Hellobee

Now that we’ve all said our hellos and I’ve introduced you to baby Stroller, I thought I’d share how he got here. Or at least the last few days of his life on the inside, since our journey through the infertility clinic is worthy of an entire post in itself.

Mr. Stroller and I took a “weekend madness” childbirth class one month before my due date. We chose a class that would focus heavily on natural childbirth, and help us learn pain coping techniques. Half of one day was spent learning about all the interventions and options available in a hospital setting. I’d also done a ton of reading in preparation for delivery, and my favorite book was Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth.

But like everything I read, I took the advice in the book with a grain of salt, knowing that every labor and delivery is different.

When we left the weekend madness class, I knew what to look for early on, what to pack in my bag and I had an idea of what distraction techniques might work for me since we spent over an hour plunging our hands in a bag of ice to simulate contractions! Visualizing a calm place worked best for me  – a place near my parents’ pond where Mr. S proposed was my calm place, but I was thinking about catching frogs as a kid, not diamond rings.

When I hit 40 weeks on December 12th, I felt ready. I had my appointment first thing that Monday morning, and at the last minute Mr. Stroller came with me. I hadn’t been able to sleep in weeks and walking had been painful for over a month because of pubic symphysis, a creepy word for “my pelvis separated where it shouldn’t have!”

I saw my usual midwife, Karen, in an OB practice and she already knew I’d called the OB on-call over the weekend asking again what I could do for the pain. We had written a birth plan together so she knew I wanted an unmedicated birth, but that morning she held my hand and said to me, “I think we need to talk about scheduling a date for induction.” She was concerned that if I continued to get little to no sleep, I wouldn’t have the strength for labor. I cried. We made an appointment for December 21.

Baby Stroller was always a very mellow baby since I first felt flutters at 14 weeks, but I was hooked up to a monitor to track his movement, just as a precaution. I sat in the little room with Mr. Stroller cracking jokes at me, black mascara stains on my face and a remote control with a little red button to push whenever I felt baby Stroller move. I had an anterior placenta, which means that it muffled a lot of the baby’s movements, but I was surprised to hear I’d had a few contractions and hadn’t even felt them!

Karen told me she didn’t think I’d make it until the 21st, but I left feeling totally defeated anyway. Mr. Stroller dropped me at home and took off for work. I spent the day in a haze just researching natural induction techniques, calling acupuncturists and discussing the possibility of another induction massage with my doula, Juli.

Monday, 10:30pm

After an exhausting day with no nap, I started to feel crampy around 10:30pm. At 11pm, as I was getting ready for bed, I had TPI (toilet paper information as coined by Juli). Contractions started right away, lasting 45 seconds and coming every three to five minutes. I emailed Juli. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t, so at 2am I got in the bathtub, hoping to slow things down so I could get some rest.

Tuesday, 2:00am

I let the water fill the tub and when I had used all the hot water, I lay down to take a bath. Once the water was cool, I got dressed and went to our guest room where Mr. Stroller had been sleeping for the previous few weeks. I told him I was in labor and not to go to work in the morning. He said he knew. I guess the 2am shower gave it away.

8:00am

I managed to sleep on and off until 8am (I had been emailing Juli every hour or so), when I finally got up and went downstairs to make coffee. I stood in the kitchen and swayed through the contractions with my hands on the counter — a technique from a video we’d giggled at during childbirth class. Mr. S asked me when I would know it was time to call the doula. I told him that Juli told me that I’d just know.

9:30am

I decided to take a shower and get dressed for the day. At 9:30, while I was in the shower, I yelled down to Mr. S that it was time to call Juli. He asked if he could take a shower first…. he didn’t question me again.

Juli arrived around 10am and we worked through contractions together in the kitchen, dining room and living room as Mr. S cooked eggs for breakfast. I started drinking a 16 oz bottle of water every 30-60 minutes. At one point we even made some hot apple cider on the stove. Days later when I was in the hospital and my mom was cleaning the house in preparation for baby Stroller’s arrival home, she called to ask me what that stuff in a pot on the stove was.

12:00pm

Around noon my physical signs started to indicate that I might be in transition, which is when you go from early labor to active labor. Basically “transition” is a fancy name for hitting 6cm. I was very cold, shaking uncontrollably and crying for absolutely no reason; it was all from hormone surges and I had no control over it. Juli kept reassuring me that it was perfectly normal. I called my mom to ask her to get on a flight and come now. It was more of a “come now” whimper, if I recall correctly. My contractions were lasting around three minutes and coming frequently.

Mr. S called Karen, the midwife, and she spoke with him and with Juli before passing the phone to me. I was very shaky and had to pass the phone off a few times so I could work through a contraction. Juli would squeeze my hips while I kneeled and leaned on the coffee table. The counter pressure helped a lot. Karen asked me to come into her office, one mile from our house, to determine if it was time to check into the hospital. My goal was to labor at home as long as possible, but I was Group B strep positive, so I needed at least an hour at the hospital so I could get IV antibiotics before delivering baby Stroller. I wanted to ignore the warning about antibiotics and stay home, but I thought that if I decided not to listen to Karen, she might not stay through my labor to attend my birth and just let the on-call OB attend.

We took pictures in front of the Christmas tree before leaving and even though the hospital is less than a mile away, we drove in two cars just in case we wouldn’t be returning home.

I was lying on my side in the front seat asking Mr. S to drive slower and stop the car during contractions. It was the longest car ride ever. When we got there, the parking garage was absolutely packed. We went all the way down to the bottom level and all the way back up again never finding a space. It was then that I realized I’d seen signs for free valet parking every week when I’d gone for my weekly appointments! We valeted the cars.

At Karen’s office, I sat down in the crowded waiting room for two seconds before she saw me through the window and told me to come in. “We don’t make laboring women sit in the waiting room,” she laughed. Thank goodness, because there were some seriously horrified pregnant women watching me.

Mr. S, Juli, Karen and I entered the tiny exam room. Karen told Juli to have me undress from the waist down and handed her a paper sheet before leaving the room. Juli looked at us and said, “This is a first.” I said sorry to Mr. S as Juli helped me take off my yoga pants and I climbed up on the exam table.

I was totally defeated when I learned I was only 3cm. The baby was very low and because of this Karen was convinced that once I started to dilate more, it was going to go very quickly. I repeated at least a dozen times that I wanted to go home. She gave us until 4pm and told us to meet her in L&D then.

2:45pm

We didn’t get home until 2:45 because it took so long to get the car from the valet. I may have lost my cool and snapped, “I’m in labor, may I please have my keys” to the valet who was managing a gaggle of women who couldn’t decide who should get their car first. It was the only time I was rude to anyone!

At home I lay on the couch and labored for a while even though Juli suggested I do belly lifts and other moves to try to make my contractions more effective. I needed to rest. I continued to drink tons of water and Gatorade, as an effort to avoid IV fluids. I was going to the bathroom every 30-45 minutes; I’d have the most intense contractions after going pee!

3:30pm

At 3:30 I had some cheese and crackers and more Gatorade while standing in the kitchen. I dragged my feet getting out of the house, saying goodbye to our dog Feeney and standing in the empty nursery one last time. I prayed for a healthy baby and hoped for a little girl.

to be continued….