Mae's Birth Story

At 37.5 weeks they told me she weighed approximately 7 pounds, which is a problem if you consider that at that stage, babies can gain as much as an ounce a day. That put us at an approximate birth weight (taking into account that my babies like to gestate for 41 weeks) of 9+ pounds. Another problem.

You see, what they didn’t tell me in all the rush to stitch up and bond after I birthed Parker was that he had a shoulder dystocia because of his size. My novice mother’s brain didn’t recognize the fact that he was so purple, or the fact that he needed immediate oxygen, as signs of anything out of place. I thought all babies looked like that, and all babies needed some help to get things moving when they were first born.

So at 37.5 weeks I made the (painstaking, him-and-haw, crapamidoingthewrongthing) decision to be induced at 39.5 weeks.

4:30 AM on January 2, 2013 came awfully early. Again, being the queen of vanity, I got up at 3:30 so I could, shower, shave my legs, blow-dry my hair, and touch up my toenail polish. (Seriously? You ask. Seriously. When your feet are up in the air for that long with all kinds of people rushing around you – even though you know they are not paying a shred of attention to your feet – it really helps the self-esteem for them to be a confident, determined shade of bright pink).

This time around the whole “getting ready for the hospital” routine seemed much more haphazard. With Parker, I had my bag packed, down to the smallest detail (a celebratory Cuban cigar for Chad, which, it turns out, you are not supposed to bring to the hospital… honest mistake), WEEKS in advance. For this birth, I was actually still packing right up until the time Chad said, “We’re going to be late for your check-in time, and I don’t want to be there all day.”

…

For anyone out there who has experienced induction (and is probably chuckling at the computer screen at this very moment), you know as well as I do that labor can sometimes go on for days. Poor Chad. I had tried to explain this concept to him before, but it went much the same way as trying to explain the right way to fold towels. (In case you’re wondering – I now fold all the towels myself because he can’t be taught).

My first dose of Cytotec was at exactly 9:00 AM. Unlike the traditional method of Cervidil + Pitocin to jumpstart labor, my doctors decided on this newer method, which works both to start uterine contractions as well as cause the ripening of the cervix.

Word to the wise: If “cervix” just made you queasy, do not read any further. Trust me.

I was ready to wait, so I had a deck of cards in tow, as well as a fully charged iPhone and a list of the Top 1000 Baby Girl Names in the World. We spend the morning going through the names and laughing hysterically when we found an especially gaudy one (I mean, do your thing, but do you really have to name your child “Dolphin”?), and then taking a break to play Rummy when we got bored.

I felt literally no pain all morning. I kept trying to psych myself out and *convince* my body that it was, in fact, having contractions.

I had to wait until 1:00 for my next dose. I was faithfully getting out of bed (where I was only sitting because it was more comfortable to watch endless episodes of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” there than on the superfoam couches in the birth suite) every 15-20 minutes to bounce on the birthing ball, do squats, use the bathroom, and walk down to the maternity ward to jealously eye all the babies in the nursery, and all of the mothers walking around happily (albeit a little lopsided and gingerly – I get it, stitches pinch) pointing out which baby was theirs to their elated family members.

Still, nothing. Not even a little pull or twinge.

At 5:00 the doctors changed shifts (I’d already been through 3 nurses at that point) and I finally heard some good news: I was dilated enough (3 cm) that the doctor could break my water!

Ladies and gentlemen, what happened after that water-breaking was unbelievable. In less than 15 minutes my pain level shot up from a 0 to an 8 (nurse friends, you know what kind of pain an 8 is!) and I was suddenly BEGGING to get in the jetted tub to relieve some of the pressure in my back. The nurse said, “Yep, that worked. I’m expecting a baby between Midnight and 2:00 AM.”

The nurse (bless her), helped me hobble into the bathroom, get in the steaming hot tub, and brought me some Fentanyl to try to ease some of the pain. (Just as a side note, don’t waste your time with Fentanyl… it makes you feel super high for all of a minute or so, and then the pain comes back just as bad as it was before you started. It’s just an extra pharmacy bill at the end of the day. End of mini-rant. Amen.) Chad took the opportunity to take some extremely unattractive pictures of me in the tub, looking all puffy and glassy-eyed.

I ended up on my hands and knees in the tub trying to breathe through my contractions but really only able to squeak out sobs in between them. Chad was freaking out. He kept asking what he could do. I told him to be silent and supportive, which is easier said than done when seeing other people in pain literally makes you nauseous and your nervous habit is to babble. I told the nurse I felt like I wasn’t getting a break in between contractions, and that my pain was probably at a 9. I asked if we could call the anaesthesiologist. 

Chad was back on duty for my epidural, even though it was definitely worse on him than it was on me. I kept trying to look at the needle in reflective objects throughout the delivery room and he kept telling me to stop because he was going to be sick. Eventually my new(est) nurse, Carmen, had to take over because the first time they stuck me I felt it shoot up and down my spine and they had to try again. Needless to say poor Chad had had quite enough.

I was looking forward to a post-epidural nap (I took a 2-hour one with Parker – so I was pretty sure that was going to happen again. Right? … Right?) when the anaesthesiologist finally wheeled his cart out of my room around 7:30, but I began having this inexplicable (and HIGHLY painful) throbbing underneath my left hip. The nurse tried to help me roll from side to side, but nothing I did even came close to alleviating the pain.

After several failed attempts at getting more comfortable, Carmen decided to check me again. I almost thought I was hearing things when she said, “Do you want to push?” What!? I had only been in any kind of pain for 2 hours, and I was in this for the long haul! I said, “Uh, I guess I could. Can I?” to which she laughed at me and said, “You’re fully 10 centimeters. Let’s have a baby,” and quickly paged the doctor.

Dr. Culver came in with no time to spare, because after just 2 pushes my angel was here. 8:48 PM, just over an hour after my epidural, and 3 hours after my water had been broken. I actually got to pull her out (sorry for the gross out! But really, if you’ve made it this far it’s probably not that big of a deal), and was able to immediately pull her to my chest and begin to bond (no purple, no oxygen, no scrubbed down baby). My Mom got to cut her cord, which was really special (again, Chad was not able to take the ick factor… this time all he could do when the doctor offered him the scissors was shake his head and point at my Mom). When I finally let them take her to the other side of the room for tests and measurements we got to hear her “stats”: 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and 19 ¼ inches long, a full 2 pounds lighter and 2 inches shorter than her brother 28 months earlier. My little peanut.

The hospital stay that followed was, of course, a blur of joy and sleeplessness. I do remember the pediatrician from our practice saying, “You look waaaaay too comfortable for this to be your first, so let me just ask if you have any questions specific to this baby.” We finally decided on Day 2 that we would name her Mae after my Nana, Glenna Mae. Her middle name (which we had decided on weeks earlier) is Dawson, after Jack Dawson Dawson’s Creek Chad’s father.

So there it is, in all its jumbled glory: the story of Mae’s birth.

And I have to say, now that she’s here, our family and my life feel completely complete, and I know we are so very blessed to call her ours.