Oh, what a night!
(Memories for this Momma to cherish, since I know I would otherwise forget these details with time.)
At my last OBGYN appointment on Monday, January 14, the good Dr. Wolanski and I decided we would induce on Friday afternoon, January 19. He would call Martha Jefferson for “permission”(make sure staffing looked okay, etc.) and we would be on the books. Finally! There was an end in sight! Not only was there an end in sight to the heartburn, four nightly trips to the bathroom, and constant loss of breath from inadequate lung capacity, but there was relief that I would deliver this baby before it got too big and an answer to prayer that I would finally get to meet this little one! Wolanski had told me several appointements prior that this baby was not going to the petit 6.8 and 6.10 and the Andrew and Margaret were. I always joked that if we had a 3rd, it would weigh in at 6.9...the wild card would be how long I would carry it. Andrew and Margaret were almost identical in weight, but Andrew came at merely 36.5 weeks and Margaret had to be forced to join us at 40 weeks, with no signs of coming on her own. Wolanski's guess was that this babe would be 7.5-8 lbs, but we both agreed that there was no need for me to deliver a 9 lb baby. So if this one wouldn't come on it's own, we would intice it before it had a chance to grow larger than necessary.
But of course, Wolanski called Monday night saying there was a hiccup. MJ didn’t want to schedule the induction, especially not at noon. Recalling that Margaret’s began at 7am, Wolanski felt that a noon start (over his lunch break from the office) would be sufficient for this third baby…that things would go considerably faster this time and that the baby would arrive around 6:00pm---perfect timing not to interrupt his day at the office, and still have baby here before the hospital’s slimmer nightly staff took over. But evidently he was able to talk the hospital into it (why would they not listen to him, he who knows precisely how his deliveries are going to go?), so we were on!
Thursday morning, we had a slight scare with school. I carefully say “scare” because Thursday morning was to be my last 2 hours of peace and quiet with both Andrew and Margaret in school…my last chance to document some thoughts before our new reality would be here. The weathermen were calling for 4-8”of snow in Charlottesville, beginning early afternoon, so naturally Albemarle Co Schools just closed for the whole day. What?!? Other schools announced early closures (reasonable), but with Albemarle being SO big and parts of it so rural, they are always quick to cancel. I’ll say that most of us were at least glad to hear that the already 4 straight days of soggy rain we had had would be shaken up a bit by some white, fluffy goodness. Change of pace is always good. Thankfully, FPCP follows the City of Cville schedule---which rarely closes---and the kiddos were able to head in.
Of course the forecast turned out to be a bust as we saw about 30 minutes of flakes that afternoon and that was it, but the blessing was that it prompted Mom and Dad to head to Cville Thursday rather than their originally scheduled Friday morning arrival. My best chance of getting Mom to town is a forecast of snow! :) Susan would arrive mid-late morning Friday, so all would be here in time for BK3’s arrival....or to cover the big kids at home. Due to the forecast, Michael came back from Luray (1 hr 15 min away) by 1:00 instead of 3:00 and Mom and Dad were in town by then, too. I vacuumed, picked some things up, and had the house in as good of order as it was going to be in…for a very long time.
About 2:30, Michael and I laid down to rest for a few minutes. At this point in my pregnancy, falling asleep mid-afternoon typically meant passing out cold for an hour. This body was tired. But I whispered to Michael that I had been having more contractions that day than usual, and that they seemed a bit more pronounced. As we laid there, they were barely intense enough that I couldn’t fall asleep. Hmmm. Should I being timing them? I glanced at the clock here and there. 5 minutes. What?!?! Wolanski said to call if they were consistently 5 minutes apart. Then 12 minutes. But how long should they last? Forgot to ask that question in the office. I wasn’t sure if this meant anything, but I was fairly certain that I could say I was consistently having contractions. The duration and length between still varied a bit, but I was now sure that they weren’t going to stop. Hmmm. So about 3:30, I started documenting this. Could this be the beginning of it?!?
