More gory details

All through my pregnancy, I worried about a long needle being inserted into my spine. Seemed scarier than actually even going into labor, right? And everyone told me that when you get to that point, the last thing you're worried about is a needle. Turns out they were right. They could have inserted the Space Needle up my back by that point and I wouldn't have cared. Anyway, the epidural came and I went through more contractions. I still felt like pooping but the pain was gone.

And around this time, just when I thought I was going to be a medical anomaly and remain at 4 and a half cm for 3 years, they checked me again, and I was at 8!! So finally, things were happening. Contractions had become more intense, and I was getting more and more dilated. I was almost ready to push and by this point, I was ready. An hour went by and I was 9 cm! Another hour went by and I was at 9.5.

Everything was moving nicely, except that they checked me again an hour later and I was still at 9.5. They waited a couple more hours, came back, and I still hadn't reached 10. The nurse said I was really really close but the last bit of my cervix did not want to open up. I don't know what time it was at this point, but it was probably about 1 or 2 in the morning. And if they came in and said I was still close but not there yet one more time, I was ready to get down there and rip the baby out myself. Well, no, but dude, there's nothing more discouraging than seeing the finish line but not being able to reach it.

Not to worry, the nurse said. A lot of times, you can just push your way past that last bit of closed cervix. So she had me start to push. And push. And push. A contraction would come and she'd tell me when/how to push. Basically they tell you to push like you're trying to get a turd out (a total AHA moment right there for me -- this is why so many women poop during labor I guess). I pushed for what seemed like forever. She kept checking my cervix and it still hadn't opened yet! I'm glad I got the epidural if for nothing more than the cervical checks, god they were excruciating before. And I got a whole lot of them.

And during this whole time, the nurse has been saying several things. One, that it seems to be a night for emergency issues and c-sections and she was not going to have me add to the trend. And two, although I would need to have a c-section if I couldn't dilate to 10 cm, she didn't anticipate it getting to that point. But then as I kept pushing and nothing kept happening, she stopped saying that. Finally, my doctor came and made the call, said that if I'd already been pushing for that long, there was really nothing else to do. If my cervix still wasn't opening up, that was a sign that the baby was probably too big.

The rest of the night was a blur. I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. Once we made the decision to go for the c-section, everything happened quickly. I think they had us all prepped and the baby out in less than half an hour. They had G get scrubbed up and wheeled us into the operating room (him in a wheel chair, I think, just in case he fainted, though I'm not sure). And I guess they put a curtain up between my top half and bottom half and cut me up. Oh they gave me drugs, but later, the anesthesiologist told me that I had been snoring away even before he gave me anything. G hung out by my head so I'm not sure how much he could see. And then before I knew it, it was 3 am and they were telling me I had a girl! A girl! I'm still in shock by that, by the way. I had been so mentally prepared for a boy. But honestly, they showed her to me, and all I remember thinking is "cool" and drifting back to sleep.

I do remember though being with it enough to tell G to follow the baby. Cuz they took the baby away to wash her up while the doctors stayed to close me up. And G was too busy hanging out with me to pay attention to where the baby went. There was a flurry of activity too because there were all kinds of people in the operating room. Earlier in the evening, when my doctor had to break my water, they had found some meconium in my water (it's basically baby poop -- I guess sometimes it's common when babies are late for the poop to seep into the amniotic sac). And they were worried that the baby might swallow some on her way out. So there were doctors and nurses from the neonatal intensive care unit on stand by to clear out the baby's lungs in case that happened. Not a huge deal if they're prepared for it, but potentially scary if they're not. Plus there was my doctor and nurse, the c-section doctor, the anesthesiologist, and I don't know who else. There was a lot going on, and all I really remember is how sleepy I was and how quickly it all seemed to happen.

