Sunday January 31, 2010
I woke up this morning and was incredibly grateful for having been smart enough to have negotiated with David a morning of sleeping in.  I was tired, and was happy to just “roll over” and close my eyes again. I managed to get out of bed around 10am, and was still experiencing the same menstrual-type cramps that had bothered me the entire day yesterday. The evening before I had talked to my friend Jen who told me that she had had the same cramps the day before delivering her daughter Clare. Did that mean that I was going into labor today? If you had asked me, I would have said “no” as there was absolutely nothing (other than the light cramping) that pointed me in that direction.
David and I were invited to join the annual Grammy party over at our friend Jim Wilson’s house. The party is always so much fun (great people, great food), so I was looking forward to going out that eve with David. Especially after a day of lounging around and doing nothing, ‘cause that was all I was going to do today.
I spent the morning hanging around in the backyard while Kai played outside. While he was napping, I chilled on the chaise lounge, reading through the new Trader Joe’s cookbook I had bought. The dessert section was looking so good, that I almost hopped in the car to get to the store to actually start making some of those delicious recipes that were described in there. Yum…
In the afternoon, David decided to join me and we snuggled on the sofa to watch The International with Clive Owen. Good movie, but even better with a cup of tea and some cookies & chocolate.
I had taken out a bag of Oliebollen that morning (Dutch beignets that we eat on New Year’s Eve – I had made extra and frozen them so we could enjoy them later). Opa & Oma had expressed their desire to have one and so had David. So, around 4:00pm, as I was warming them up in the microwave I got this pretty strong Braxton Hicks contraction. With this pregnancy I hadn’t had many of the type of BH contractions that stopped me in my movement and made me squad down to “stretch” a bit. This one, however, was one of those and as I squatted down…[a small ‘pop’] and it felt as if my bladder gave out and I peed my pants. My water had broken and I figured we weren’t going to find out how the movie ended that afternoon…
While I took a shower to freshen up, David packed the last-minute items for the hospital bag and got the car ready to drive over to St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. I had called Jackie to tell her I was going into labor and she kindly offered to call her colleagues at L&D and tell them I was on my way. Before we hopped in the car, I took a few minutes to send out an email and Facebook message to let friends and family know we were “on our way” to become a family of 4 and off we were.
As we drove to the hospital, David decided to take the freeway (faster in the weekend), but as we were on the 170 Fwy. heading south and approached the 134 to head to Burbank, my heart skipped for a moment – the entire 134 Fwy. Was backed up and we nearly got stuck behind what looked a horrible accident. On the overpass I saw the flashing lights of pretty much every emergency vehicle available to the area, traffic was backed up and just before the junction, I yelled to David “continue on the 170, don’t get on the 134”!!! We continued going south and ended up taking the next exit, taking surface streets to the hospital. I don’t even want to think about getting stuck behind that accident…
When we got to the hospital, David dropped me off at Admitting and while I waited for the admin stuff to be finished (I had made sure to have submitted my pre-admitting paperwork a few months ago), he parked the car. When we got up to the L&D floor, we were welcomed by Jenny & Yvette, waving in the hallway. So sweet and such a warm welcome. Jenny was going to be my nurse and I couldn’t be happier. She’s awesome!! Unfortunately her shift was going to end at 7pm, so I was hoping that the next nurse would be another of Jackie’s friends, who I had met before.
As I got settled in, we went through all the questions that they needed answers to. My IV got administered and I got checked. That was at 5:50pm, at which point I was only 1cm. dilated, 50% effaced and the baby was only at a –3 station. I was a while off delivering this baby. My blood pressure was the highest it had ever been this pregnancy: 134/80 (my entire pregnancy it had been in the 110’s/60’s). At 6:15pm Jenny came in to report that she had talked to Dr. Pearson. I had expressed that it would be so cool if the baby was born on 02.01.2010 (cool date) and his response apparently: “If she wants that baby to born tomorrow, then that is what will happen.” He had given me permission to eat / have dinner and he wanted me to get some Ambien, in order to get some rest that night. Dinner and sleep – how much better could it get?? Not much I’d think. If things weren’t moving along around 3:00am, they would put me on Pitocen to get the party going. I was okay with that, but first…FOOD!!!
David went down to the cafeteria and got me a country-fried steak with mashed potatoes. Yummy!! Then…the best part: a mint-chocolate chip milkshake from Baskin Robbins!!!! Tom was kind enough to bring it over and while David and I enjoyed the milkshake, he hung out a bit. The guys started talking about work, I took David’s laptop and spent some time posting and instant-messaging on Facebook. Lovely .
At 7:45pm Beverly, our night nurse, came in to do a mini-ultra sound to make sure that Ryder was head down – check! He was.
At 9:35pm I got my Ambien and was looking forward to get some sleep. Sleep…ah yeah, that was a nice idea… At 10pm I got my first killer contraction. Strong to the point that I couldn’t talk, breathe or do anything for that matter through it. All I could think was “breathe, relax, breathe, relax, you can do this”. All I can say now is “Oh My God how painful!!” Between 10-11 I had a total of 3 of these killer contractions, which each lasted around 2 minutes. By 11:00pm, I had turned into that woman who hisses at her husband “Give me drugs…NOW!!!!” 
