The Bagg household already had a princess, and her name was Lizzy. A 9 year-old 1.5 pound Yorkshire terrier, Lizzy is allowed to roam where no other dog can even poke their nose. Zeek and Trucker are confined to the mud room, but even while infested with fleas, Lizzy has run of the kitchen, living room, dining room. Zeek and Trucker eat dry dog food. Lizzy eats a variety of wet from a can, and fresh vegetables.
Fresh. Vegetables.
The little diva even gets away with sleeping on clean laundry in baskets, if her own wicker basket isn't good enough for a nap.
Well, this week, that all changed. Move over Lizzy, there's new royalty at the Bagg household.
This is the story of her grand entrance. It's a bit long, but it has to be, because the process itself was looooong.
Each woman has a different idea of when exactly "labour" starts. For some women it has begun right from the first contraction. My mom didn't count any of her labours as having started until her water broke. I guess its individual. In my more melodramatic moments, I would have said labour started for me on Amelia's due date because after that the four days of waiting were PAINFUL! But really, contractions started at 11 p.m. on July 21st, on our one-month anniversary dinner date. On the drive home, I realized that the "ouch" feelings in my lower tummy and back were coming at regular intervals. I didn't say anything to anyone for a couple hours, because I was afraid of scaring them away. Instead, I sat in a chair, focussing on what each cramp felt like. They weren't that painful at all, just a deep tightening feeling, and a back ache. Eventually I told mom and Taz what was going on. Taz's first reaction, from a dead sleep, was "ok, so do we go to the hospital now?" I told him since they were at least 10 minutes apart, we could wait a bit, and he should get some rest. At around 2 a.m., I went to bed and tried to sleep a bit. But really, how do you sleep with that balance of pain and excitement? I guess I eventually managed, because the next thing I realized it was 6 a.m. and I woke myself up by whimpering through a contraction that was way more painful than the night before. A quick check with my handy-dandy contraction timer (aka ipod) showed these ones to be about 5-6 minutes apart. We decided around 7:30 to head to the hospital, since the birthing clinic handout said to come on in when the contractions were 5 minutes apart and painful.
I thought those ones were painful. I thought it might have been active labour. Ha. Turns out, if you can drive yourself to the hospital during contractions, it ain't active labour.
Taz and I arrived at the hospital, and picked our room. I was the only woman that they had in that day, so I had my pick of the 6 birthing suites. I picked one, and changed into a super-sexy butt-less gown for an exam. Heart rate, blood pressure, baby's heartbeat, all looked good, but I figured something was up when the nurse had to wait for a contraction before she could even reach my cervix.... I was only dilated 1 cm. The nurse kindly suggested we go home and wait for things to pick up, so I got dressed, and we left. The drive home was disheartening. I was tired. Tired from not sleeping, tired of waiting, tired of trying to be patient. When we got home, I went back to bed to try to catch up on lost sleep. I slept until noon, and when I woke up, the contractions were not five minutes apart anymore. They were ten minutes apart.
My labour was going backwards. I was going to be pregnant forever.
The rest of the day I just killed time. Taz and I went for a long walk around the trailer park down the road. During that hour long walk, I only had 3 contractions. I was getting pretty miserable, and the words "stalled labour" and "pitocin" were fluttering around in my brain. My sister and her boyfriend arrived unexpectedly for dinner, and making polite small talk with her boyfriend was the LAST thing I wanted to do. So, I apologized, and hunkered down in the rec room alone. Mom had suggested I squat through each contraction, but I hadn't done it before now, mainly because I felt silly doing it. Guess I really should listen to the woman that's been through this 6 times before. I tried it then, and oh boy, did that help! Things took off amazingly from there.
Within an hour of squatting during each pain, they moved from 10 minutes apart to averaging 6 minutes. I actually found that squatting made the pain slightly better even. That was around 7 p.m. At 9 I moved upstairs to my bedroom, and read a book on the bed while not in pain, and squatted with my elbows on the bed during the contractions. I was starting to have to breathe differently during the peak of pain, blowing out through pursed lips. Around 10 Taz came up to go to bed. He had juuust drifted off to sleep when suddenly, something about how these contractions felt changed. I don't know what it was, but I just
knew it was different. I woke him up, and told him we needed to go. Now.
Good thing we had the car already packed. And good thing we did leave when we did, because on the way into the hospital, they got closer together again. This time, when we got to the hospital, they let us stay. It was just after midnight, and I was about 4 cm dilated.
I firmly believe that atmosphere has a whole lot to do with how a labour goes. I was very lucky. We had an entire birth ward to ourselves, and we set up the room to our liking: dark and calm. Mom sat in the corner on a rocking chair not saying much, and watched Taz and I work together. I was having a lot of back pain, so I knelt on the bed and leaned over a birthing ball, and Taz rubbed my back. Our nurse Marilyn came in periodically with a doppler to check Amelia's heart rate, which stayed stable and fine. After about an hour, I decided to get into the tub. Oh my god, instant bliss! Warm soothing water, a handheld shower head and jacuzzi bubbles. I stayed in there for close to an hour by myself, just sloshing water over and over my belly. Taz and mom dozed in the next room.
While I was drying off and getting ready to get out, I heard a flurry of footsteps and the rattle of a trolley being pushed hurriedly down the hall. I came out of the room and asked mom what was going on. She said a woman had come in fully dilated, and delivered in 3 minutes.