While they were closing me up, G went with the baby to watch them clean her up and give her initial shots and tests. They apparently told him that the baby's head had been rammed up against my cervix trying to push her way out but that her head had been too big for my cervix. So that's why I couldn't finish dilating. She might have been slightly out of position also, but they said it wouldn't have mattered anyway because I was just too small for her. Damn big husbands! G had told me what a huge baby he was, and I had been freaked out about this the entire pregnancy.

Knowing this kid like I do now, I also kind of wonder if she had been too lazy to push that hard. She doesn't seem like the type to go that extra mile if she doesn't have to. :) But who knows, I guess all that matters is that at the end of the day, we have this super adorable little girl. I may be biased but she didn't even look like a little alien when she was born. You know how a lot of newborns are kind of goopy and ET-looking? Not this one! I swear, she looked like a baby right from the start.

Anyway, I guess that's it for the gory labor details. All the nurses kept telling me that at least next time, I wouldn't have to go through labor at all. I could just schedule a c-section and be done with it. And I guess now that I've had to come to terms with having one at all, might as well. But good god, really, another one????

the gory details (Part I)

Aside from the cloth diapers and my brief foray into the idea of natural child birth, I wouldn't really call myself earth friendly (i.e. hippie). I mean, sure, I try to be environmentally conscious, eat healthy foods, get my pets at animal shelters, and try not to medicate too often. But for the most part I like modern conveniences. It used to be that I didn't even have a cell phone, but I live with Mr. Gadgets now and I've gotten used to the easy life. And one day soon, now that we have 3 dogs and a kid, I know that I'll have to break down and probably buy a car that gives less than 30 miles a gallon. I do what I can but have no problems giving up an ideal for convenience. Plus I'm a huge believer in science and modern medicine.

Despite all this, I had a vision of how my labor would go. When we were in our birthing classes, a lot of women said they're biggest fear was having a c-section. I had no such fear. Honestly, I felt that at the end of the day, I would do whatever needed to be done to get the baby out. And if my doctor felt that a c-section was necessary, then that's what would happen. I didn't WANT it per se. I didn't even want the doctor to make a slit to help the baby come out if it came down to it, let alone a c-section scar. Ideally, I decided I'd rather tear (I know it sounds terrible, and there are really no advantages to either, but see my previous post about the Kool-Aid) and heal naturally than with a cut and stitches. I didn't even want to be induced. So definitely a c-section is even more invasive and definitely not on my "must have" list, but I barely thought much about it.

But it was easy not to think about it because in my head, I always felt that it would never go there. I mean, how on earth could I possibly have issues delivering a kid? Child bearing runs in my family, and I always just figured I was built for it. I never really thought much about it but I think it was a source of pride. And when the moment came that the c-section became necessary, that was probably what stuck in my craw the most.

And the moment was a LONG time coming that day. Because I went into the hospital Monday morning at 7 am to be induced after being almost a week late. The baby apparently did not want to come out. Actually, we were supposed to go in Sunday night, but as we were walking out the door, the hospital called and said that they had no more beds, that it was a crazy night, did I want to come Monday morning instead. Sun, they were supposed to give me this drug to help my cervix dilate. By the end of labor, my cervix is to have dilated 10 cm, a lot of women start the process during the last weeks of their pregnancy. As of my last doc appointment, I was completely closed.

So all night, I was supposed to hang out while the meds did their thing, then, when it was time, they'd give me drugs to induce contractions. That was the plan. I could probably sleep while I was dilating and wake up ready to start feeling the pain. But everything got pushed out and we came in Mon morning armed with videos for entertainment. To my surprise, it turned out that I had started having contractions and was dilated already without knowing it. 3 cm, one third of the way there! So they decided to skip the drugs altogether to get my cervix dilating and went straight to the pitocin to induce contractions. A few hours went by, nothing happened. We watched videos, updated facebook every few minutes, caught up on emails. If you're planning on going to labor, a hospital with WI-FI is key.

