Birth Story

WOW! It's been a while! I guess the first and foremost exciting news is that we had our baby born on August 14 @ 1:08pm!! She is an absolute angel and I'm loving every minute of mommyhood so far!!

Her birth story is quite amazing and I am going to try and post it all right now... we'll see how successful I am as I'm on the computer while baby naps and I can't predict how much longer she'll be asleep right now.

So on August 13 around 10:30am, my water broke. It was not the soap opera-style gushing that you see on tv by any means, but more of a trickle. It honeslty felt like I was peeing my pants without the actual peeing feeling (if that makes sense). It was just a constant warm trickle. Of course this happened while I was taking a walk (back from Tim Horton's no less). I told John that I thought my water had broken but wasn't 100% sure... so I just put on a pad and decided to walk to the mailboxes to pick up our mail. By the time I got back, I was much more sure that it was definitely my water that had broken. So we chilled out for a bit and then I decided to page my midwife to let her know (around 1pm). The MW gave us the option to come into the clinic to get assessed or she would drive out to our place, so I decided that a drive into town wouldn't be too bad and arranged to meet with her at 2pm.

At the clinic the MW tested to make sure it was amniotic fluid that I was leaking (it was!) and did an internal - I was still only 3cm dilated but 80% effaced (up from 50% on Monday) so she said the best thing to do right now is to go home and she would come out after work to our place to assess me again. At this point I was having regular contractions about 5-6 minutes apart but they weren't productive according to the MW as they were more focused around my lower abdomen and not the top of my fundus.

The MW came out as promised at 7pm and assessed me again - still at 3cm dilated but 100% effaced! She also felt a contraction and said that they were getting stronger but still not true labour despite their regularity of being 4-5min apart now. So we agreed that she would go home, have dinner and come back around 11pm for another assessment.

Up to this point, the contractions were more than bearable and I didn't have to do any breathing or anything to get through them....

At 11pm the MW was back at our place and did another internal. And finally I had progressed and was between 4-5cm dilated! So she decided to stay and labour with me as part of my birth plan was to labour at home as long as possible before going to the hospital. Around 11:30pm we decided to take a walk around the block and this turned into an hour and a half walk! It was quite nice though as it was warm out and almost a full moon. My contractions were definitely getting stronger at this point, but I could still breath and walk through them. Back at home I laboured on the exercise ball, on all fours, in any position that seemed comfortable.

Unfortunately, one of the things we discovered is that the little one was "sunny side up" in my pelvis so the back labour I started experiencing around 2am was not fun. The back pain seemed to intensify as my contractions became more progressive. The MW talked to me about sterile water injections which at first I declined to help with the back labour. At 3am the MW did another internal - in four hours I had progressed to 8cm!! So at this time, we had to make the decision to transfer to the hospital to continue (part of my original birth plan) or to continue labouring at home and try for a home birth! We talked about the pros and cons of both really quickly and decided to stay at home and try for the home birth. At this point I asked for the sterile water injection because the back pain was becoming close to unbearable. I have to mention that the stinging of the injections (there are 4) was undescribable. And I'm not a wuss or a stranger to needles and pain by any means seeing as how I have subjected myself to hours and hours of tattoo work... but seriously, this sterile water injection hurt!! But it definitely did provide a tonne of relief within 30 sec if not less. I'll be honest, I think I was a different person for a while and the MW even commented that she's never seen someone in Transition who was this calm. I was able to easily breath through my contractions and actually watch some tv!

Since we had decided to try for a home birth, the MW started setting everything up. I had received the home birth kit at my appointment on Monday and the MW had brought her equipment as well. We got our bedroom ready and were set up for a home birth! At this point, I was quite excited at the prospect of delivering at home and having a baby before 7am (MW's prediction). Around 4:30am, we decided to move to the bedroom and my MW started making phonecalls to get my secondary MW to our place. Unfortunately, the MW who was actually designated as my second had been up all night at a home birth herself, so she was unavailable. Same with my backup MW. So we ended up meeting a fourth MW who was wonderful!

