J
Jenn
Guest
Early in the morning on March 4, I woke to a sensation of pain. “Ow! What the heck?!†I thought to myself. But, I went back to sleep for awhile until another one came. I was pretty sure it was a contraction, but they weren’t that close together – maybe a few every hour.
The contractions stayed with me throughout the day, accompanied by a significant amount of back pain. I started timing them that evening and around 2 a.m., told hubby it was time to go to the hospital since they were about five minutes apart.
At our local hospital, I got hooked up to the machine and indeed, they were real contractions, but I was only a fingertip dilated and 60 per cent effaced. Still, they kept me there, so we called my parents to come and they made the six hour drive in the wee hours of the morning.
By that evening, I’d progressed to 2.5 to 3 cm dilated and about the same effaced. They let me eat a real meal, since I wasn’t progressing very quickly. We got Chinese food and ate at the hospital before everyone but me got to go somewhere and sleep – my parents to a nearby hotel, my husband at home to check the cows we have calving.
My doctor was back the next morning – this is Monday now – and I was still 2.5 to 3 cm dilated, so they sent me home until I had progressed more. It was nice to finally go home, but I still wasn’t able to sleep because the contractions were no more than eight minutes apart and quite painful.
By daylight on Tuesday morning (my due date), the contractions were back, fast and furious. They were five minutes apart when we left for the hospital. Unfortunately, it had snowed a lot during the night and the highways had not yet been plowed. We managed anyway, but when we were just outside of town, we found the highway backed up with cars. Semis were blocking the hill into town and nothing was going up or down.
Luckily, the RCMP member monitoring the situation was a friend of mine and he gave us a police escort to a back road, where he had a snow plow meet us and plow us into town. Of course, that also meant it was a good story and so the news of my seemingly-impending delivery and my police escort was all over town in a matter of hours.
The doctor was in that morning and checked me again. I was 4 cm dilated and more effaced, and in light of the poor roads, they decided to keep me in the hospital. Unfortunately, my contractions began to slow down again, so it meant another sleepless 24 hours in the hospital for me. I hadn’t slept since Friday night.
By Wednesday morning, the contractions were about eight minutes apart again and my body was tired. They had hooked me up to a drip to keep me hydrated. The doctor came very early that morning – he still had bed head – and when I hadn’t progressed any further he made the call to send me to another hospital for an induction. Our small hospital is short of doctors right now and they couldn’t risk inducing me there.
My parents called my husband to come right away and the hospital called an ambulance to complete the transfer. The ambulance service is one I know well from my media work – one might even go so far as to say I was partially responsible for finally getting Paramedics brought into town. I knew the girls who handled the ambulance transfer and my mom rode along with us. My dad followed in his truck and hubby was somewhere on the roads.
At the hospital in Lloydminster, a very nice and very gorgeous doctor checked me out and got me started on the Pitocin drip. The contractions started coming fast and furious then and were very painful, so I asked for a little something to help me out. They brought me the nitrous oxide, but unfortunately, it didn’t help a lot, so I asked for some morphine. I got the morphine and got to keep the gas, and I’m telling you, the combination made for some goooooood stuff. I was able to sleep/pass out between contractions and get some rest, which my body badly needed. They had to scale back the Pitocin a couple of times because I was progressing too quickly.
I don’t remember much about those few hours, thanks to the nitrous and morpine. Apparently I was saying funny things, like referring to the very nice delivery room as a “spa with drugsâ€. I remember being sad when they told me I couldn’t have anymore gas because it was time to push. That was about 3:00 p.m.
By 4:26, Caitlin Marie had made her way into the world. I didn’t get an epidural – probably because I was too high on the nitrous to ask for one until I figured it was too late, might as well just get the job done. Pushing wasn’t too bad until her head was almost out and I tore a little bit. I was getting really peeved off at the people counting to ten and people touching me and talking about me like I wasn’t there. I believe I told my mother to shut up on more than one occasion. I also offered the nurse a million dollars to pull the baby out and then upped it to two million on the next set of pushes. I didn’t want to push anymore and I was tired – but the funny thing is, even if you don’t want to do it, your body forces you to.
Hubby and mom were both great. Hubby stayed at my head and helped me lift my back up for every push and mom counted off the seconds, though sometimes she would start counting after I already started pushing and that annoyed me for some reason.
The doctor and nurses were quite excited to see all of Caitlin’s dark hair. I remember just looking at her on my stomach and not really comprehending what I was supposed to do. I was still so exhausted from the 109 hours of labour that I just lay there like a log for awhile. The doctor and nurses kept praising me for doing it without an epidural, apparently that is rare for a first timer. I passed the placenta and I remember looking at it and thinking how small it was, how did a baby possibly fit in there? The doctor stitched me up and they put a fresh gown on me. I don’t remember how I got back to my room or when they brought the baby, but I remember asking what time it was and deciding that the baby should be fed since she’d been around for a whole 45 minutes. She was a champion nurser right from the start.
Hubby and my parents left around 9 p.m., which is when visiting hours are over. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself and this tiny baby, but I was so worried that she’d stop breathing if I didn’t hold her that I think I held her most of the night in my arms, keeping each other warm. A nurse came and took her from me for a few hours during the night so I could get some good sleep, and I did, but I was so glad when they brought her back. They bathed her, too, at some point before my parents left and when she came back, she was wearing this little yellow knit hat. Only her head was still so squished from the delivery that it wouldn’t stay on very good, it kept popping off of her little conehead.
We got to go home the following evening and didn’t end up getting in until quite late. It’s all kind of a blur at this point, but Caitie slept in the bed with us for much of the night, she wouldn’t accept being put down in a bassinette when there were two lovely warm adults in a big bed right next to her. She woke often and demanded feeding and diaper changes. I didn’t get much sleep that night or the next, but by the following night she was sleeping for about 45 minutes between feedings and cuddlings. By her fifth night, she was sleeping very well in the bassinette and had to be woken for feedings after three hours or so.
She’s changed so much in these few days that it’s hard to do anything but stare at her and memorize her. She has her peaceful sleeping time, her quiet awake time when she coos and makes faces and looks at you, and she has her crying time when she wants something NOW and you better be able to figure out what it is. Since my milk has come in, she is a much more satisfied baby and sleeps for longer stretches and is quiet but awake for interactive time. She’s not afraid of loud noises and she looks for the source of noises when someone is moving around the room out of her field of vision. She has had lots of visitors and presents and one of hubby’s friends is already aiming for an arranged marriage between their 10 month old son and our Caitie.
Mostly, it’s hard to imagine life without her. The months of throwing up, the other months of heartburn, the 109 hours of labour, all were totally worth it and I’d do it again tomorrow if I could get another result that is this perfect. I love her little furry hobbit ears and her tiny little nose and her little hands and feet. I kiss her all the time and smell her head and can’t get enough of her. My favorite is her quiet alert time, when I hold her and we look at each other and she makes little faces at me. They’re probably just gassy faces, but they are the most precious thing in the world. I can hardly believe that I/we made this precious little thing and that we get to keep her forever. Her daddy has already told her she’s not allowed to date until she’s 30 and her grandpa is already giving her horses and spoiling her rotten. Me, I just love her so much I sometimes think my heart will burst wide open and my eyes well up with tears from just looking at her.
Before you give birth, you’re one person. But the moment that little wet body is placed on your stomach, you become someone else. I get it now.