A few more hours went by. The nurses would occasionally come and examine my cervix (OUCH, that was probably more painful than contractions). They kept upping my pitocin and I still felt nothing. They kept asking if I wanted an epidural. I said, very proudly, no.

At around 3 or 4 pm, I was still just at 4 cm. My doctor came and broke my bag of water around 4:30 or so, and they assured me that things would much more quickly after that. At the next cervix check a few hours later, the nurse said I was at 4 cm. Then she saw my disappointed face and said, "Well, maybe 4 and a half." Awesome, a whole half cm. And still I felt nothing. My doctor said that 4 cm was a good time to get the epidural, but I said no. Well, I still hadn't felt anything, so it seemed silly to get pain killers.

The timing starts to get a little fuzzy, but at some point, they inserted this wire up me to try to better monitor the strength of my contractions. That made it a bit harder to pee. Then suddenly, maybe around 9?, without any warning, I felt my first contraction and it was a doozy. I don't even know how to describe it except that it was pretty much hell AND I felt like pooping. Plus my lower back hurt which I don't think is normal or a good thing. There was no gradual easing into them either, one second I barely knew I was having a contraction and the next minute I couldn't miss 'em. All day, they had been occurring every 4-5 minutes (which is what you want), but all day, they'd been trying to increase the intensity and suddenly they succeeded.

So as I mentioned yesterday, I pretty much broke down right away and asked for the epidural. But it turned out that some one else was having an emergency and the anesthesiologist was busy with her and couldn't get to me for a while. So I ended up gritting my teeth through contractions every 5 minutes for over an hour before God came and inserted a long ass needle up my back.

To be continued . . .

evolution of an idea

So up until about the 37th week of my pregnancy (i.e. 3 weeks before my due date), I thought my birth plan was completely set in stone. And basically, it involved me asking for the epidural in the parking lot, or maybe even a couple of days before. Ideally, I would have preferred to be completely knocked out and maybe drunk the whole time, but I figured that probably wasn't an option. So I was ready the moment we got to the hospital to say the magic words: "Gimme drugs NOW." I don't deal with pain well. I start wincing and whining before it starts.

And I hate to say this, but my opinion of people who decided to give birth "naturally" was that they were utterly insane. You know, like the tree-hugger, don't want to shave my underarms, kind of insane. Or my mother. But she's from a one-road village in a developing country, of course she'd be for all natural childbirth. Women have been giving birth for thousands of years, she said. What did I need drugs for? Sure they have. And yeah, some women dropped their babies in the fields and kept right on working, but a lot of them also dropped dead. This is why we have modern conveniences now, like doctors and hospitals, and medicine. And I plan on using every single one of them.

Except . . . well, I made the mistake of going to a child birth class. You know, to be better informed about these things. And apparently, all these classes are taught by midwives and doulas (i.e. who needs drugs school?). And a lot of what they said made sense. You know, the part about women recovering from natural labor more quickly, and our bodies only producing a baby that we could deliver naturally, and the occasional side effects of various drugs. I can't remember exactly what all they said to convince me, but suddenly, I was drinking the Kool-Aid. Mostly, it just seemed empowering, like of course I could do this. Why not, after all, women have been doing this for thousands of years. . . .

So for about a month, I walked around thinking that I'd go for it, that'd I have an all natural child birth. And I did it without really telling anyone. Cuz I didn't want to sound like a nut. And I didn't want to go on about it and then not. And anyway, I wasn't a 100% sure what I wanted. Because there was just one problem with the whole plan, the whole pain thing. If only I could have a natural child birth without feeling any pain! But I thought that I'd give it a shot and just see what happened.

Anyway, the idea lasted well into my labor. All day, the nurses kept asking me if I wanted drugs, and I said no. Honestly, apparently I was having contractions but they didn't seem that bad. My doctor came late in the afternoon and said that it was a good time to get an epidural if I wanted one. I said no, I was doing great. Well, early that evening, the pain started. I felt my first real contraction, and I started to cave. The next one came around and my mind was pretty much made up. But just for kicks, I endured a few more and then rang the call button.

