my daughter is 8 months old now and i STILL have not written out her birth story. in fact, i am pretty sure that there will be some gaping holes because i just do not remember certain details (one which causes me much grief). but, from what i remember...
i subconsciously suspected being pregnant within two days of conceiving. i had a work conference in florida and i remember spending half the time crying and feeling sorry for myself and the other half of the time not eating steak dinners and breakfast buffets (if you know me at all, you would understand that passing up a steak means something is clearly "wrong"). a few weeks later, i was back in florida for a wedding and passing up on champagne toasts on a hunch. mickey, always the practical one, said for me to not get all worked up about it until we knew for sure. i would have to wait until i actually missed my period. while we were in florida, i got a text from one of my best friends. she was pregnant. it was a surprise and she was already 4 months along. i was thrilled and hoped even more that i would actually be pregnant. my period was late, i peed on some sticks. the results were...inconclusive. on our 3 year anniversary, i went to the doctor. i was pregnant! we ate thai food to celebrate and decided to wait to tell people until we were 12 weeks along (of course, i told my already pregnant friend, my sister and my bestbest friend. honestly, did you really expect me to keep it a secret?).
i don't believe that my pregnancy was all that difficult, no not now. however, i think during my pregnancy, i was a pretty miserable person to be around. morning (and afternoon and evening) sickness prevailed from about 2 months until 6 months. i had swollen ankles, fingers, etc. my job had me standing 8 hours a day on concrete floors. i hated my job. sciatica. i'm sure there was more, but not really worth remembering. the only health concerns where some bleeding i had at about 9 weeks and some weird loss of peripheral vision for half an hour at 14 weeks . my blood pressure was perfect, but i gained too much weight (working so close to the mall food court was pretty bad on my hamburger intake).
because of conditions at work, i started maternity leave as soon as the government allows, which is 8 weeks before expected due date. everyone told me not to - that i would be giving up that extra time with my child - but honestly, i could barely fit into shoes. oh yes, also i hated my job and wasn't going back there anyway. we had planned on moving a few weeks after the baby was born so i had packing to do anyway. i took the first three weeks of my leave to just chill on the couch with my feet up, packing a box here and there. i remember distinctly, on friday, may 14th, talking to my mom on the phone and telling her that i really needed to start packing. a few more minutes into that conversation, i peed. in my pants. or so i thought - i hung up with my mom, not telling her what was going on. i went to the bathroom and i continued to pee. i went to the computer, looked up "how do you know if your water broke". it seemed like it had. i'd like to say that i was overjoyed but i wasn't. i wasn't ready. in fact, i was terrified - this was far too early! mickey was at work, on the night shift. i called my friend, nina (the one who had given birth 2.5 months earlier and invited me along to the birth) and asked her to describe what broken water felt like. she reminded me that her's had been broken at her induction, but she seemed to think mine had indeed broken. she asked if i wanted to go to the hospital and i said, in a small, teary voice "yes".
i did not have my bag pack, but for some reason, i thought i had better do the dishes and that's what i was doing when nina, her husband al and their little bubs edie arrived 15 minutes later. nina asked if i had called mickey, i had not. where he works, they give them beepers when your wife is nearing due date. well, this was too early and actually, he had not told anyone his wife was pregnant! while al finished my dishes and i packed a bag, nina called mickey at work. mickey is pulled from the line by one of his team leaders and asks "is your wife pregnant???" mickey drives from woodstock to london in about 20 minutes and meets us at the hospital.
i am checked and i am 2cm dilated and my waters were definitely broken. my family doctor, who was supposed to deliver my baby comes to see me but she has to refer me to an OB, as this is now outside her scope of practice. my water broke 5 weeks and 6 days before my expected due date. i am told that they will be keeping me at the hospital until the baby is born, but that they will be trying to delay the birth and that every day counts. as horrified as i was at the potential of being in hospital for 6 weeks on be rest, i knew that it was best for baby. i was sent to antenatal with an iv and three women who would go often for smoke breaks, even though they were there for pregnancy complications. again, i knew i had to be there until it was safe for the baby to come, but i didn't know how i was going to keep my mouth shut about that one.
