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Well….where do I begin…..pregnancy
and labour seem so long ago when I reflect back, as Evan is
now 14 months old. Let’s begin at the beginning….sort
of….
My pregnancy was fortunately fairly uneventful,
aside from the giant varicose veins in my legs and some vulva
varicosities (it apparently affects only 1% of women so don’t
worry as I’ve inadvertently volunteered to be the 1%
for the town of Oakville). See Google or this site for more
details: http://www.mommyguide.com
To gear ourselves up for the big day my husband Jeff and I
read books and attended the requisite pre-natal classes. Fast
forward to the day before my due date October 26th 2005. I
went in for an ultrasound on the 25th, a Tuesday and my regular
visit day in T.O. just to see where things were with my pregnancy.
I took the GO train in to T.O. and made my way up University
Ave…a little slower than usual. I waited for a couple
of hours for my ultrasound and the technician said everything
looked fine and that my baby was probably around 7lbs 6oz.
Well my friend had already told me that
the standard deviation was 1 whole pound! This meant my baby
could really be anywhere from 6lbs 6oz to 8lbs 6oz. I was
hoping for the former as a vaginal birth was our plan. I went
to my OB appointment and he said “I’m on the floor
tomorrow so why don’t you come in and have your baby”.
I laughed at him and said “I have NO labour signs so
I’ll just see you next Tuesday”.
I took the GO train home after a very long
day. I was tired and it was 6:30pm when I pulled into the
Oakville GO station. Fortunately I had gotten a seat on the
train….just the week before I had to sit on the stairs
as no one offered me their seat and I didn’t feel like
asking AGAIN (really at 39.5 weeks pregnant it was fairly
obvious that I was “with child”).
After a quick pit stop in the washroom I’d
discovered some “show” and thought to myself “oh
finally a sign of labour” but according to all that
I had read real labour could still be days away. So, I decided
to go to my prenatal yoga class in Burlington even though
I was tired. I needed the meditation/relaxation aspects of
yoga and the stretching was always good. After class I was
driving home around 9:30pm and felt my first pains. I thought
it was more of these “period like cramps” I’d
been having over the last week. Turns out these were the beginnings
of contractions. The next ones came 20 min later. I told Jeff
who was home and he tried to comfort me and get me anything
I needed. He got out the stopwatch and started timing my contractions.
They started getting closer like 16 min apart and 8 min apart
over the span of the next couple of hours. To me it was painful
and I tried the “birthing ball” but found lying
on the floor in the fetal position with some pillows to be
the most comfortable position.
By 2:30am I was feeling a lot of pain and
tried squatting and leaning over the bathroom sink whenever
a contraction came. My contractions were all over the place
1min apart, then 3, then back to 1, lasting sometimes for
a full minute before stopping. I had vomited a couple of times
too. Jeff called the triage nurse at the hospital and they
told him that we shouldn’t come in until the pain was
unbearable. Well by 3:45am I decided after throwing up 3 times
that I’d had enough. So we grabbed my bag (already packed
for 3 weeks) and headed to T.O. I was in a lot of pain so
I lay down in the back seat (next to the babyseat) and belted
myself in clenching the bucket. We made it to downtown T.O.
in under 20min! Gotta love 4:00am driving on the QEW/Gardiner!
I was demanding an epidural ASAP! They needed
to check me first but since I was having contractions every
minute for a minute in duration this was a difficult and painful
task. I was 4cm dilated already. The world was a different
place by the time I got my epidural at 4:30am. This was also
a challenge due to my frequent and long contractions as I
was told not to move during placement of the needle. I squeezed
Jeff and the nurse’s hands with all my might during
this process. By 9:00am I was 9cm dilated and my OB/GYN who
you may recall was “on the floor” that day, waltzed
in and told the intern. “I saw this patient yesterday
and told her to come in today because I was working the floor
and because it was also her due date. And here she is ready
to go at 9:00am”! Hah…well I had the Strep B positive
thing so I was on antibiotics for that, then I got a bit of
a fever throughout the labour.
Our baby decided he wanted to hang out a
little longer in the warm and cozy womb and wasn’t descending
according to plan. The resident tried to maneuver him with
her hands (a fun time let me tell you). Our baby would have
nothing of it. He was also “sunny side up” which
explained my back labour and immense pain and the reason I
was throwing up. By 3:00pm my OB/Gyn had me pushing with no
luck.
By 4:00pm Evan was still sunny side up and
now sideways so our OB/Gyn said that we had 3 choices a) push
more, b) use forceps c) have a c-section. Honestly, if it
had been anyone other than my own Ob/Gyn we would have gone
for the c-section as forceps seemed scary (the whole you might
accidentally squish the head and get brain damage on the way
out kind of scared us). Since it was our doctor and we trusted
him we talked it over and decided forceps was the way to go.
So…they gave me more drugs (YIPPEE) and got all prepared
for the forceps delivery and with 4 big pushes Evan was welcomed
into the world at 4:30pm on the dot 8lbs 9oz and 20.5inches
long (yah the ultrasound tech was wrong as he was well over
the 1lb standard deviation)!
Well…there’s a lot more to the
story about what happens afterwards but that is the gist of
our labour story. (And they say you forget all about the labour….HAHAHAHA!)
I learned several important things…
- Trust YOUR OWN instincts. Just
because the hospital doesn’t think you are ready to
come in doesn’t mean that you aren’t ready.
Go when YOU think you should go. The worst they can say
is “go home and come back”.
- I couldn’t have done it without
my coach/partner Jeff. We had discussed our birthing plan
and fortunately had already discussed that we were o.k.
with a c-section if need be. We had briefly discussed forceps
delivery as well which made the decision a lot easier at
the time (when I was totally drugged up and had a fever).
- I would totally do the epidural
again…it ROCKED!!!!
We are so blessed to have happy little
Evan in our lives (o.k. so he’s over 26lbs now and not
so little)! He brings us such joy each and every day. Sure
there are lots of bumps along the way but there is no manual
with parenthood and it’s all part of the learning.
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