And that was that. I've decided now that natural child birth is WAY overrated. It turned out that I had to wait over an hour before they could actually give me my epidural, so I got a fairly good taste of what child birth was all about. And I gotta say, if you can do it, kudos to you, but I'm going back to my epidural in the parking lot next time around. Though actually, as it turns out, I'll have it easier than that even next time around, but I'll have to save that for my next post.

The DZ

AKA the PrimaDonna AKA the turd AKA the most gorgeous thing ever . . .

So I have a kid. An adorable, won't-stop-fussing-during-the-day, little girl. When they told me that it was a girl, I almost had a heart attack. Well, I was heavily doped up and exhausted after being unsuccessfully in labor for almost 20 hours, so actually I think I said "OH" and then promptly fell asleep. But now, I'm about ready to have a heart attack. Me, with a girl??? What the h-- am I going to do?? Everyone thought I was having a boy. And I mean everyone, including the random girl in the Social Security line that called out to me one day just to guess that I was having a boy. Well, actually first, she said I was having a girl. Then she asked me to turn around and said, no, no, I'm definitely having a boy. And come on, random people hanging out in line accosting pregnant women are ALWAYS right, no? I guess a few people guessed I was having a girl, but for the most part, everyone seemed to think I carried like a boy. The Chinese gender predictor also expected me to have a boy. As did a number of internet tests. Which goes to show you that the internet is apparently not always right. I know, you could have blown me over with a feather!!

Anyway, I'm shocked, but utterly in love. Maybe I'm biased but I'm pretty convinced that I have the cutest girl ever. Even when she's being a total turd, like she has been this week, she's pretty darn adorable. Her eyes tear up when she's crying (and she's been doing a lot of that this week) and sometimes all I want to do is laugh cuz it's so cute.

I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration. This week, she's been super fussy. They say newborns feed anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours. Which sucks cuz it means I never really sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch (cuz it takes a good hour to do a feeding a put her back down). She sleeps pretty well at night, and I've been taking advantage more and more and stretching the feedings farther out than I probably should. But during the day, she feeds for however long she decides to feed for, then fusses until the 1.5 mark comes up and then is hungry again. I can handle sleeping in short increments if I absolutely have to but no one told me that I'd be stuck with a crying kid all day who constantly pooped and peed between feedings (seriously, sometimes I went through 3-4 diaper changes in a half hr period this week). And honestly, no matter how cute she is when she cries, this part has NOT been fun. I suddenly get why new moms get so frustrated. There have been moments this week when I've wanted to cry myself, and I don't look nearly as cute doing it (actually far from it -- I'm totally gross now, I'm lucky if I can sneak in a shower every day and usually right after I come out, I usually get spit up on or something so that all my shirts now seem permanently stained with baby barf).

So anyway, all this is my roundabout way of saying that I have a new baby girl. And I'm trying to get back to blogging. But it's hard. When I do get a couple of hours during the day when the kid seems to be passed out, I want to nap myself. Or eat, or hop in the shower. I don't know that I've done any of those things this week without getting woken up. I was in the shower for 5 minutes yesterday when my brother yelled out that the DZ had taken a huge dump and was fussing (you can hear her pooping -- I'm honestly surprised I didn't hear it in the shower, she's so loud). G went back to work this week, so I'm struggling to manage on my own. My little brother is here hanging out this week, and has been helpful in some ways, but it's not the same. As evidenced by the fact that when she took a dump yesterday, he was nice enough to yell that out to me and had her waiting to be changed on the changing table but didn't actually change the diaper himself.

I don't plan on this becoming a mommy blog or anything, but I have lots of baby-related stuff to write about. Hopefully, as the weeks go by, I'll get into a groove, and get back into blogging regularly. I know you're all dying to hear about my gruesome labor details and breastfeeding issues. But for now, you'll have to bear with me a bit, and just keep checking in for new posts every so often.

