"We Thought we had More Time"

Much has happened in the past month. The most notable is that I produced a human.[okay, some of that was done in the preceding 8 months, but I mean that he is actually physically separate from me].

Quick highlights antecedent to the major event:

-I had a virtual baby shower, pulled together with the work, time, and creativity of my family. It ended with the apartment fire alarm going off, because of course it did, that's just how my life goes.

-I dressed up as a hippie for our church Halloween Trunk or Treat. It turns out to be the last time I was photographed prior to being in labor.

-I got called into our church congregation's Primary [ie children's] presidency. I think that means I help out the Primary teachers, attend meetings, sub in as Primary pianist as needed. The job description in the handbook is kind-of vague.

-My pregnancy had been the longest full-migraine-free period of my adult life.

On the subject of migraines, a week before I gave birth, I had such a terrible migraine. The pressure on one side of my head was so intense, my eye [but only the eye on that side] watered. I tried tylenol and caffeine [the pregnancy-safe version I made of Excedrin] without luck. Benadryl, ice packs, muscle massage same thing. Twice I gave in and took triptans [migraine-specific meds; no known risk in pregnancy, but not preferred. however, as I had blown past the 'preferred' pain management strategy of tylenol without any improvement, it was time to up the ammunition]. Finally, four days later, the migraine receded, but left me with muscle tension EVERYWHERE. I had two days of that; decided that if it hadn't improved by the weekend I would get a professional massage; then Nathan broke loose.

More specifically, I went to bed earlier that night; I was lightly dozing around 2:40am, listening to Mark move around the room, when I felt sudden uncontrolled wetness. Feeling fairly certain that I hadn't spontaneously developed urine incontinence, I jumped up to the bathroom to try to catch the gush of fluid [moderate success, in case you're curious. Mark definitely had to wash the sheets and mattress pad]. I called out to Mark, showed him the bloody fluid that I was 99% sure was amniotic fluid, then tried [fruitlessly] to locate a hygiene pad to catch the leakage, both of us scrambling to get things together to go to the hospital. ---As an aside, I would like to point out that a pregnant woman's water breaking is not necessarily a reason to immediately go to the hospital. She could labor at home for a bit before going. However, I was not a term pregnancy, therefore it was a problem--

I had started a hospital go-bag, and put in things like dark chocolate, a newborn onesie, a robe, a stress-ball, but no change of clothes for me, no toiletries, no makeup, no breast pump. Why? Because we thought we had more time.

Anyway, so on the drive to the hospital, I called the emergency-midwife number (who confirmed that yes, I needed to go to the hospital), and Mark called his mom (who benevolently picked up at 3 in the morning). We were told we had to use the Emergency Room entrance at the hospital, but we actually got to skip that part and go straight up to Labor & Delivery for two reasons: 1) I used my employee badge to get in another entrance that was closer to where we had parked--helpful because I was still leaking-- and 2) we ran into an ER technician who was on her break near the entrance we used, and she walked us right up to L&D.

Once on the unit, a midwife verified that yes, my water had broken, and yes, Nathan was still alive and kicking [I hadn't felt any kicks, but maybe that was because I was stressed about my water breaking], and congratulations, I get to stay until he comes out. I was hoping for more sleep [as was Mark], as I was just experiencing cramping by that point and wasn't dilated (or maybe I was at a 1. I don't remember), but the contractions became more and more intense, making sleep for me impossible. I was also hoping to walk around to deal with the contractions, as I had previously been assured that was permitted, but it turns out that doesn't apply to preterm labor people, as they wanted me on monitoring the whole time--except for a 10 minute shower for hydrotherapy purposes. As the morning progressed, I went from a dilation stage 3 to a 6 to an 8; at one point when the midwife checked on me, I asked "So, are we anticipating a baby today?" (I was hoping I could make it to November) and she said, "Yes, definitely having a baby today." 

At this point in the story, I feel I should mention that I chose not to have an epidural. I wanted to be able to move around in labor, I felt that I could use physics to my advantage if I was able to position myself, and it would have been a bit more complicated for the anesthesiologist to do an epidural because I've had a spinal fusion in that area. So I was using nitrous oxide gas. Mark took the liberty to test it, and--though he didn't tell me at the time--decided it was basically nothing. I personally felt it offered minor relief during contractions, but did jack squat during the crowning and birthing part. I'm told the crowning-birthing part is painful even with an epidural, so I think I made the right call.

During the labor process, Mark tried distracting me with dancing, bouncing the birthing ball to me, or sharing funny stories. Once I felt the strong urge to push, though--which I announced by stating "He's coming!"--Mark briefly panicked [he told me later that he remembered my sister-in-law giving birth to my nephew in the car, where after she told my brother to pull the car over, had the baby before my brother could jump out of the car and around to her side] and ran out of the room into the hallway to call for reinforcements. Now while my labor was, as my midwife phrased it, very efficient, it wasn't that quick of a delivery. I can't tell you how long delivery took, though, because it felt pretty darn long to me. In-between one of the pushing sessions, I asked what our pain management options were. The answer, in case you were wondering, was nothing. And as I'm sure you have heard, having a baby hurts. Even though Nathan was a preemie, his head was still stretching and tearing tissue, and that was the pain that made me want to throw in the towel. I distinctly recall screaming "I can't!" with each push.

Spoiler alert, I could. And eventually did. Nathan came into the world, I got to hold him for maybe 30 seconds, and then the neonatologist took him away to the NICU for respiratory and temperature support, while I had to stay and deliver a placenta [which also hurt, though not as much] and get stitched up [ditto for painful] without the benefit of looking at his upset little face.

I couldn't see him for 2 hours, because they wanted to monitor me, so I sent Mark down to the NICU to take pictures. And that's how I discovered he had red hair.

Mark went home to sleep that night, as well as the next (I was in the hospital for 2 days), but that meant he could get some things for me--like a change of clothes and some snacks (hospital food delivery was inconsistent, and ordering was hit-and-miss). 

Nathan stayed in the NICU for 2 weeks--which is pretty good considering his prematurity; apparently most preemies stay until they reach "term" gestational age. That gave us some time to become more prepared. We washed the bassinet sheets, set up the bassinet, attended the baby boot camp class that we had previously signed up for [but we skipped the "labor and delivery" part], changed our HEPA filter--you know, all the stuff we should have done before he arrived. 

But, as I mentioned, we thought we had more time.

One of my friends commented that he arrived precisely when he meant to.

Well, good LOTR reference, but he's not a wizard, Tracy.