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Jul. 5, 2008
Miss Julianna Kate Has Arrived- And With A Bang!
Okay, so the bang came along later that evening, but...
So July 3rd I had a super busy day. I had my midwife appointment at 10:15am that morning (after not getting to sleep till at least 3am the night before). She stripped my membranes a bit again. I came home right away so I could try & finish up my computer stuff. I think that's when I posted on my blog too.
I still couldn't get things to work and then had to leave at 1:30pm for my spa foot treatment. Ah, that was lovely. And she played with labor inducing pressure points.
After that, I ran a few errands and ended up finding an awesome deal on a new computer. Got it. Took it home so Kenton could start setting it up for me. Ran back to town. Gabe, Gracie & Josiah went with me. We ran by the post office, filled the van up with gas, ran by Safeway & got Kenton a coffee. All the while having some pretty strong contractions every 20 minutes or so. Kenton called my mom & put her "on call."
I got home probably around 7pm, put the groceries away & started making dinner. Called my mom & just asked her to come over. It takes her 45 minutes to get here & I thought it'd be easier for her just to be here already if we had to go to the hospital.
We ate dinner, my mom got here, we got the children in bed. I was sitting at the new computer trying to get things loaded in between contractions.
I finally called my midwife around 11pm & she told me to go in to get checked. We took the hospital bag & camera with us in case they decided to keep us.
My contractions were irregular but pretty strong. I was a little disappointed when we got there, they checked me and said was only dilated a 3-4 (I was 2-3 at my appointment earlier that day- before the contractions began). I thought they'd send me home, but they were pretty sure I'd have her soon, so they kept me.
The midwife that delivered Josiah came in. She just knows what to do. She was shushing people when she could see I was obviously having a contraction. A guy from lab came in to draw my blood and while he was doing so, I was having a HARD contraction, had my eyes closed & was concentrating on breathing through it and he's sitting there telling me that I can talk while he's drawing my blood. ?? That's when Mary was shushing everyone & had to explain to him that I was having a contraction! (Men!)
She dimmed the lights, brought in some CD's for us to choose from & play in the CD player. Then she brought in a steaming cup of water with lavender oil in it. She rolled a birthing ball over and put a pad on it for me to sit on. My gosh, did that thing help! I labored on that for a long time!
So I started thinking about getting into the tub at this point but wanted to know how much progress I'd made so far. I didn't want to get in there and have it possibly stall labor if I still had a ways to go.
Before she checked me, she had me guess how dilated I thought I'd be. I told her I was hoping I'd be about 7 but was probably only 5 or so. She checked me & I was still only 3-4. How disappointing.
They were fine letting me stay if I'd wanted to because they were certain I'd have her soon, but I was so tired, I thought I'd just go home to my bed and try to sleep between contractions. We were all a little bummed.
So we got home around 3am on July 4th and went to bed. I was easily able to sleep between contractions but they were getting REALLY hard and I could not get comfortable. I woke Kenton up & told him that we had to go back. I needed pain relief and I was either going to get in the jetted tub or just get an intrathecal (like an epidural but just a one time shot). I was tired and discouraged and didn't care about a natural childbirth anymore.
I didn't realize at the time that we'd only been home for just over an hour before we headed back, probably because I was able to sleep a little. It just seemed longer to me.
So we get back to the hospital. The same nurse checks me in. She checks my cervix and I'm up to a 6 by that point. I sat on the birthing ball a while longer and then decided to get into the tub.
The tub. Ha! Obviously a MAN must've picked out that tub. It was probably only a few inches wider and deeper than a standard tub. Sure, it was jetted, but if it doesn't cover your belly all the way, who cares!? The last time I gave birth there (with Josiah), they didn't have tubs. In fact, they were working on making all of the post-partum rooms private at the time and things were LOUD due to the construction. Anyway, I had to get an approval from the department manager to bring in a kiddie pool to labor in with him. That thing was awesome- way better than this jetted tub. I was able to completely submerse my belly and lean on the side of the pool with my legs kind of sprawled out to the sides. I labored like that with Josiah until it was time to push. It worked so well. So I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't get into that same, comfy position as I did with Josiah because there just wasn't room and the water level wasn't high enough. The water helped, but not as much as I'd hoped.
