Welcome to the third installment of the First Day Birth Day Chronicles. I very nearly said “third and final” , but of course, by the first day of next month or shortly therafter, I will have another story to tell, a fact which has clearly not hit me yet. If you missed Pippa’s or Romilly’s birth stories, they are here and here respectively.
In pseudo-labor at the Glenside Independence Day Parade
Depending on when I start it, Bea’s birth could be the longest or the shortest of the three stories to date. (Knowing me, I’m sure I will make it the longest, since it’s freshest in my mind, and I can never resist giving a bit of totally unnecessary detail.) At the risk of spoiling the ending a bit, I will tell you know that she was born on Saturday July 7, 2007, and that I began having contractions on Tuesday, July 3rd. Real contractions that hurt enough to wake me up at night and have me keeping track of how far apart they were. We still went to our local parade on the 4th of July, and we had friends in town hanging out with us all that day. I was quite certain it would end with us shooing them out the door so that we could rush to the hospital, but it didn’t. That night, and the next, and the next, we went to bed in our own bed certain that we’d be having our baby the next day.
Because we were so sure that labor was underway and that we might be rushing to the hospital very quickly, we took Pippa and Romilly to my mom’s house on Thursday evening. Over the next couple days my mom, grandmom and Paige took turns looking after them, and we hung out there with them some of the time, but they spent both Thursday and Friday nights there, just in case. All the while, my contractions continued noticeably, ranging from 10 minutes to an hour apart and seeming to be vaguely getting closer and stronger.
On Friday morning I had a scheduled OB appointment. I was sure they would tell me I was already in active labor and send me straight to L & D, but no again. I was 3 – 4 cm dilated, but not much was happening while I was there so they advised me to go home and keep timing contractions. I cried, Trevor went to work, and it was all around kind of a bummer of a day.
By Saturday morning I was exhausted from not sleeping through nighttime contractions, and was absolutely determined that this was going to be the day. We took the dog for a long walk in the morning to try to keep things moving, then decided to call the doctor when we got home, just to see what she thought. At this point, my contractions were ranging from 7 to about 15 minutes apart, and definitely stronger than they’d been so far, so I had made a pretty convincing case in my own mind that, given how quickly Romilly had come, we should probably get to the hospital sooner rather than later.
The doctor on call agreed with my assessment, given my history, and we arrived at the Holy Redeemer Hospital (where I was born, Paige was born and for whom my mom has worked for over 15 years) at about 1 PM. Confident that a woman about to have her third baby would be a good judge of whether or not she is actually in labor, the nurses had me put my gown on before checking me or hooking me up to any monitors. Apparently they had given me too much credit.
By the time they checked me, my contractions had stalled almost completely and even the ones I was feeling pretty intensely were not showing up on their monitors. Worse than that, I was still at 3-4 cm. Unlike at the hospital in Scotland, there was no middle ground. There was no “Well, why don’t you walk around a little bit and we’ll check you again in a half an hour?” It was just, “You’re not in labor, get dressed and go home.” I was mortified. I cried again.
As soon as we got back in the car, the fun began. From then on, my contractions were every 5 minutes like clockwork and OWWWY! I wanted to walk right back in there and make them check me again, but my pride got the better of me (and Trevor’s pride, maybe even moreso) so we went back to my mom’s house with our tails between our legs. There I tried to act normal and chat with the girls and my mom and family and enjoy the lovely sunny day out on the sundeck, but I wasn’t faking it very well. I took a bath there to see if these contractions would scare off as the other ones had, and they didn’t.
We decided we would *try* to go to a 4th of July picnic at Aunt Mary’s house. After all, though I very much felt like I was about to give birth, I had just had a whole room of healthcare professionals tell me that I was mistaken, so who was I to argue? The girls went with my mom in our van, and Trevor and I took his car, but I wouldn’t be seeing the girls again until after they had a new sister.
That car ride was so intense that we considered going back to the hospital (it was about three hours since we had left by now), but I (ahem, *Trevor again*) was so afraid of being sent away again that we soldiered on to Aunt Mary’s. When she came out of the house to greet us, she knew immediately (as we should have) that there was no way we could stay there (I couldn’t even talk through my contractions), so we went home instead, without even getting out of the car.
Home felt good. I took another bath or two and got myself comfortable and calmed down, but it was becoming more and more clear (to me at least) that this baby was coming soon. At about 6 PM, while lying on our living room sofa, I felt myself transition to the pushing contractions, and told Trevor just as I had with Romilly, “It’s time.” I went to the bathroom before leaving and had some bright red bleeding, which was (thankfully) one of the things we’d been told to go back to the hospital for anyway. God was so gracious to give us that confirmation, because we were both still feeling so uncertain of what was happening.
We got to the hospital at a little before 7PM, just six hours after leaving there totally embarrassed and deflated. Again they had me change into my gown before checking me, and they hooked me up to monitors casually while asking me an interminable series of background questions. Just like when Romilly’s birth was impending, I had the very surreal and unnerving experience of knowing that a baby was about to come out of me while everyone around me was acting as though we had hours to chat and take our time about things. The nurse stood by my bed and asked me absurd questions like, “How many years of post-high school eductaion?” and “Father’s occupation?” until suddenly my water broke.
Perhaps you remember how things went from here after Romilly. It was pretty much the same deal this time, and the nurse, bless her, was just as unaware of what was about to happen. ”Oh, good,” she said to me, “They’ll keep you here now.” To which, I told replied, “No, you need to get the doctor, I’m pushing. The baby is coming.” Of course she told me not to push, and of course there was no way that was possible (why do they bother saying it, I wonder?)
The nurses had a peek down below and began to get very panicky. We could tell that they weren’t supposed to deliver babies, because they all just looked at me and looked at each other with eyes that said ”Aahh, what do we do?!?” I looked at Trevor who was still sitting in a chair across the room, and he nodded at me as if to say, “Yes, it’s happening again, just like last time.” The doctor on call (there had been no time to call one of the OBs from my practice) took what felt like an age to get there, maybe a few minutes at the most. He arrived and caught our girl within seconds.
** Continued in Part 2, just because I can’t figure out how else to make it look right on my blog**
Homebirth.
It’s been a long time coming. I can’t tell you how long I have been trying to avoid the Holy Spirit’s convicting about the way I spend my time, and (even more recently) the way I’m subtly training our girls to spend their time. If you consider the national average, we have never been a very TV-watching family, but somehow, I thought, God is not taking the national television-viewing-time average into consideration as He holds me accountable for how I spend the time He gives me.
She wasn’t given to me right away, and though I had been warned that that would be the case with most American hospital births, it was still a little sad for us. Also one seemed to realize that we didn’t know what we were having, so I spent a solid thirty seconds or so repeating, “What is it? What did I have?” to everyone in the room before Trevor finally got a glimpse and said, “A girl. I think. Is that right? Is it a girl?” Yes, another girl - just perfect and exactly what our family needed. (Incidentally, my *next* question was, “Is she bald?” and Trevor’s startling reply was, “No, and her hair is dark!”)
And that is how we came to have Beatrix Joanna in our family. She arrived, for those of you who like to collect details like these, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She was born on her Uncle Nathan’s birthday 7/7, but with the added distinction of being born in ’07 at 7:22 PM (though the clock was wrong by a good 10 or 15 minutes, so we’ll never know an accurate birth time).