Around 5am I entered second stage labour and started having the urge to push. I laboured in almost every position imaginable: on all fours, on the birthing stool, in the McRoberts' position, on my side. Unfortunately, the little one was having different ideas and she continued to remain high in my pelvis (around +1 station) and was not descending whatsoever. From what the MWs could tell, in addition to being posterior (sunny side up), the baby had her head cocked a bit which resulted in her cheek being caught up in my pelvis. Not fun. So that is why we tried all the different positions we could to try and open up my pelvic cavity and dislodge her. Unfortunately, after two hours of pushing, it just wasn't happening.

So at 7am (Aug 14) we decided to transfer to the hospital. This was not fun. By this point, my urge to push at each contraction was so overwhelming that it just completely overtook my body. I was actually quite worried as to how I would survive the car ride to the hospital as I was physically and emotionally exhausted and just ready for this baby to be born. I have to mention here too that the car ride to the hospital from our place is about 25 minutes so this made the idea of the impending transfer just that much more daunting. I was also secretly kicking myself for not opting to stick to my original birth plan and going to the hospital at 8cm.

But it had to be done. At this point, my primary MW, having been up for more than 24 hours tagged out and the secondary MW accompanied us to the hospital and would remain with us through the delivery. We came up with a plan which involved her following behind us in her car, just in case my labour progressed and the baby descended more (and would be delivered!). Luckily nothing happened on the way to the hospital - except for five or six contractions which had me crawling up the walls in the car.

I was admitted to the hospital and luckily, the anesthetist on call was readily available and was able to give me an epidural quite quickly. Equally amazing was the fact that I only had one contraction while he was administering the epidural and it was mild enough that I could breath through it and prevent my body from pushing. The epidural itself was a godsend at this point. I was so exhausted and ready to take a break. However, the OB on call still had to examine me (not a pleasant experience even while on a epidural due to the amount of internal swelling I had by this point) and he managed to flip the baby while doing his exam so that she was now facing the proper (anterior) position. The game plan at this point was to allow my uterus to do some work and hopefully get the baby lower in my pelvis to try for a vaginal delivery. However, most of the medical team were pretty convinced that I'd end up with a c-section birth.

The epidural let me rest and I actually caught some sleep from 9am - 11am. This was wonderful! At 11am, the MW and one of the residents encouraged me to start pushing with the contractions and upped my pitocin drip. The experience in pushing without the epidural and now with the epidural really helped in knowing what muscles to use. The epidural really dulled any sense of pain and all I could feel throughout was some pressure.

Oh, I have to mention here too that the MW gave me a catheter upon admission to the hospital but took it out before I started pushing. Surprisingly the catheter was not painful at all and really just uncomfortable (I had a huge fear of the catheter prior to this experience).

From 11am onwards, I pushed with each contraction I felt. Apparently I was making some small progress and the resident reported back to the OB on-call every 30 minutes or so on how I was doing. I don't know at what time but I'm guessing around 12:30pm or so, he came in and did another exam and decided that he could do a vacuum-assisted delivery. So more medical staff were laid on (staff from pediatrics had to be called) and they prepped for a vaccuum delivery. I don't know what time the vaccuum was attached to the baby's head but after that, quite a tug of war ensued. I know I pushed through two or three contractions with the help of the vaccuum and after a while, the OB told me just to continue pushing.

He kept on pulling and at 1:08pm our little one was born!!!

She screamed right away, was wiped down and placed on my chest. It was absolutely amazing staring into her eyes and seeing how alert she was after such an arduous birth.

I delivered the placenta shortly afterwards (and even got to take a look at it!) and then the repair work began. According to the hospital notes, I had second degree lacerations but the OB also gave me a medio-lateral episiotomy to accommodate the delivery by vaccuum. The MW and resident stitched me up (took about a good 30+ minutes or so I think) and I got moved up to the maternity ward about 1.5 hours after giving birth.


~~ and baby awakes so I'll write more later

And it begins!!! (I hope)

My MW appointment yesterday was awesome as far as I'm concerned. She asked me if I wanted an internal to see if things were progressing and it was everything I could do to restrain myself from saying "hell ya!!" So she did an internal and lo and behold - 3cm dilated, 50% effaced! I was secretly hoping for some good news like this but wasn't too optimistic because honestly, all I've really been feeling up to that point were period-like cramps. So the MW offered to do a stretch and sweep to help speed things along if I wanted... and of course I wanted! I had a bit of bloody show after the S&S and surprisingly, it (the S&S) was uncomfortable but not unbearable by any means.