I was very tired and the contractions were incredibly painful and I was ready to just give up. The nurse checked me and I was dilated to 8 yet I still asked if it were too late for an intrathecal. She said it wasn't but that they'd have to put in an IV and give me a bolus of fluid and have me lie down in bed so they could hook me up to the monitors to keep an eye on the baby. Even in as much pain as I was in, *that* option sounded worse than the contractions. I figured by the time they accomplished all of that, I'd be ready to push!
So I continued to labor in the tub. Heard a lady across the hall screaming for several minutes as she was pushing. Got a little freaked as it reminded me what was next.
A few more contractions and I was starting to feel the urge to push. They checked me again & I had just a bit of cervix still there. They said they could just push it out of the way & I could start pushing. But I didn't want to get out of the tub. Heck, I didn't even want to start pushing, to be honest!
I did finally get out. They listened to baby's heartbeat a while while I sat on the birthing ball again. The midwife told me I could get into any position I wanted for pushing. I felt like just staying on the birthing ball but as she so kindly told me, it'd be a little difficult to deliver a baby while sitting there. ;)
I finally got into the bed... in a sitting position. They lowered the foot of the bed (it drops straight down) and had me sit on the edge of it. I pushed like that for a while. Then they got out the squatting bar & I used that a bit. And then they put the head of the bed up and I leaned back on that & put my feet up on the squatting bar and started pushing like that.
It felt like forever that I was making any progress.And I will admit. I was good and quiet through all of my contractions, but when it came time to push, some sort of animal instinct took over. Hee-hee! Kenton did mention later that I wasn't as loud as the lady across the hall, but still. The grunting and groaning through the pushing and contractions did seem to help for some reason. I'm usually a quiet laborer/deliverer.
The midwife had Kenton right there as the baby was crowning and talked him through delivering her. I didn't even know he was there. The last 2 pushes were so intense and so incredibly painful, all of my focus was on that and my eyes were closed. I thought she was going to be huge. I thought I had torn from north to south. And then she was here.
Ah, the relief of the birth over with and the pleasure of meeting my new baby daughter... it was so wonderful. How quickly you forget what you were doing just seconds before.
The first thing I noticed about her was her hair... or lack thereof. ;) She does have a bunch but it's all on the sides and in the back. And then I noticed the dimple on her right cheek and a few times thought I saw one on her left. She hardly had any vernix at all. You know, that thick white stuff on babies? I've never had one so "term" so it was strange to see so little vernix.
I think she's beautiful. She may just be Gabe's "match". We shall see as she gets older.
So Julianna Kate was born on July 4th, 2008 @ 7:55am and weighed ONLY 7 pounds 5 ounces! (she should've been born at 7:44am and weighed 7-4, don't you think?) I didn't need stitches. We thought about changing her middle name to Liberty or something patriotic like that but nothing flowed as well as Kate. Plus, Gracie wouldn't have been happy. She loves the name Kate.
So far everyone loves her. I probably need to make a "whose turn it is to hold the baby" chart of some sort soon. Josiah's not so sure about her. He's S-L-O-W-L-Y warming up to her. I don't know what's going through his little 3 year old head, but when he came to see me in the hospital, he asked me, "Mom, are you sick?" Poor baby. Ha! As I was typing that, Josiah came down the stairs and sweetly asked, "Where's the baby sister?" and actually asked if he could hold her! He kissed her on the head too. Okay, he's warming up I'd say.
I had 4 days that if I had to choose, I'd love to have her born on. They were June 26th (our anniversary), June 28th (my grandpa's birthday), July 4th and July 7th (a 7-7 birthday). So I am just thrilled she was born on the 4th! What a fun day for a birthday party!
The fun thing is, here they shoot fireworks over the pier at night. They put on a really good show. It's just REALLY REALLY hard to find parking and even harder finding a good (close) spot to watch. However, since I was still in the hospital, everyone came there to watch! The hospital is on the water & we were on the 3rd floor. They have a "sun room" (ha!) that overlooks the water. We, and a few other patients & a couple of midwives & their families, got to watch the show from there. We opened the windows so we could hear the bangs as the fireworks exploded in the air. It was so cool! What a birth day!
I am (obviously) home now. I'm very very tired but am feeling pretty good... except for the afterbirth pains. Youch.
And we're in the middle of computer issues still. I can't do anything with pictures until it's all straightened out, but promise to post some as soon as I can!
My head's about to roll off my shoulders so I'd better stop here. I'm backspacing more than I'm typing! |
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Jul. 6, 2008 - Yay!
God bless!
~Leah in Alaska~