Nora's Arrival

I love to read birth stories, and in an effort to remember what Nora's arrival was like, I decided to memorialize it for the blog.  Although I love to read these kind of recounts, I don't like TMI, so I will try to minimize/avoid it here.  Here goes...

Nora was due to arrive on Friday, July 13th.  I'm not superstitious, but I was less than thrilled about a Friday the 13th due date.  Due to health issues, we decided to induce just ahead of the due date and, at my 37 week appointment, set the induction date for July 10th.  This left me plenty of time to finish the nursery and get some final things done around the house.  The best laid plans...

Saturday, June 30th started out as most of our Saturdays do:  a visit to a neighborhood yard sale and then the farmer's market.  Because I knew it was one of our last weekends as a family of two and because Marc has been so great during the pregnancy, I decided we would do whatever he wanted to do - hence the yard sale and farmers market followed by Chick-Fil-A.  I had a few intermittent contractions, which I chalked up to Braxton Hicks.  That afternoon we headed to JD's house for an afternoon of swimming.  Late afternoon we headed home to shower with plans to meet friends at La Paz for dinner.  While getting ready, I noticed that the contractions were stronger and getting closer together.  I started timing them and realized they were about 4-6 minutes apart.  I told Marc to hit the shower, and I called the doctor, who said to head on to the hospital for them to check things out. 

We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 pm, and in the same fashion as how I showed up at law school, I just walked in with my purse and no clue about what to do.  They put us in an observation room - with another couple.  Fabulous.  They checked my progress:  1 cm dialated and 60 percent effaced.  Same as my 38 week appointment.  Again, fabulous.  The nurse said that they would monitor us for a little while but that if I didn't progress they were going to send us home.  So, we sat in the little hot room, listening to the other couple make strange noises and playing on our phones.  The nurse came back around 10:  still no progress.  [At this point, I'm thinking I'm going to have to go home and sit around having these contractions every 4 minutes.  Great.].  The nurse suggests that we walk the halls a little to see if that helps.  After a 30 minutes circular walk around the halls of the L&D floor, we return to the hot little room.  At this point, my contractions - which include back labor - have intensified and are beyond painful.  Marc tries to soothe me.  I shoot him a look of death.  The nurse checks me, and - hallelujah - we have progressed to 2 cm.  She can tell I'm in pain, so she says that she thinks they are going to admit me but she needs to check with the doctor.  At this point, I'm thinking there is no way I can move across the room, much less to our car and home.  We have told no one that we are at the hospital, so at the prospect of admittance I give Marc strict instructions to call Trish, tell her to get her stuff, put on some Royal Secret perfume (my favorite that she wore when I was little), and get her tail to Birmingham.  The nurse then comes back and says that they are admitting us.  Marc springs into action with a flurry of phone calls and texts as he rushes to the car to get our bags.  The nurse explains that she is going to move me to a room.  I ask the most important question, "When will I be getting my epidural?"  Her response, "You want drugs?"  "Yes, lady, the more the better."  She tells me we have to get to the room before she can give me anything.  It is 11:30 and the pain is close to unbearable.  Yet, I have to walk to the room - barefoot because Marc, in his haste, took my shoes with him.

Once in the room, they start an IV and give me a light painkiller.  This merely takes the edge off, although it does make me feel a little drunk (a welcome feeling at that point, especially after a long 9 months).  I again ask where that epidural is.  Turns out, those things take some time and bloodwork.  Great.  The nurse checks me again and is surprised that we are already at 4 cm.  She hooks up the monitors and gets the process rolling.  A little while later - still no epidural - she checks me again.  She gets a look on her face and calls for the charge nurse to come check me.  Turns out I'm at 7 cm.  Everyone is stunned.  In the words of the nurse, I am "flying."  Too bad the epidural doctor is not showing the same level of haste.  The nurse suggests that I could go "natural" at this pace.  Wrong.  At 2:30, the epidural angel shows up and gets to work.  He says that the epidural may be painful.  He doesn't know pain.  Once he's done, life is good, and I rest. 

After the epidural and around 4 am after a long day.  Not looking my best.

The nurse tells me that it is a good thing that this is our first baby because I progressed so fast that if it was our second we probably would have missed the epidural window.  Say what?  Note to self:  with baby number two, get to the hospital asap.  All of a sudden, I'm at 9.5 cm and almost totally effaced.  The doctor breaks my water and says that we'll start pushing at 4:20.  At 4:19, my blood pressure bottoms out to 50/35 (which freaks Marc out) and they have to push some Ephedrine.  Now, we are going to push at 4:40.  At 4:39, my blood pressure dips again and we are pushing more Ephedrine.  Push time is now set at 4:50.  The golden minute comes - blood pressure in check - and we begin to push.  After an hour and a little pitocin to speed up contractions, Nora arrived at 6:01 am.  She weighed in at 6 lbs on the dot and was 20 inches long.  And perfect in every way. 

The Filipino genes are strong, and she looks just like her daddy.  Except we think she may have some curls like her mama.

    


Trish came through and arrived at the hospital around 3 am.  After getting Marc something from McDonalds, she and Bill settled in for a long night in the waiting room.  She did scoot back and see me.  And yes, she was wearing the Royal Secret.  Finally, after Nora was born and things had settled down, they were able to come back and see us.

It was a long day and night, but we would do it again in a heartbeat.  We are so in love with our little girl. 

First family picture.