So between yesterday and today, I've noticed a definite increase in crampiness and backpain and I can honestly say I'm losing my mucuous plug. It's not one lumpy mucuousy thing but just ongoing increased CM... still blood-tinged but no soaking of pads or anything like that. I think I was having contractions while I was driving around today but they seemed to have subsided for now.

I still have my fingers crossed that this baby will be here sooner rather than later! John is hoping so too - he wants to go to Fan Expo 2008 next weekend if the baby is born. LOL!

The MW is coming to do a home visit tomorrow and she gave me the homebirthing kit yesterday just in case labour progresses quickly and the babe is born at home. I have all the stuff on the list - I just have to put it together in one place. Today I went to Walmart and picked up some munchies for when I'm in labour - Mr Freeze's and granola bars. Yummy. LOL

A whole bunch of randomness...

So I'm officially on mat leave! Crazy! It feels weird not going to work but nice and refreshing at the same time to not have the stress of having to wake up at a specific time. Needless to say though, there's no such thing as sleeping in right now - I'm just not comfortable enough. But it's nice having the flexibility to take a nap if I want to!

So I'm down to 17 more days till my EDD. I'm secretly hoping that she'll be early but we'll see. I'm back to having some mother issues - she hasn't listened to what I asked before (like months ago) and is ignoring what we had discussed (that they'll come down to visit about a week after the little one is born) and are now planning on arriving on August 25! A day after my due date!! WTH!?!?!? Allegedly my parents have arranged to stay with my brother instead of at my place (thank gawd) but still. She is insistent that she wants to be at the hospital when this LO is born (once again not mentioning the delivery room but who knows if she'd try and muscle her way in there too). So saying that I'm frustrated is an understatement. I really feel like she has not listened to what I had asked before and had mislead me because she was paying me lipservice and said that she would do whatever I asked. So instead of just being honest and saying "no, this is what I would like" she just agreed to what I was asking and has gone and made her own plans. I don't know what to do anymore. John says that it might come down to me having to be just out and out rude and blunt and saying "no, this is what is going to happen." I would love to be able to do that but I can't be rude to my mother to save my life. I guess that's one of my shortcomings. I'm thinking of being equally passive agressive as she has been and just not calling her until after the baby is born and we're ready for visitors - even if she is already in town and at my brother's. Seriously. It's my birth experience that I want to share with my husband and child. Not hers. She's had two. So yeah, I'm a bit frustrated and stressed over this one but I guess we'll see how that goes.

On another wonderful family dynamic note, my younger brother has made contact with me after about two years. Quick background on him - he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2003 after a psychotic episode had him hospitalized. Now this is what I have been told... I'm sure there is more to this story because my mother and him have enabled each other throughout the years and have twisted this story many times (I think he's had more than one psychotic episode prior to this one). For example, when my mom called me to tell me he was hospitalized, I was told that he had a panic attack. It wasn't until further digging that I found out it was an actual psychotic episode. Big difference IMO. And she would not have told me the truth unless I had "caught" her: she told me the medication he had been prescribed and it was definitely an antipsychotic prescribed for people with schizophrenia... not an antianxiety or antidepressant. So anyways, it took me a while but I did wrangle the truth from her. That was five years ago. Prior to his diagnosis, my brother did abuse substances and was active in the rave scene - so honestly, I don't know if his schizophrenia is due to pre-existing biological conditions or if it was triggered by his substance abuse. Either way, he now has it. So fast forward five years... He's going to be 27 this year and is still strongly dependent on our mother despite the fact that he lives 8 hours from the parents. They have a weird, enabling relationship that (from what I can see) really effects my parents' relationship with each other and really bothers me. My parents are retired and should be spending time together enjoying each other, travelling, whatever. Instead, my mom spends hours on the phone each day with my brother doing whatever - helping him with his school papers (he's in univ), talking about what he's doing, whatever. What really binds them is their religion (we were raised Catholic but I no longer practice). My mom is what you would call right-wing conservative in her beliefs and now my younger brother has really followed in her footsteps. So much so that it has had the effect of him becoming quite judgemental of other peoples' lifestyles if they don't mesh with his beliefs.

