Birth Story?

I'm not sure if this would be what most people would think is a birth story, but here it is. I don't want to write a story that is too negative. After all, in the end I had a beautiful, healthy, girl. On the other hand, I don't want to write it, if it is untrue. Well, here's the shortened, middle of the road version that I have written in my head many times.

In the picture above, I was a few days short of being 40 weeks pregnant. I thought it would be cute to have a "When will you be born?" picture. Little did I know that you'd be born 11 (yes you read that right) 11 days overdue. I decided not to go back to work on the Monday before you were born because I was pretty sure you'd be born before the weekend and I just couldn't take another person asking me "When are you due, again?" or "I thought I wouldn't see you today." I was at home for a week waiting for Lilly to want to be born. I even looked up on the internet to see if I could find the world's longest pregnancy on record.

I went in for my final Dr's appointment on Friday (day before she was born) which was before the scheduled induction on Monday. Al decided not to come with me for the appointment (the start of temporary insanity he suffered from for the day). The nurse thought I might be in the very early stages of labor so suggested I do some mall walking (since we just had about 6 inches of snow). I didn't want to be in labor by myself in the mall so I went home and decided to do the stairs about 20 times in the house after I had gotten a call from a friend who just had a baby (she was over a week early). Labor started. Contractions were every 20 min or so most of the afternoon. As a diversion, I decided we should go to the store to pick out a baby present for my friend. I convinced Al that now wasn't really the time to start going to church, even though it was Good Friday. He helped me make cupcakes (well, brownie cupcakes with pink M & M's) for her "birth" day. Contractions continued through the evening. I went to take a bath, discovered that the CD player I had planned to bring didn't work and continued to write down my own contractions (Remember, it was only temporary insanity on Al's part) Al "helped" by talking on the phone and even had a beer or two. In his defense, he didn't know this was the "real thing." I called my sister as Al slept. He called the Birth Center before his nap, but now I was starting to panic a little as the contractions were five minutes apart and called in again. I woke Al up, and we drove to the hospital.

We were there for the hour and I hadn't dilated more than 1 cm so they would have sent me home typically, but since I was so overdue they let me stay. This must have been mother's intuition because something told me that I really didn't want to leave the hospital. Intuition or just being scared? Either way, I was staying and not leaving without a baby. I go into the hot tub and Al went to go out to get the rest of the bags. He asked if he could take a nap. In his defense I did just have a conversation about how long she thought it might take. I had been in labor for most of the day and no change in how much I was dilated. Being realistic, she told me it could be quite a while and no one really knew for sure. I think that is why (aside from temporary insanity) that Al asked if he could take a nap. I told him that I wanted to take a nap, too, but since I couldn't, he couldn't, either. It must have been the elementary school teacher in me that somehow got that out without even saying one swear word.

I went from 1 cm to 4 1/2 or 5 cm in about an hour and a half. That was a relief, to some degree. At least contractions were doing something I could quantify. They offered an epidural, I accepted. After I got the epidural, which didn't hurt to my surprise, the nurse said I should lay back for the next contraction so they could measure it better. This was code for the baby's heart rate is dropping and we want to make sure before we let on. A roomful of Dr's and nurses, an oxygen mask over my face, and a rush of fluid. I finally ask what's going on and after some discussion realize that I would soon be like the woman we saw on the birthcenter tour portion of the Lamaze class. Emergency C-section. Rushed down the hall. Dad walks out of the operating room in scrubs holding a newborn baby next to a team of doctors.

I was two minutes away from having to go "under" for the c section after telling the doctors that I could really feel pain and not just pressure. Finally, the epidural worked.

Lilly came out. The Dr's held her up for me to see and to my surprise, I saw a baby with dark hair. A beautiful, and most importantly, a health baby but....I didn't expect to have a baby with hair let alone a lot of dark hair.

Remember the part about Al being temporarily insane? Well, he snapped out of it, and held Lilly for most of her first nights filled with shushing, rocking, crying, and lots of "it's OK" and he welcomed her into the world as I recovered.

Not exactly how I planned it. Well, not how I planned it at all. Rain on my wedding day (& other complications I'd better not drudge up), a c-section and a temporarily insane husband...I think my life is best judged by everyday events and not the "important" days. Really, all the little days of life and the memories those create are more important than a couple of big days that didn't go quite as planned.

In the end I have a beautiful, healthy baby girl--a stomach not quite back to it's original form--and a great husband, who was only temporarily insane. Phew!

I think I'm going to hire a Doula next time around....