"I hate her"
Time passed. I walked in circles around the room, ate freezies, and Taz rubbed my back. Eventually Dr. Schipper arrived, and checked me again. I was still dilated 4 centimeters. She asked me if I wanted her to break my water. By that point, it was 3 a.m. and I was eager for things to be moving along, so I said yes. I was nervous, not knowing what it was going to feel like. Taz stood by the head of my bed and held my gaze and told me over and over it was going to be ok.
With my water broken, the contractions got extremely intense. Each one felt like a steel trap biting down on my lower stomach, and a hot band squeezing my lower back. I refilled the tub, and jumped in, and I remember saying out loud to no one in particular, "please, I hope this makes it feel better". It did...but not a lot. Taz sat beside me and sprayed my lower belly and back and Marilyn came in periodically to use her doppler, which was starting to annoy me. The last thing you want during a pain like that is someone pressing a stick into your stomach.
I reached 6 centimetres. Then 8. The world shrank to my body and my breath. When the contractions came within 30 seconds of each other, I started throwing up, and couldn't stop retching long enough to catch my breath in between them. Poor Taz. I was whimpering and crying and puking and shaking and he just kept rubbing my back and telling me it would be ok. When I reached the point where I knew I wanted something for the pain, he didn't question me, just went to tell Marilyn, who brought in a syringe of I.V. Fentanyl. I had to get out of the tub and lie on the bed on my back for her to insert the I.V. That sucked. The first vein didn't work, and I was shaking and trying not to squirm. I don't know how women labour entirely on their back.....I had to be up and moving.
With the Fentanyl, I would say the top 10% of the pain disappeared. In between contractions I was much more relaxed and I was able to catch my breath and rest a bit. Most of the time I spent in transition I sat on the toilet backwards and rested my head against my arms. Taz rubbed my back pretty much nonstop. I later found out his hands were killing him, but he didn't say a thing at the time. Smart man.
Marilyn came in once to top up the Fentanyl. I guess about an hour passed. When they checked me again, I was juuuusst about fully dilated, and Marilyn left to get Dr. Schipper. "Time to have this baby" everyone said. It was 6 a.m. and I was about done with the labour process. Time indeed.
Marilyn said that when I felt pressure, and the urge to push, I could try pushing. I was told that laying on my side while pushing might help with the back pain. Now here's a secret: I felt a LOT of pressure, and pain in my lower back, but I never felt an overbearing urge to push. I held off for a few contractions to see if I could feel what all those other women were talking about, but it never came. I wasn't feeling my uterus do anything at all. However, I was fully dilated, and had been given the green light to start pushing so I thought, "to hell with it. If I have a lazy uterus, I will just do this myself. Abs, don't fail me now."
Within one push, I knew that I'd have to clarify something here: pushing does not feel good. It does not feel any better to push than to have a regular contraction. It hurts during the pushing, and when you stop, it hurts more. I think the "feels better" idea comes from the fact that you are doing something instead of just breathing and moaning. I really did feel like I was getting somewhere, finally. I had my own personal cheering squad chanting "push, push" just like in the movies. I remember thinking "oh, neat, Hollywood got that part spot on." I ended up pushing on my back since the side-lying position with a nurse holding up my leg just felt awkward. Taz rubbed my head and pushed the hair out of my face, and reminded me to breathe. Mom said he took the whole process like a champ. I didn't really notice what he was doing - I had my eyes closed pretty much the entire time.
45 minutes passed. Did you know you can literally feel the baby's progress down the birth canal? It is the weirdest sensation. I was offered a mirror. I declined. I don't do bloody scenes well in movies or pictures, and I was sure I wouldn't handle my own any better. Then Dr. Schipper warned me about an imminent burning sensation and oh holy jesus she was right!!! I guess the Fentanyl had worn off by then. There was no relaxing between pushes, just a few seconds to catch my breath. At one point I remember begging the nurse to "just fucking kill me." Everyone laughed and said they'd heard it before. Dr. Schipper threw a green gown over her clothes, a second nurse came running with a bunch of towels, and someone told me "this is it. Time to have this baby"
And that was the point my uterus decided to co-operate. With Amelia 3/4 crowned, my body suddenly bore down without me. Someone exclaimed "her head is out!" and apparently Taz was bouncing up and down beside me. There was a weird squiggly, slithery feeling, and suddenly I was reaching down for this baby and pulling her, wet and gasping up onto my chest.
And just like they all tell you, like my mom and grandmother and all the mothers I knew promised would happen, all the pain disappeared. I thought this was a lie before my labour. I thought all women said it to us moms-to-be so we wouldn't be so scared, but it is true ladies. The second I held her in my arms, it was the biggest rush of ecstacy and joy. I vaguely remember talking, but I'm pretty sure it was incoherent babble. A nurse jabbed a needle with oxytocin into my leg and I barely registered the deep, dull burning that came with it.
They took her to be weighed and checked, they "massaged" (aka attacked) my belly to expel the placenta and encourage my uterus to contract - (THAT HURTS!!) and Taz and I stared at each other with tears in our eyes. This is it babe. We're parents now, and our world has forever changed.
Now, two weeks after my labour, I find myself looking back on the night fondly, and replaying parts of it in my mind. It truly was the hardest, most beautiful thing I have ever done. I know I am very lucky to have such a straightforward and easy delivery, and one in which I basically called all the shots. No one pressured me into anything medically that I didn't want, and I was able to labour in whatever positions, and situations I chose. All women should be so lucky, because I think it really made a difference in the end result: Happy baby and happy mommy.
Ok, this post took waaay longer to write than I expected. I started it over a week ago, but with a newborn in the house, it got done in bits and pieces whenever I found ten minutes. I promise to update more regularly now - I have tonnes to write. Motherhood is so much more than I could ever have expected, and its only week two!