Anyways, enough rambling. Long story short, I am still quite upset as to the way things have turned out over the last decade or so. Both my older brother and I were expected to fend for ourselves when we left the home for univ. and never once did we receive even a bit of the financial suppport my younger brother has. Not that we ever wanted it or asked for it. We both paid our own way through univ. and have gone onto having (what we would like to view as) successful lives. Then there's the youngest - he was coddled through highschool and now univ. (seriously, my mom should be getting the BA, not him) with alot of his expenses paid for. My mom had opened a joint account and he would call her at all hours of the night and she would run and deposit money so he could party. He used drugs the first few years away from home and got himself into a world of poop. But my mom keeps on rescuing him.

over and over and over

Codependence (or codependency) is a popular psychology concept popularized by Twelve-Step program advocates. A "codependent" is loosely defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for persons who depend on him or her. A "codependent" is one side of a relationship between mutually needy people. The dependent, or obviously needy party(s) may have emotional, physical, financial difficulties, or addictions they seemingly are unable to surmount. The "codependent" party exhibits behaviour which controls, makes excuses for, pities, and takes other actions to perpetuate the obviously needy party's condition, because of their desire to be needed and fear of doing anything that would change the relationship.

Yup, that describes my mom to a tee.

So ANYWAYS , my brother has now contacted me and wants to communicate. I'm very leary about sending emails back and forth because my mom has told me previously that he shares his email account with her and she's privy to his emails. So I feel like I cannot be completely honest and open with him in the emails as she is going to read it. So I've been pretty vague in my responses to-date. He also wants to come and visit and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that by any stretch of the imagination.

All that and I'm 37 weeks pregnant. LMAO

The sad part is, I would love for my daughter to know both her uncles. I don't want to start her life out in the middle of this weird family that has "the crazy uncle" and everything else to boot. Seriously. But what else am I supposed to do? I will not risk exposing her to someone who is not completely healthy yet (which he isn't at all) and who has some very skewed views of the world that don't correspond to our beliefs.

Ugh.

Only 8 more working days left...

And once again, I suck at keeping this updated. I swear I'll be better once I'm done work and on mat leave... at least till the little one comes. I can't promise too much more after that.

I can't believe I'm past the 35 week mark now. Only 33 more days and I hit my due date. That's insane! It seems almost like yesterday that I found out I was pregnant. Almost.

So my latest rant is going to be about my replacement that they hired on contract to fill my mat leave position. My replacement is a completely two-faced bitch and she's just putting out such bad vibes. I thought she'd be okay because she's been working in the field for about 7 years but she's just a complete blade. She ran to management today about something I did that she didn't agree with (she's been at the agency for less than 2 months!!!!!!!) hoping to get me in trouble (which she didn't). Seriously... So the other girl that I work with and I are trying to figure out her motives - if it's to get permanent, I'm sure mgmt won't enjoy having a shit disturber on their hands. It's just too frustrating. I can't wait to be off. The worst thing is, now I'm thinking of ways to come back to work early just to screw her contract. LOL I have to stop thinking like that. But seriously.

I was talking with one of my friends and she was saying that unfortunately, for her it seemed like everytime she went off on mat leave, the same workplace drama happened. I really can't handle this... it's too much. Why are women so evil to each other???

On exciting news, I have my baby shower this Thursday after work. I cannot wait. My friend has put so much work into planning this shower. Now I'm trying to find a nice thank you gift for her.

32 weeks... 56 more days.... OMFG

I can't believe that I'm in the last stretch of this pregnancy. Seriously, where does the time go?? I'm feeling much better this week than last week and I think the hemmerhoids shrinking have a lot to do with that. :P I can walk normal again (yay) and my hips don't feel as tired... probably because I can walk normal. LOL... that doesn't go without saying that I am walking with a strong waddle nowadays... My nice coworkers always remind me that I really look pregnant now because of my walk. Gee, thanks.

So we caught the younger cat sleeping in the crib this weekend. Grrr... so the crib is now lined with tin foil. So far there is no evidence of her jumping back in there since but who knows. She's sneaky. :) I'm still pretty confident that both cats will stay away from the baby once she's here - they cannot tolerate loud, sudden movements and noise and are scared of my 6 y.o. niece so I'm sure a newborn will scare the bejeezus out of them.