Oh, I'm still debating putting up baby pictures on this blog. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about that yet -- I don't know, I watch too many grisly crime shows and there was this one I remember where this guy got hit with pornography charges because some wacko stumbled onto his family blog or something. I know it's a long shot, especially with the small readership that I have, but I'm still debating. Of course, all of you that are on Facebook will get lots of photo updates, as I find more time to start sorting through more pictures.

science vs. myth

Yesterday, I had another doctor's appointment, and it was oh-so-fun to go with my mom. My doctor had already told me that she doesn't feel comfortable waiting more than one week past the due date, so yesterday, we started talking about an induction date. Of course, that doesn't mean that I can't still go into labor on my own before then, but she wanted to at least set a date to induce assuming that nothing happens in the meantime. This was an expected conversation, and I had already told my mom that it was coming. And yes, there's a little bit of variation in that some docs seem to allow for a little more time (10 days to 2 weeks) and it seems to be mostly a matter of personal preference/sense of caution. My doctor says 1 week, and I'm fine with that.

Anyway, so we start talking and my mom immediately chimes in. Well, actually, she had already chimed in the moment she met my doc by saying that she hoped that my doc had good news for us and could tell us when to expect the baby to pop out. Um, ok, it doesn't really work like that. And there were a few other random questions after that too, that were already starting to rub me the wrong way because I had plenty of questions on my own, and I hate being railroaded in my own doctor's appointment. Plus, I'm not a kid, I like to ask my own questions thank you much. AND, it's not like she's been to any of my appointments before, so she just kept asking repetitive stuff that I already knew.

So then, we started talking induction. And our conversation went something like this.

ME: I'm a bit worried because I've heard that inducing is associated with greater risk of c-sections.

MY MOM: I don't understand why you can't wait longer. Can't you wait 10 days to 2 weeks. Why do we have to schedule this now? (Hopefully, you caught the bit earlier about how this whole conversation was expected and I had already explained to my mom the reasons the doc gave me for not wanting to go past one week. But to my mom, apparently, my doctor is like a salesman. It's all about getting the best deal possible).

ME: The other thing about inductions that worries me is that I've heard contractions with pitocin are much stronger and more painful. I don't deal with pain well.

MY MOM: So if we're going to induce, I'd like to do it on the 20th because that's supposed to be an auspicious day to have the baby.

And that's when I lost it -- seriously, she started contemplating the best possible dates for induction based on the Indian calendar. I was - and still am - pissed. This is something that has always annoyed the hell out of me. In my family, everything's always about what the right time to do something is (right day, right hour, right month). I mean, I should be tolerant and all that, but I can't help it. I find it to be the most ridiculous thing ever.

And pretty much that's how the rest of the appointment went. Me asking what I felt to be serious medical questions with my mom trying to hijack the conversation with Indian superstition. And what made it worse is that my mom doesn't really know the Indian calendar that well (with respect to what's the best day and all that). So she was just hypothesizing, probably in the hopes of asking my dad or some one else later on. "What about this day, would you be able to induce that day?" etc. etc. My doctor, I have to say, was much more patient than I was.

On the way home, my mom asked again why she couldn't predict when my labor would be. After all, she's a doctor. She had my ultrasounds. Why couldn't see with more precision when I'd deliver? It's ridiculous. And on and on. Apparently, my doctor now needs to have super powers.

Poll

So I'm now officially in overtime. My due date was yesterday and the little sucker has decided to stay in a bit longer. I know, I know, everyone's thinking that the whole being late thing must run in the family. :) But if that's the case, I'm kind of wishing the kid had inherited my impatience rather than the lateness gene.

Anyway, with nothing better to do, I was thinking of getting a little poll going. Any guesses on what the kid will be and when it'll turn up? Was thinking I could have us all guess on when the baby will be born (what date, what time), gender, weight, and length. Winner will get something eventually . . . though I think I still haven't delivered on that $5 Starbucks gift card to Lisa way back when for the last poll I did - sorry!

