safely happen at any time. Ah, dare to dream. I just hope it doesn't happen before I have a chance to organize my photos and rearrange my bedroom. And get started on the handmade birth announcements... And start my baby scrapbook.......

I'll keep everyone posted. Pete will call immediate family once I go into labor, and will email everyone else once she is born, so in the meantime no word just means that there is no news. Assume all is well unless you hear otherwise. Or it could be that we're just too busy flying into windows and grooming each other bald.

Love,
A, P, 7 & (we're not telling!)

Pete's Monster - Pregnancy Update (month 6)

I included this one because of the part about Pete and the monster (which we later began referring to as Uncle Pete's Monster, a title which then took on a life of it's own, as I'm sure you can imagine!)

Hi everyone,

Figured I'd better check in so no one worries that they haven't heard anything from me in awhile. First, thanks to everyone for your comments on the mural. It really is easier than it looks. The pictures are all from clip art that I projected onto the wall. Then it's just a matter of tracing and coloring inside the lines. It was a lot of fun and part of me is sad to be done with it, but now that the weather is getting nicer we don't want to be inside anymore. Time to turn our attention to the yard projects. We need to get our house painted this summer, which has required some reshingling on Pete's part. His dad came over to show him the ropes last weekend. Not a particularly fun project, but necessary. We invested in a paint sprayer, knowing this will need to be done every 5 years or so, so hopefully the project won't be too bad once we get the windows taped off. We're going with the same color so that if we run out of steam it won't look ridiculous. Next time we'll change the color.

Baby is doing fine, although Pete has pointed out that I no longer answer the "how are you feeling" question with "I can't complain". I am definitely starting to feel pregnant. I had some cramping, more unrelievable gas pains, swollen ankles and frequent urination have also been added to my list as of this week. And of course, I'm getting fatter by the minute. I'm measuring right where I should be for the 6th month, so at least I'm not growing a freakishly large baby inside of me. My doctor is on my case about weight gain nonetheless, as I may have mentioned. I gained a lot in March. I did much better in April, but she still isn't satisfied. When I asked her how much I should be gaining per month she only said that my total weight gain should be around 20 pounds, and that I am almost there already. The way I look at it, there's not much I can do to help that now- it's pretty unrealistic to think I won't gain anything in the last trimester, and losing weight is not a healthy option. All I can do is make sure I eat healthy and not have too many desert binges, but I'm sorry- there's no way I'm giving up on sweets completely. I crave them ALL THE TIME (I did have my test for gestational diabetes this week and all seems to be OK. That was a relief. It seems like everyone I talk to who is pregnant has developed diabetes). Pete has been great about packing me healthy lunches and doing lots of fruit smoothies and fruit salads for breakfast. He helps me with my complete lack of will power because he's trying so hard to make sure I'm good, I don't want to disappoint him or negate his efforts. It's just so hard when everyone at work is always encouraging me to eat and bringing me cookies and candy and junk all the time because I'm "eating for two" or because "Baby is hungry". I finally had to tell them to stop because they got me in trouble. I can't say no to sweets, so my only hope is that they are just not available to me.

Let's see, what else is going on... We're looking at cars and hoping to buy one by the end of the month. We're probably going to go with a Subaru Forester. I wanted a snazzy little Honda Accord or something along those lines, but then the reality of parenthood set in. We take Seven with us everywhere, and there wouldn't be room for her in the back seat with Baby and all Baby's accoutrement's. I won't do a minivan- I just can't succumb to that degree of grown-upness just yet. I'm not crazy about the station-wagony feeling of the Subaru's, but I am telling myself that the Forester is more of an SUV than a station wagon. Pete just wants something good on gas, not too big and easy to park (unlike our truck). Then we'll semi-retire the truck, which is starting to show its age and the fact that it has been driven cross-country three times. It's been good to us, but the list of annoying problems with it is getting longer and longer (no A/C, no inside dome light, a gas gauge that always reads full).

This weekend we are helping some friends of ours move (not sure how much help I'll be, and please no lectures on lifting heavy things- I won't do anything stupid). It's supposed to rain all day, so that will suck. It's the same friend who built our deck, so we kind of owe him. We may also register for baby stuff this weekend. We keep procrastinating because it's so overwhelming. We went to a Baby Expo a couple weeks ago and it was the same problem. Too many kids, too many strollers (crowd mowers), just too much. All I kept thinking is "we don't belong here with these people! This is so not US!" Yeah, maybe there's just a little bit of "coming to terms with it all" still going on, at least for me. Whole lotta life changes coming up in the next few months with baby and work (or lack thereof). Mostly I'm excited, though. And a little nervous when I look down at my belly and think "this thing has got to come of of me one way or another. There's no turning back now."

Funny little story about Pete and parenting. Last weekend our neighbors (the one's we refer to as the Loud Family) were out and about chatting with everyone. They have two little girl 3 and 5 or so. I was talking to their mother and the 3 year old kept going inside our house. The mother didn't seem to see anything wrong with this and didn't do anything about it (maybe this is some sort of mother thing that I won't understand until I have a three year old, but for the time being I think it's pretty rude). Pete was not so cool with it either and kept following her in to make sure she wasn't getting into anything (she was even helping herself to our refrigerator). Finally, after the 6th or so time he had to follow her in there, she came haul-assing out of the house crying, followed by Pete who had a funny, somewhat self satisfied smile on his face. She kept saying something about a monster that lives upstairs in our house that was going to eat her. Her mother didn't seem to be amused, saying something about the nightmares she was going to have now. But she didn't go back in again after that. Maybe the tactic was questionable, and maybe we will have unconventional child rearing ideas, but I say the end justifies the means. We managed to raise a pretty well behaved dog. And maybe mom will learn a lesson about curbing her kid. If nothing else, Pete and I sure did have a good laugh over it after they left.

OK, I think I'll wrap this up and get back to work. I am still going at my job as per usual (OK, maybe more like 80% of what I was giving it in effort before I knew I wasn't coming back) and relishing it every time some one needs something and I already have it ready and know exactly where it is and they say how much they'll miss me during my maternity leave. They won't realize how much I did or brought to the table until I'm gone. Ain't it always the way.

Talk to y'all soon,
A, P & 7

PS- no, we still haven't picked out a name. Maybe we'll call her Eight.