John bought me a glider/ottoman this past week. Yayness!! I think the nursery is now complete minus the small odds and sods.

So my MW appointment on Thursday went well. My placenta has moved (insert happy dance here) so everything is go for a "normal" delivery... The babe was head down at the appointment and HB was strong at 133 bpm. From my 30 wk u/s, everything is measuring normal and on schedule. Yay! The MW drew some blood to do a final CBC and iron count just to make sure I'm doing okay and I got my letter to confirm my EDD to take to my HR department which I handed in that day.

So it seems like everything is progressing... I haven't packed our hospital bags yet even though I've thought about it. I guess I should but I'm still too lazy. Is that bad?

Stupid laptop is broken....

So we went to the 30 week ultrasound on Monday (16th). Found out that the hospital has a new policy which was implemented in the last 10 weeks since our 20 wk ultrasound. No one is allowed to go into the u/s room except the mom while the tech is doing the measurements and shite. Dad's / support people are invited in for only the last five minutes of the u/s. Seriously, this blows. I'm sure I can figure out why this policy was implemented. I can just imagine that there are some people out there who are completely inconsiderate and brought in a whole slew of family and friends to their ultrasounds... or dragged three or four screaming children in with them and I'm sure this bothered the technicians to the point where they couldn't accurately do their jobs. But seriously. I wish they could do this on a case-by-case basis. John loved seeing the measurements being taken at the 20 wk u/s and he was quite disappointed that he could only see five minutes of the u/s this time. GRRrrr... very annoying. And to top it off, the tech we had was a bit of a grumpy b!tch so that didn't make anything any better. At least we got a cool shot of the baby's face. :)

So there's something wrong with my laptop and the connection port for the power is shot so I can't use it right now - the battery is down to 6% - probably even less by now. We're supposed to get it fixed, hopefully soon....

And we got our travel system yesterday!! It's the Evenflo Aura Elite - we got it at Sears and while it was more than I had wanted to spend, it rocks! Even John loves it which is a bonus! :) The baby seat fits into the stroller quite easily and the stroller folds and opens easily (it's a bit stiff now but it's new). I can't wait to try this out with the babe! I'm a bit disappointed because my older brother had given us a Peg Perego travel system that my niece used but it was manufactured in 2001 so the carseat was a no-go right from the start even though it's in great condition. The stroller we may still use as it looks very comfy for baby... But it's nice to have our own, brand-new travel system too!

* * * TMI Alert * * *

And somehow this week I have managed to develop hemmorhoids. Evil evil things they are. It seems to me like they materialized almost overnight and now they're not working hard enough at going away. I think Tuesday and Wednesday were my worst days and they're slowly letting up now but I'm still no where near comfortable that's for sure. I hope to gawd they go away but I have a sneaky suspicion that I'm blessed with them for the remainder of this pregnancy. Sadness. I have a whole arsenal of OTC treatments on hand now too... extra strength anusol, the preparation h cooling gel, epsom salts, tucks pads... the list goes on. LOL

* * * TMI Alert * * *

And the countdown to mat leave has started... August 1 is my last day!! I'm going to have to get a ticker or something to countdown the days for me as I suck at remembering stuff like this. :)

30 weeks... 30 weeks!!!!!!!

OMG... I cannot believe I'm at 30 weeks now. That's 75% done. Wow!!! Time does fly when you're having fun. :) LOL, ok that's a bit extreme. But seriously. I can't believe I'm already at 30 weeks. Today was a good weight day... I'm still the same weight I was on Wednesday when I went to the MW... so hopefully the whole weight gain thing is slowing down. That would be a relief.

I forgot to mention in my last post that my GD test results came back a big fat negative so I'm quite pleased with that. And so's the MW I think. Tomorrow I'm going for another u/s to see if my placenta has moved - hopefully it has and we can keep on planning for a normal birth. I really don't want to consider a c-section at all but I guess we'll see.

Other than that, feeling pretty good today except for the round ligament pain that is excruciating if I move too quickly. I had another massage this past Friday which was a godsend and I'm going to be booking in much more regularly for more...