We requested the epidural and around 11:55 Dr. Walz, our anesthesiologist came in to administer it. David got sent outside and waited in the waiting room. Right before I got the epi, I got checked and Beverly was surprised to find out that I was 5cm. dilated already. Things were moving a lot faster than they had expected they would.
It took 40 minutes to administer the epidural, which didn’t go without some complications. First of all, sitting still through contractions that strong is so incredibly difficult. Then, the first placement of the epidural didn’t work. It didn’t do anything, so they had to move it. Long story short, it finally got in at 12:35am I was laying down again at which point I was between 7-8 cm!!! I went from 5 to almost 8 in less than 40 minutes. Well, at least we had made it to 02.01.2010, right?
20 minutes later, I was pretty numb from the epidural, but with each contraction I got this amazingly strong pain in my left inner thigh. It felt as if someone punched it full force and then kept pushing into it with a fist. Not pleasant at all. Dr. Walz was called back and gave me an extra dose of I-don’t-know-what, which resulted in my lower body going completely numb to the point where I couldn’t even feel the pressure of the contractions anymore. It was certainly not how I had wanted it, but it certainly beat the pain and tension of an hour earlier. With Kai, the epidural had been an amazing experience: high as a kite, but I still experienced the pressure with each contraction, which allowed me to know exactly when to push. This time around, there was nothing, absolutely nothing to go by, except the monitor.
At 1:35am Dr. Pearson was called in. I was given the oxygen mask as Ryder’s heart rate had gone down due to being squeezed. Dr. Pearson arrived around 2:00am. The room was busy being converted from a nice and comfortable hospital room to something like an operating theatre. There are two very bright halogen type lights recessed in the ceiling and with them on the center of the room was like in the lime light. Monitors were rolled in as were trays of instruments: forceps of varying sizes and numerous other things. David observed all this activity. I am merely copying these notes from him as I remember the room at one point being a very nice hospital room and the next moment it looked like an operating room. I have no idea where all the instruments and trays and carts came from, but all of a sudden they were there. Thank you David for taking these notes.
Since I could not feel my legs or any pressure, Dr. Pearson told me to hold my long legs back and use them as levers. He asked me to try 2 pushes and despite my lack of feeling they apparently went off the chart on the contraction monitor. Dr. Pearson then looked me straight in the eyes and said “since you’re not feeling anything, do EXACTLY as I tell you to”. It was a look of intensity that I will not soon forget and all I could think was “you got it, I would not want to argue with you right now”.
Ryder began to crown and Dr. Pearson asked David to see it. Dr. Pearson grabbed a vacuum device about the size of an old silver dollar, placed it on Ryder’s crown and suctioned it to his head. He then used this to help pull the head out. Mind you, that Dr. Pearson is a former Olympic boxer, but he was using such strength that as he pulled, his arms shook. Ryder's head came out but he got stuck at the shoulders. His face was turning blue and Dr. Pearson was grabbing him under the chin and pulling way harder than David thought one could. He said, "We need more room," grabbed some surgical scissors and cut me. As he did, Ryder's shoulders began to come out and as Dr. Pearson pulled, he finally came out. All this happened in seconds and in total it only took about 6 pushes from beginning to end. I had no idea that we had to do an episiotomy, until after the delivery, when Dr. Pearson said he had to put some stitches in. Oh well, c'est la vie.
Once again, I remember the beautiful sound of my baby’s first cry; a sigh of relief. It was a beautiful thing to hold my baby immediately after he was born, even before he was put on the warming table.
David cut the cord, and Ryder was placed on the warming table where he was stimulated and checked: everything in place and seemed to be working. He scored a 8 and 9 on his 1-minute and 5-minute Apgar test, so all was well.
Ryder was taken to the nursery to be cleaned and weighed and when he and David came back, with them came the surprise of our lives: Ryder weighed a massive 10 lbs., 1.31 oz. (4.9 kg.) and was 21.5 inches (53.3 cm.) long.
The delivery didn’t leave me without some painful complications, but after all it was worth it. In Post Partum, we discovered that I had a hematoma in my urinary tract, which obstructed my ability to pee. As a result I had a catheter put in to aid in that process.
In the afternoon, Dr. Lubin from our pediatrician’s office came over to check Ryder out. All was well, though he did have a heart murmur. If the next day that was still there, they would want to do an ultrasound, but at this point it’s a normal phenomenon.
In post-partum I quickly became known as “the mother who gave birth to a 2-month old” and with every nurses’ shift, the new nurse was in awe of Ryder’s size. Apparently, Ryder and I turned into the talk of the hospital. 
In the evening, I got some visitors. So nice. Opa and Oma stopped by, goddaddy Mike & godmummy Nina came over, David’s friend Thor stopped by and later in the eve Amy spent some time with me. It was lovely and so incredibly heart warming that people came to visit me. Earlier that afternoon our neighbor Jerry had stopped by for a few minutes as well.
Despite some of the things not going exactly how I would have wanted them to go, I am incredibly happy with the way things went. It proves once again that it is nearly impossible to control events of this magnitude. I think by now we have established that David and I make big babies and that my body births quickly. I love Ryder’s birth date and I am grateful to have had the experience of going into labor spontaneously, after being induced with Kai. It was a great experience and all I can say is “THANK YOU” from the bottom of my heart. |