Mom and Dad arrived after 4:00 to hang out for a few hours. We had planned an early, Mexican dinner with the kids, so they were going to play for a bit before enjoying their own dinner at a more reasonable hour and venue and turning in at their hotel. With the Dads and the kids in the garage riding bikes as it snowed, I confessed to Mom how relieved I was that they were in town. I showed her my timing sheet, and we baked her famous chex mix together and popped the cork on some champagne. Why not?!? I could tell she wanted me to call Wolanski, though. As I realized that some contractions were as little at 4 minutes apart, I agreed to call him on the way to dinner. By now, I was actually getting a bit wiggly. Thankfully, he answered his phone at the gym. We agreed to keep better track of the duration of the contractions and to check back within the hour. I confessed to Michael that the contrations has rapidly become more regular…closer together, longer, and a bit more uncomfortable. Perhaps we should speed up dinner and head home? Afterall, I still hadn’t packed my bag…only made my list of last minute things to toss in.
We were home by 7:00 and I had called Mom and Dad asking if they could skip their restaurant meal, throw together an overnight bag from their hotel room, and meet us at the house… I was certain we were headed to the hospital to have a baby, tonight!
Michael prepared the kids for bed as I took a quick shower, threw some things in a bag, got the plethora of technology ready, and called the good Dr. back again. He was back at the hospital already and said it was time for us to meet…and that we may as well just have this baby tonight! “Let’s break your water and just do this!”. Happy to show Mom and Dad our take out menus, we kissed the kiddos goodnight, gave Mom and Dad our biggest ‘thanks’, and headed to Martha Jefferson!
We were in our Labor and Delivery room by 8:15pm. I changed clothes and “ooo’d and ahh’d” over the bathroom, which immediately lost its appeal with the next contraction's pain. Ouch! Sue, the world’s best LD nurse, hooked me up to the monitors and we were ready to see what was really happening. Michael reported in that he had found the Duke/GT game for me, but that ESPN was the only fuzzy channel on the TV. Yeah, right! Confining him to the LD room of our 3rd child would be the only way to get him to watch a Duke game, and it was fuzzy?!? Somehow, that remarkably resolved itself shortly:) Ironically, though, I could have cared less about Duke basketball…or anything else…at the moment.
Wolanski appeared at 8:45pm to break my water and we nonchalantly chatted about the anesthesiologist and where he was. Of course he joked that there wasn’t one at the hospital that night and asked me to walk around a bit and hop in the bath for a few minutes as that could speed things up. As soon as I was out of bed, “!#@#$%”. Uh, Sue???…that was about 1,000 times more painful than the last contraction I had before he broke my water. Yep, apparently that was normal. My water with Andrew and Margaret was only broken post-epidural, so I had not experienced this route before. There’s a reason they don’t tell you certain things ahead of time! And then, crap! Here was the next one. Wow. Was there even a break between the two?!? Can we get that epidural here now? Another one?!? !@#$@#$%. “Michael! Have we prayed yet???? !@#$#$%”. He prayed. I cussed. Hope God will forgive me. There was no controlling my mouth. While Sue said to get in bed so she could check me again, she said there was a pain management option we could try if we needed to that could be enough to take the edge off for the next hour. Great! Let’s get it! But then her next words were, “You’re 8 cm. This baby is coming. Wolanski is on his way back.”. But wait! I haven’t had any meds yet! The good Dr. explained----somehow through my screaming that sounded like a wild animal being attacked---that this baby was almost here.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth. A couple of pushes and your baby will be here. Let’s do this!”. So I’m having a baby without an pain meds?!? That was never the plan! Correction. That was never MY plan. Remember who’s in charge, Elizabeth? Poor Sue had to look me in the eyes and calmly say, “Elizabeth, I need you to slow your breathing.” Okay. Right. Whatever. YOU try to calm your breathing. Can’t you tell I’m completely out of control right now, having an out of body experience?!? But listen to that! Calmer breathing. Guess I truly am a rules-follower. Then Wolanski chimed in. “Push. Don’t push.” As if I was able to control my natural instincts right now. Evidently I was doing enough to get by. Michael and staff reported in that we had crowning. One more push. There was the head! Two more pushes and there you go! They placed the most beautiful, slimy, blue baby boy in my arms. Rewind 10 minutes. Did I just have a baby without any meds?!? Ouch! What was that? Wolanksi reminded me that I still needed to push out the placenta, which was being more stubborn than he would have liked. “Can’t you just reach in there and pull it out?” I suggested to the man who has done this more than 9,000 times. “Sure, if you want an inverted uterus, and want to be in surgery in 5 minutes.”. Oh. Okay. I guess I can keep pushing, keep having contractions (weren't they supposed to end by now?), keep working. Can someone else hold the baby? I don’t want to drop him when he’s 2 minutes old and I’ve still got work to do here.
