Great Expectations

When you are expecting a baby, you dream about what life is going to be like after the little bundle of bundles arrives into the world.  You imagine a time of bliss, coos and never feeling more in love with your partner and can’t wait to be on this magical journey together.  Then your water breaks and your dreams wash away and reality starts to sink in.

Labour and delivery is different for everyone – mine was induced so I was expecting it to be a little bit harder based on stories I had heard.  The contractions started at around 1 AM but I was able to sleep through them.  At around 4:30 they were getting stronger and closer together so I had a shower to see if that would relieve the pain.  The hot water ran out so that ended that and by 5:30 I woke up Tim to tell him we should go back to the hospital.

We checked in at 6:27 and at 6:28 my water broke all over the floor in the triage room.  It continued to trickle out whenever I stood up and I left a little trail or puddle everywhere I went.  What was sad was that as strong as the contractions were, I was barely dilated.  However, because my water had broken they decided to keep me at the hospital instead of sending me home to wait things out. 

I was told that I was getting transferred to a labour and delivery room when a lady came in screaming like she had kittens inside her clawing her trying to get out.  She got bumped to the top of the list and I was left to hang out in the triage room.  Both the baby and I were doing good though and I had a relative amount of freedom to get up and walk around, go to the bathroom as required and even was able to eat a small meal.  When I transferred into the labour room, I was not going to be allowed to eat anything so it was important to get something in me to keep my energy level up.

Finally, at 11:30, I was transferred to a labour room.  My nurse was pretty new, as she was unable to get my IV into me, didn’t know how to work the bed and didn’t really give me the sense of security that I was hoping for.  She was very pleasant,  but when the more senior nurses came in to assist or relieve her, I felt much better having them around.  They hooked me up to a continuous fetal monitor which meant that I was unable to get up without a whole lot of effort and assistance from the nurse. 

The pains were getting a lot stronger after the Oxytocin started to take effect, but I was still only 3 cm dilated.  By the way, there is not a scientific way to determine how dilated you are.  I don’t know why I would have felt more comfortable with an instrument inserted inside me, but really and truly, I would have.  Most likely because it wasn’t always the same person who was checking me, so how do you know that one’s measurements are the same as another’s?  I myself would have felt more trusting having an instrument such as calipers do the measuring but there are just some things you have to get over when giving birth.  Modesty would be the first.

I was offered some laughing gas to get through the contractions and it really did nothing for the pain, but I did enjoy the buzz.  Apparently, the first tank they brought in wasn’t working so when they brought in the second tank, I felt a tiny bit of relief but that was short lived.  I was offered a shot of morphine, but it was such a low dose and did nothing, so we decided to go straight to the epidural.  It was about 3:30 PM and that was the only time Tim left me that day – he couldn’t watch me get the needle.

I was then about 5-6 cm dilated so things were moving along.  I had a steady stream of doctors and interns coming to check on me, and even in my fog, I couldn’t help wondering if there were any “Grey’s Anatomy”-type subplots happening with the staff.  Were there any Meredith and Christina BFF’s?  Was there a George somewhere pining for an Izzy who would never love him back?  I digress.

I went from 5-9 cm in the blink of an eye and then the delivering doctor came in to do one final check.  She figured since her hand was already inside me she might as well go that one bit further and she proceeded to tell me that I had a 7 lb baby and shouldn’t have any problem giving birth vaginally.  Excuse moi?  She could tell that just from the head size?  And should her hand have been all the way up inside me? 

This is where it started to get a little tricky.  When I was contracting through the later stages of labour, the baby’s heartbeat was going down to 100-105  but then bounced back up to a healthy 135 after the contraction was done.  When I hit 10 cm dilated and was ready to start pushing, the heartbeat went up to 180-182 but didn’t come back down. 

The obstetrician called in a birth team and I could tell they had some concerns – they don’t call in birth teams for nothing.  I knew the heart rate shouldn’t be that high and I couldn’t take my eyes off the monitor – I was willing the baby to slow things down but it just wasn’t happening.  It was at that point the doctor informed me that they needed to use the vacuum.  I had been pushing for about 40 minutes and the baby was obviously in some distress.  I agreed to the vacuum.

Tim reminded me that the vacuum/forceps was the one thing I didn’t want used during the birth, but I have to say that in that moment, all I cared about was the safe delivery of our child.  I told Tim the baby was in distress and needed to come out.  After 6 successive and huge pushes and the aid of the vacuum, Vaughn Douglas Riley was born into this world.  To find out we had a son after almost 40 weeks of pregnancy was a beautiful thing.

Vaughn was put on my tummy for a nanosecond before they whisked him away to do what they needed to do.  He scored 9 out of 10 on both of his Apgar tests (which I later found out is incredible) and as quickly as the birthing team came in, they left – they were obviously not needed.  Vaughn’s heart rate was stablized and he weighed in at a healthy 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 inches long.

I had a teeny bit of tearing so while the doctor was stitching me up, Tim got to feed Vaughn his first bottle and get a good look at our boy.  Since I had been fasting since arriving at the hospital, I was given a sandwich to curb my hunger.  It came up as fast as it went down so we had to resort to apple juice and crackers.  Yum.

Due to the fact I had impaired glucose tolerance during my pregnancy, Vaughn’s blood sugar levels had to be tested 4 times after birth to make sure they were within the normal parameters.  They were fine, but it broke my heart every time they had to put the needle in his foot to get blood.  He was not a happy camper and it was very hard to hear him cry.

We were transferred to a private room and the nurse did some more checking and at about midnight I was finally able to try and get some sleep.  Yeah right, I had this beautiful little boy laying beside me and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

In the morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see Tim arrive back at the hospital with my mom by his side.  Mom had come up the day before and was so excited to meet her newest little grandbaby.  Auntie Fran snuck in later posing as Tim’s mom, as only grandparents and spouses were allowed in as visitors.  It was a great day, but I was grateful for the peace and quiet later in the day to try and get some rest.

Vaughn had some troubles with breastfeeding.  I didn’t have any milk right away and he was having trouble latching on.  Apparently, the vacuum can cause problems with the baby’s jaw and does also give them quite a headache.  We tried every time we needed to feed him but always had to resort to bottle feeding formula.  The lactation consultants (or latchosaurus’ as I came to call them) were really rather rough with both him and me and I was left feeling a little bit frustrated.

While at the hospital, they started me on a breast pump to try and get my milk to come in.  I rejoiced if I got one tiny drop of colustrum in the bottom, but it didn’t happen every time I pumped.  However, if Vaughn wasn’t able to latch on, I was determined he was still going to get his nourishment from me and I begged my boobs to start producing the milk he needed so badly.

A day later and we’re leaving the hospital…

There are so many stressful things about bringing a baby home.  Here is this precious little life that you are now solely responsible for.  You don’t have anyone at your beck and call – you can’t just run out into the hallway and grab a nurse who will answer all your questions.  Our biggest problem was the gosh darn car seat.  Was it done up right?  Why couldn’t we agree on how he should be sat in it?  All of the frustration and anxiety of being a new mother came out towards Tim and the car seat.  We finally agreed he was snug and not going to fall out and proceeded to check ourselves out of the hospital.

As Tim drove the car out of the parkade, The Sweetest Thing by U2 happened to be playing on the radio.  Now, I know it’s not necessarily the loviest song, but there are a few lines that really stuck out – “a blue eyed boy meets a brown eyed girl” and “baby’s got blue skies up ahead”.  Tim made eye contact with me in the rear view mirror and we both started crying. 

And thus began our journey into parenthood.

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