The Birth Story

Now that someone else is home holding Lucy, I actually have two free hands to type with. So I figured I would take this time to give the "birth story". I'll try to keep it short and sweet, without the gory details....but some details need to be preserved for posterity.

Around 3:00 pm on Thursday, May 29th, I got offered Cubs tickets by a co-worker for the Thursday night game. We figured...hey...why not. Maybe the walk to and from Wrigley will trigger labor. After all, that is one of the old wives tales and I was 4 days late. So, we accepted the tickets and headed to the game. I don't remember much about the game other than the fact Randy Wells pitched for the Cubs vs. Randy Wolf of the Dodgers, (i.e. battle of the Randys), the seat was uncomfortable (I didn't fit quite right anymore), and we left early because the Cubs were losing. Since we've taken pictures at all of the sporting events I went to pregnant, we decided to take a picture on the way out of Wrigley. (See...the picture of me in the video Justin made). Turns out that picture was taken about an hour and a half before my water broke. Who knew?

After the game, I waddled home and laid on the couch watching the NBA playoff game. I started to fall asleep...and then all of a sudden I felt "something" and literally ran to the bathroom. I made it in time, thank goodness, and yelled to Justin that something wasn't quite right. Let's just say there was a bit of a gush. Then another gush, and another gush. Every time I thought the gushing stopped, I would gush again. Needless to say, we eventually figured out that this was the real thing...my water had broken.

We called the doctor who told us to head to the hospital due to my strep B status. But, she advised me to eat eat eat before we came in since I wouldn't be allowed to eat until after I gave birth. The ironic thing is that we'd eaten my "labor" mac & cheese stash (we'd set it aside for this very purpose) the night before. So, I sent Justin to the store at 11:30 pm to buy some more! Poor Justin, at the Jewel, with the drunk Cubs game crowd, buying mac & cheese and red bull. I sat at on the toilet the whole time. Sexy.

After eating, we headed to the hospital. Contractions started in the car ride, around midnight. They weren't bad at all. We checked in and after about 2 hours finally got sent to a labor room. Then the contractions started getting worse. They still weren't too bad though. The anesthesiologist came in and gave her epidural speech. I listened and told her that I hoped to never see her again. HA! Little did I know.

Due to my Strep B status, the protocol for the hospital is to have the baby born within 24 hours of my water breaking. This damatically reduces the chance of infection. Because of that, they started me on Pitocin. We were able to starve it off until 7:30 am, but that was it. Before then, I was having very irregular contractions. They would come every 4 minutes, then every 6, then not for 10. There was no rhyme or reason. The idea behind the Pitocin was to get my body into active labor. Let's just say it worked. Very soon thereafter I was having "productive" contractions. They lasted about 2 minutes, came every 30 to 90 seconds and hurt like hell. They were coming so fast that my body didn't have time to recover so it felt like one long contraction. I was so exhausted that I kept passing out. It was not a pleasant scene.

At noon, I had them check to see where I was at. I was 6 cm. I tried for another half hour, had a contraction that lasted 4 minutes, and shortly thereafter threw in the towel. The anesthesiologist was called in and I got my epidural. It was a godsend. Modern medicine is awesome. After 25 minutes, a very large needle and some heavy drugs, I didn't feel any pain. I even got to take a nap!

Around 3:00 pm we had a baby heartbeat scare (i.e. her heartbeat wasn't recovering after contractions and a million doctors and nurses were called into the room. Ask Justin about it. Some day maybe he'll think it is a funny story). The doctors all determined that I was ready to push. Pushing was easy. The most difficult thing was the waiting. They only let me push during a contraction. Ironically, I didn't think they were coming often enough! Then...at 4:38 pm ...we met Lucia!!!

It was an amazing experience. Even though I didn't end up having a natural birth (hopefully I will for baby #2), the natural birth classes were all worth it because they desensitized Justin to the birth process and he watched the whole thing! He got to tell me that Lucy was a girl and got to cut the cord. Then he told the grandparents that Blueberry was a girl. I got to tell them her name.

It was all very surreal and the coolest thing that has every happened to me.