Remembering what I was doing 5 years ago today...


Kate's Arrival

On Wednesday, September 18, 2002, I had an appointment with our midwife and a non-stress test. I went in completely prepared to talk about options regarding induction and to try to convince the midwife to let me wait until Monday. Deb (the midwife) felt very strongly that it was unwise to wait until Monday, so I was scheduled to be induced at 7:15 Friday morning (September 20th). Deb did an internal exam and found that I was 3 cm dilated, 70% effaced and the baby was at a -2 station. The non-stress test went well, and I went home, determined to try to go into labor before Friday.

That afternoon, I felt pretty crampy, and by the evening I was having contractions about 10-15 minutes apart that felt different - they hurt a little. I was able to sleep, but several of them woke me up. By Thursday morning I was having contractions that were 6 minutes apart and uncomfortable. Around lunch time, they spaced out to about 20-30 minutes apart and I felt pretty down about it. I stayed home from work that day and kept Alex home because I was pretty certain that I was going into labor. We spent a lot of time walking around the block and I drank a ton of red raspberry leaf tea. After a short nap around 3 pm, the contractions started coming back and were about 7-12 minutes apart and uncomfortable. By early evening, the contractions were becoming pretty strong and we called our Doula, Corey, to see what she thought. Corey came over and watched me for a little while. She left around 10:30 and said that she thought it wasn't quite time yet.

As soon as she left, the contractions almost immediately got very strong and started coming about 2-5 minutes apart. They became very intense and difficult to manage. Sean used a lot of counter pressure on my back and that seemed to help. It also helped to lean forward on something during the contractions. Sean was timing them, so I wasn't really paying attention to the time, but they felt like they were right on top of each other. Sean started getting ready to go and he woke Alex up around 11:30 p.m. We called Corey and Deb and my parents and headed
to the hospital. Luckily we live close to the hospital, so I only had 2 contractions in the car. By the time we got to the hospital, Alex was extremely excited and said, "I've been waiting for this day since I was 6 when you got married."

I insisted on walking up to the room, because I knew the contractions would be more difficult in a wheelchair. We had to wait for someone to come down to escort us, though. Deb was there right after we got there. She checked me and I was 8-9 cm! They started rushing around to get the IV in me for the antibiotics and I had to have my 20 minutes on the fetal monitor. That was difficult, because it required me to sit back.

At some point I realized that I was going through transition because I got very shaky. I didn't have any other transition symptoms that I can recall. After a little while, Deb said that she was sure I was complete and asked if I wanted to try to push, have her break my waters to see if that gave me the urge to push, or wait. I chose to wait. She came back a little later and asked again. At that point,I asked her to break my waters - hoping for the urge to push. She couldn't break it, but scratched Kate's head a little. :( Apparently there weren't any forewaters. So I just started trying to push.

Pushing was MUCH harder than it was (or I remember it being) with Alex. I really did not want to push and needed a lot of coaxing. Corey brought Alex into the room after I started pushing, because he finally decided that he did want to be there for the birth. He sat back in a chair through most of the pushing, covered his ears so he wouldn't hear me yelling, and offered words of encouragement like, "I know you can do it Mommy. You pushed me out, and you can push Kate out." I was surprised at how vocal I was this time, and also at how well Alex handled everything.

My water finally broke while I was pushing. Shortly before she crowned, Deb had Sean and I feel her wrinkly head. And then as she was being born, Deb told us to reach down and grab our baby, so we did. She was born at 2:57 a.m. - only 3 hours after I arrived and 4 hours before I was scheduled to be induced! She screamed her head off right away. The cord wasn't cut until it was done pulsating, and Sean was the one who cut it. I had a 2nd degree tear along my episiotomy scar, so Deb stitched that up while Kate was in the warmer. She nursed right after she was in the warmer and knew exactly what to do - she stuck her tongue out and opened her mouth wide! Kate stayed with me in the LDR room for a while, and then Sean took her down to the nursery to be weighed, measured, bathed, etc. Corey stayed with me while they brought me a meal and helped me move over to the other room. Kate's APGAR was 9 and 10. She weighed 8 lbs 5 1/2 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long.