Baby Peeper's Birth Story

Labor is hard. Giving birth hurts a lot. The first week home with a new baby is harder than giving birth.

I started having mild contractions on Thursday morning (June 18th). They were totally tolerable - Tim and I went to breakfast at Zazie. As the day wore on the contractions were getting stronger and closer together but not so bad that I couldn't keep doing things. This is where they tell you to resist the urge to be productive and just take a nap instead. I wish I had taken that advice. I started keeping track of them around 1:30 pm. When Tim got home from work we went for a walk because that is supposed to help your cervix dilate, which can take a long time with your first baby. It was comical - I had to stop every few minutes and sit on someone's front steps while I had a contraction. We tried to go to bed but I couldn't sleep. The birthing ball was my friend, walking and moving around was great, and I took 2 showers before we left for the hospital. At around 3:30am I woke Tim up to come help me. I labored at home until 6:30am and then we went to the hospital.

When we arrived I was 100% effaced and 8cm dilated (the walk apparently worked). I was rushed into a L&D suite and everyone anticipated that we would meet our little Peeper by noon. I settled in to our room with a fabulous view, made friends with my nurse and midwife, and continued to labor. Everything was going along just fine until the contractions started getting farther apart and less intense. What's worse is that after a few hours of this I hadn't made any progress when it came to getting my girl toward the exit. They put me on Pitocin. Yeah, I didn't want that but what was I going to do - keep the baby in there forever? As expected, the contractions went back to the former intensity and closeness but still no progress.

I asked for someone to come and check me again because I felt like I wanted to push now or very soon. Turns out my water hadn't completely broken - they broke my water at 1:30pm on Friday. Let me tell you that when that fluid came pouring out it was like a tsunami!! With the next contraction I could feel the baby descend into the birth canal - freaked me out! Transitional labor sucks ass. I spent almost the next 4 hours pushing. And the public pooping was awful but you know how I feel about public pooping. People will try to tell you that you won't notice it. Ummm....you will notice it. We had a lot of trouble going from about 0 to 3+ station - it took forever because she was turned kind of to the side and heading for a face-up delivery. I ended up doing some squatting etc to try to encourage and help her spin back to being face-down.

I was so freaking tired by this point I was having trouble pushing through the whole contraction. I was trying to rest between contractions so my eyes were closed then and during pushing I was squeezing everything so hard that my eyes were shut then too! I didn't notice Tim with a camera. But I did notice him getting really stressed - it takes a lot to make him get frantic. The baby was having late heart rate decelerations and now there was meconium in the amniotic fluid - we were headed for a c-section. I actually was instructed to NOT push during every other contraction. That was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do was not push.

At some point I realized that the room was full of people including the attending, fellow, and resident all crowded between my knees. Pediatrics was hovering in the background in case the baby had aspirated meconium. She crowned finally!! She was there with the maximum circumference of her head lingering at the final exit. Ring of fire is an excellent description. I tried to wait it out until the next contraction and then do the slow, controlled push so I wouldn't tear. Pfft!! Whatever, I couldn't take it anymore so I pushed without the contraction (I did give the fellow warning to get ready) and then she was born!! I'll give it to you straight: it feels pretty weird to have a baby come out of there.

She was born 9 pounds even and 20.5 inches long at 4:54 pm on June 19th. She was whisked off by pediatrics for some length of time I can't even speculate about. It seems like only a couple of minutes but I might have fallen asleep. She was screaming from the very start and her apgars were a 9 so once pediatrics declared her healthy I got to hold my babe. That moment is one that so many say they will remember forever and it's full of emotion etc...I was just so tired and I just couldn't believe she was ours. In an instant I became a mom, Tim became a dad, and this little person was separate from us both after 40 weeks of being tucked inside me. All I could do was stare at her and kiss her forehead. Just surreal. It took about 4-5 days before I didn't feel like I was in the room with someone else's baby and I was just the sitter.

I had a second degree perineal tear that was pretty jagged and weird so it took the fellow some time to suture me up. She was apologizing for taking so long. I said, "Take your time. My vagina is very important to me!" We were her last baby of her fellowship as she was graduating and moving on to private practice the next day! Taking care of that has been delightful...it's not the end of the world but you know, it's a tender area. Well, we were headed off to the recovery room about 2 hours after delivery. The nurse helped me up to go to the bathroom - I was not prepared to be so debilitated and need so much help. I did that and came back and was waiting for her and Tim to gather all our stuff and woosh - I was standing there and blood poured out. I lost about a liter in all - dropped my hematocrit 10% and into transfusion range. I got some more drugs and that was that. The real effect of the blood loss was on my milk supply but we wouldn't know that until days later.