my water broke at 9pm on friday, by 4am on saturday, i was having fairly regular contractions. i told my nurse who hooked me up to the contraction monitor and told me, nope, i was not having contractions, that my uterus was just irritable from my water breaking early. at around 8am, i started timing them. for the most part, about 6 minutes apart, except for the occasional 15 or 10 minute. i showed the nurse, she hooked me up again and said, nope, not contractions. by that evening, they gave me morphine. 7am on saturday morning, they gave me more morphine. still "no contractions". at around 10am, the sent a resident to check me. 5cm!! everything went really fast...i called mickey, he was there in about 15 minutes and by that time i had already been moved to my labour room.
unfortunately, this is where i asked for an epidural. in retrospect, i wish i had not gotten it for two reasons - significant studies that show that babies born with epidurals are more sluggish and have a harder time breastfeeding (which we did) among other potential complications and because by the time they actually administered the epidural, i was almost 9cm dilated. i had already laboured by myself for 32 hours, half of that with no support (and really, no one even believing me that i was having contractions!) and i wish i had just finished off without it. oh well, next time!
they wheeled me down to one of the scary rooms that they do c-sections in, as i was now considered high risk and they needed to be near the "warm room" to check the baby over. about 5 minutes after i got there, i felt the urge to push. i told the nurse and she said i could try to push. i did and even with the epidural, i felt my wee one travel down the birth canal - what a thrilling experience! i told mickey, he looked terrified! the nurse looked at me and said, um, stop pushing! she called the doctors - we had the OB on call, a resident and a medical student attending, as well as nurse mary. i put my hand down and i could feel her wrinkly head - by this point i was absolutely thrilled. i pushed maybe 4 times all together and out she came about 20 minutes after arriving in the delivery room. at mickey's request, i cut the cord (even though i had wanted to leave it pulsating for at least 5 minutes, they would not allow it because of her prematurity). i remember turning to mickey saying "lets do that again!!"
moxxie elizabeth scott was born at 130pm on sunday, may 16th, 2010, 5 weeks and 3 days early.
they held her up for me to look at for a moment and then they whisked her away and mickey followed. after a minute, i heard a little cry from the room next door and they brought her back out to me so i could hold her, wrapped in a blanket, for a few minutes before they took her to the nicu. she was only 4lbs and 12 oz. they took about half an hour to stitch me up (starburst tear) and then the wheeled me to the nicu so i could look at her again. yes, i could only look.
i was wheeled to my recovery room and this is where things get a little fuzzy. i honestly do not remember that i held her again that day. we took a lot of pictures while at the hospital and there are no pictures of me holding her in the facebook album of day 1. this is something that really grieves me, the possibility that i may not have held my daughter on the first day of her life. i could touch her, there are pictures of that, but i am certain that i did not hold her skin to skin or try to breastfeed her the day she was born. there is no doubt in my mind that this contributed to our breastfeeding issues and the length of time it took us to bond. i think i realize now, that this could have been the reason i was so weepy for the first month of her life.
they gave her formula through a tube and i started pumping. i would feed her, with a bottle, any breastmilk that i could get (which was very little, my milk took about 9 days to come in), and then supplement with formula. i wish i had known then that there are mothers that would have donated breastmilk for her to drink!
moxxie stayed in the nicu for 24 hours and then they moved her to a progressive care unit (still hooked up to monitors and constantly watched by nurses, but not in incubators). she was in progressive care for 24 hours and then they moved us to "care by parent" which is a unit with 4 little private rooms with 1 nurse on duty at all times. here, the baby stays in your room. you can leave the baby in the room if you tell the nurses (they hook them up to monitors if you leave). they kept us here for three days. my beautiful moxxie, the love of my life, came home with us on friday, in the hospital for less than a week, weighing her birth weight of 4 lbs 12 oz.
i believe that having a birth plan and having informed choice about your birth is extremely vital for the tone you want to set for your baby's entrance earth side. that said, i think it is equally important to be able to be flexible when the situation calls for it, for example, in the case of prematurity. am i disappointed that i didn't get everything i wanted for us? absolutely, for both of our sakes. can i let it go? yes, and i have. well, almost all of it - the fact that we did not breastfeed or have skin to skin contact for about 18 hours still causes a deep sadness in my heart and i regularly have to remind myself NOT to question whether my daughter loves me. if i could choose one thing to have been different, it would have been that. only time will allow me to let it go - when i'm ready.
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