I'm going to do it too, so will start us off in the comments section. And I'll tell you now what I already know. My due date was yesterday, and my doctor wants to induce on the 19th if I haven't already had it by then. So in terms of the date, you only have a short window to really play with. Everything else is up for grabs.

Here are a few recent pics of me too for those of you that want to see how I'm carrying or something like that to better guess the gender.







And stay tuned, I actually have another post coming today also, just because I really do have nothing else going on.

the last week

So as of last Tues, I've been at home on maternity leave. Last week, the whole idea of maternity leave seemed great. I couldn't find enough hours in a day to do everything I needed to do. A spa day (with massage, facial, pedicure, and haircut) on Wed, a bunch of errands on Thurs, a string of coffee and lunch dates on Fri . . . I was bummed on the days that I couldn't squeeze a nap in or watch all the tv I wanted to. It was a tough life, and I felt like I could just do it forever.

Everything changed though on Sat after my mom came. I mean, it's been nice having her here (AWESOME home cooked meals, need I say more?), but she had been in the car maybe 20 minutes before she started nagging. And it hasn't stopped. It's usually mixed in with normal conversations, so it's not like we've spent the whole visits arguing. Far from it. But my mom has this knack for never letting things go. And just when you start to feel like things are all right and we're getting along, she'll manage to throw that nit picky thing in. It's pitch perfect timing, I almost wonder if she practices in her spare time.

So far, she's found plenty to nag about. She can't believe we let all 3 dogs in the house. Isn't it time to throw them in the backyard now that we're about to have a baby? How do we even know that they'll get along with the baby? G said at one point that of course if it becomes a problem, we'll have to consider it, but until then they're indoor dogs. This was on top of me becoming almost apoplectic approximately the 10th time she brought it up. But I'm pretty sure it's not a topic that's been laid to rest yet.

The whole name thing has also been high on her list of annoying topics. She thinks we should use my maiden name as the middle name if it's a boy. For those of you that know it, you realize why that's a terrible idea. She keeps telling me how it's tradition to name at least the first kid after their grandparents, and the fact that I'm not doing it makes me a terrible Indian and so disrespectful of my culture. I'm thinking that the next time she brings it up, I'm going to tell her that she's absolutely right. We should name our kid after his or her grandparents, and out of respect for our family heritage, we've decided to go with G's parents' names as middle names. See how that sits.

What else? The house is old. Our couch is old (never mind that when we moved as kids, my parents kept this ratty old couch for years after until they finally decided it was time to get something else). There is no fan in the bathroom. The dogs shed too much (though in her defense on this one, the dogs are definitely shedding a lot at the moment). And they smell. The pillow is too soft. There is no disposal in the kitchen sink. She wants me to come up for two weeks (dude, she's only been here for a day and a half, she's already thinking ahead). I made the mistake of saying 2 weeks was a long time so that was pretty unlikely, so she's been on me about that ever since (G was much more tactful, said that we could see, but the damage was already done by that point - I'll never learn).

Anyway, so it's been a fun time. So now, I'm on a mission to get this baby out as fast as possible, to at least have something to distract me from the rest of the visit. According to the internet, there's lots of natural ways to induce labor, and I've been trying them all. Of course, exercise is supposed to be the most effective. So I've been taking the dogs on at least 2 walks a day. I also read in an online forum that some women have managed to induce labor by rolling around on an exercise ball. So guess what I've been doing while watching tv? Spicy food is classic of course -- I was tempted to drink a bottle of hot sauce except that that brings on one of my major labor fears: pooping during the delivery. Same with castor oil, which is supposed to just give you diarrhea (but sometimes also gets contractions going too with all the activity down there). Sex is an old standby too, but man, it's pretty uncomfortable at this point. If you know of any other tricks, please let me know. I'm willing to try most things.