Finally, my work was done.
The contractions and cramping slowly subsided---until my first feeding,
of course---and it was time to move on.
The good Dr. headed to his next patient…certainly not home. Michael was off for home so he could get some
sleep and help with the kiddos in the morning.
Mom and Dad are more than capable, but he wanted to share the news with
Andrew and Margaret before school and drop Andrew off, a luxury he really gets
to enjoy. Sue finished up with my
business in the LD room and I was quickly wheeled off to recovery while Matthew
was getting warmed up in the nursery, checked out, and had his first bath. It was all such a whirlwind, and so different
from Andrew and Margaret! My LD stays
with both of them were about 12 hours.
This was little more than 12 minutes!
So much for the new, beautiful, HUGE LD rooms at the new Martha
Jeff! And so much for my budding
friendship with Sue:)
Wolanski's visit the next morning told me exactly what I had hoped to hear. Evidently, in betweem my ferocious screams (I need to find a better word for the sounds that actually escaped my body), I had performed precisely as he had asked me to. He said it was honestly a job well done. I admitted to him that I never thought things would go down this way, but that I was glad they had. I had always been curious what a natural delivery would be like. I think the good Dr. somehow knew that. I think he knows me well enough to know that I could do it and still do as he asked. And I think he knew that I was glad not to take more of his time after hours than necessary. Afterall, how many times had we discussed how convenient induction is on his office schedule and how it frees him up for the spontaneous deliveries he had? And how many times had we discussed how patient his wife is, only seeing him at home about 3 nights/week? And how many times had we discussed how much he hates sleeping at the hospital because he doesn't really sleep? I know this all comes with the territory and that he is well compensated for it, but you know me. I never want to put anybody out, no matter what. So I was glad that it was all short. I'll stop as describing it as sweet. I was glad to have the experience. And I was thankful he was there to talk me through me it. I do not think the process would have been as smooth had I delivered while he was out of town Jan. 10-13 running his 13th marathon in Disney...which, thankfully, he reported in had gone very, very well. My assessment of a truely natural birth? God wasn't kidding when He declared that our punishment for Eve's disobediance would be painful child labor and birth! Ironcially, I told Michael on the way to the hosptial how interesting it was that each of our 3 births had gone down differently. He argued that point with me, saying this was happening like Andrew (on its own) rather than being induced (like Margaret), so that we only had 2 stories here. I now completely, respectfully disagree with any resemblance to Andrew's birth. I think Michael is on board with that now:)
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| Wish sweet Matthew David weren't crying, but you get the shot that you get in the moment. |
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| Doesn't look real, does it? Shockingly, not a tear was shed. Some things in life are simply beyond tears. |
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| Opps. Out of order. Clearly home, but still cute...snuggled up with the precious hat that Clare knitted. |
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| The grand introductions! Andrew could not have been sweeter and Margaret was instantly maternal. She simply can't get enough hugs and kisses! |