A word about pain: there seems to be some kind of unspoken competition amongst women about epidural or not. The one advantage I can see to it is that I could have slept and not been so damn tired when it came time to push. There were so many people who expected me to "cave in" - I hate that sentiment. Someone after commented "did you do it just to prove that you could?" Well, yeah I kind of did. Maybe my next labor will be different -there's no telling what is going to happen. I did ask for some drugs shortly after I got to the hospital. Nitrous is used pretty routinely in Europe and they are trying it out at UCSF. I viewed pain relief as a tiered system: I would start with nitrous and if that sucked then I would resort to fentanyl and if that didn't do it I would consider an epidural. Since I was so dilated when I arrived I was told that there probably wasn't time for an epidural so I made the mental switch right there - the epidural was no longer an option so I best make do with what was available. I did use the nitrous and later 3 micro doses of fentanyl. Thank God for opiates.

We finally named the babe - Ada Caroline. Funny, it was driving everyone crazy that we didn't have a name so we drug it out a little farther than we had to. Just savoring the secret.

You know that I've been facinated by the whole question of what turns a woman into a mother. Here is the thing - I am able to talk about other stuff still!! But I am head-over-heels for my kid. I think that pregnancy is where it starts - you can't deny that it's happening even from the very start. Then your body changes and you have a physical reminder all day every day. By the way, my post-partum body is a lot less scary than I thought it would be. For the ladies about to give birth I recommend getting a belly bandit or something like it. Now that she is here it is all-consuming...and delightfully so. I love to just sit and watch her moving around and looking at things. When she cries I want to make it stop but not because it bothers me but because I want her to feel comfortable and happy. I adore her - every hair, every sweet breath, every little noise, all of her. I want to snuggle her all the time and be with her always! I love watching Tim with her too - it is a whole new level of closeness that I couldn't have anticipated. He adores her and is already a great father. It just makes me love him even more deeply.

28 weeks

Me at 28 weeks. Puppet is being very helpful.

Glucose tolerance? I has it. Keep the cookies coming my way and nobody will get hurt.
Anemia?? I has that too. But just a tiny bit so no iron supplements yet. Hooray for pooping!

Before I even started this blog I had once central, burning question about motherhood: what is it in this transformation that makes some women begin to identify exclusively with being a mother at the exclusion of virtually all else? I had intended, in part, for this blog to be something I could look back on to determine if I had become one of those women and to trace the steps of how I got there. Maybe it's because the process itself is so gradual that I haven't come back to touch on this topic yet. A quiet weekend like this gives me time to process what is happening and then chose whatever response I want to manifest as opposed to reacting under stress and exhaustion, which is what I normally end up doing. It's still formative, but here's what I have so far:

I'm fairly prone to egocentric, self-absorbed thinking. In order to nurture another one must be less full ones 'self'. Since becoming pregnant I have observed a shift. My irreversible, unconditional connection to this baby of mine has forced me to turn away from the sense that I am the center of my own (or anyone else's) universe! Losing the familiar boundaries of my own skin and the weight of bearing responsibility for another is disorienting at times. Nevertheless, the death of my own falsely constructed ego that is driven by external circumstances...I do not mourn it! Rather, I think that the construction, maintenance and defense of my own ego has led to great dissatisfaction. I am trying to see this the opportunity to become more connected with something bigger and more meaningful all the while striving to be a person who can talk about something other than my kids. We'll see how this evolves...

MIA

Sorry, all. I've been trapped at the SF SPCA for days on end working my fool ass off. I'm not sure if it's a phase of the moon or the season or what but we have been so busy and the cases have been just bizarre! I believe in the mission of where I work but the 12-14 hours a day it takes to make it happen? Not so much.

We did get away last weekend. We left Saturday morning and drove south to the Pinnacles National Monument where we did some light hiking. We carried on to Paso Robles where we stopped at a winery - Tim did some tasting and I did some sniffing. We did manage to get a nice red blend and a Viogner that I am looking forward to in a few months. We got inspired to try to take that trip to Oregon to tase the Pinot Noir's for the season in November! Squee!! We stayed at a B & B in Cambria for the night. We went to the Hearst Castle in the morning - I wasn't expecting to be amazed but I was pleasantly surprised!! It's pretty cool if you ever get a chance to go. Next up was a stop to see the elephant seals - they are done breeding and the moms are all gone but their fatty babies are left behind. We got to stop at the Phoenix for lunch - yum!! We went up to Point Lobos State Reserve for more light hiking and for Tim to check out a diving opportunity. It's quite beautiful there! Then we drove past Carmel and Monterey on our way home Sunday night. It was a short, but nice getaway!
Lazy elephant seals above. To right: Me at 25weeks.

Notice any similarities??


Back to reality, I got home last night a little after 8:00 to find Puppet had a urinary obstruction. We turned around and went back to the clinic to unblock him. Struvites. Puppet is home now - his BUN (30), Cre (2.), and K (3.9) never even went out of range and the urine wasn't bloody so it was a quick turnaround. He's home now much to Frances's disappointment.


Puppet the night before he blocked
checking out our (free) Peg Perego
infant car seat.

Beyond that we are still in super plan and save mode. It's still overwhelming but once again my job has managed to distract me so much that there isn't any time left for something as silly as worrying, planning a future, or having feelings. Pffft!