The Biscuit Arrives!

OUR BIRTH STORY:
It started as a contraction that woke me up on Wednesday at 5:30am.

I assumed it was one of the usual contractions and that it felt different because I’d been uncomfortable all night. No sense trying to get back to sleep. I got out of bed and did random stuff around the apartment: checked email, bought a diaper bag during a surprise online sale at katespade.com, washed my hair and read some news. All the while my usually painless contractions kept getting noticeably more  ... interesting.

By the time we were ready to leave for my weekly 10am doctor’s appointment, I was pretty sure I was in labor. Andy grabbed the packed bag just in case that was true. The cab ride to my OB’s office seemed longer than usual. With contractions coming every 5 minutes or so, I could feel every pebble and bump on Boston’s streets.

The doctor confirmed labor and, when she checked my cervix, declared I was already 3 centimeters dilated. We were directed to go straight to the hospital and arrived at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at noon. Being a regular over there, check-in was easy and I was wheeled right into a labor and delivery room. I got hooked up to all kinds of things that beep and was offered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The contractions were getting worse by 1pm. Every 3 minutes I felt like I couldn’t speak or breathe, like my insides were on fire. There really are no words to adequately describe what labor feels like. The best I can come up with is INTENSE. Waves of crushing, intense pain from a place I’d never felt before. Deep breathing gave me something to focus on and I kept telling myself to relax. Tensing up makes it worse but it’s hard to relax when you feel like you’re being turned inside out.

By 2pm, the pain was so bad I could barely see and I started to vomit (hello again, PB&J). That’s when I decided not to be a hero and called for an anesthesiologist to give me a spinal epidural. I don’t remember much since I was so focused on the contractions which, at this point, were about every 2 minutes. I wasn’t really getting a break between them to recover. I do remember the nurse asked Andy to leave the room, a doctor came in with supplies, I had to drink a foul tasting antacid and then … sweet relief.

This is me right after the epidural.

Wow! What a difference. Andy was more relaxed too.

After the pain was taken care of, we waited. And waited and waited. My labor progressed painlessly but I could watch my contractions on the monitor. Every few hours, a nurse came in to check on the status of my dilation. I made phone calls and sent text messages about what was happening. I read a friend’s blog and perused Facebook. For the next 10 hours or so, it was really boring. I took a nap.

I was startled awake by the automatic blood pressure cuff and then … the shakes hit. Friends, books and the internet had all kinds of wisdom about labor but NO ONE told me about the labor shakes. Uncontrollable, full-body convulsions and shivering, complete with teeth chattering. Completely normal? According to the nurse, yes. Unexpected and scary? You bet! For 30 minutes, I shook like a drug addict in withdrawal. When they stopped, I had a fever of 102. Wheee!

A fever in a laboring woman sends all the medical folks into a tizzy. The baby’s heart rate spiked and stayed high so they gave me Tylenol and antibiotics to try to get things back to normal. Meanwhile, my dilation stalled at 9 centimeters. The OB came in to talk about options: C-section, forceps, vacuum extraction. Fuck that! I wasn’t interested in any of that. Even with the concern about my fever (inching a bit higher now), I felt like as long as the baby was doing ok, why force it. We waited some more.

At around 11:30pm, nearly 12 hours since we arrived at the hospital and 18 hours since that first contraction, the nurse told me it was time to push. She propped me up, grabbed one of my feet, asked Andy to grab the other one and told me to bear down as hard as I could with every contraction. “Like forcing out a hard poop,” she said. Um … ok.

Pushing sounds straightforward but it isn’t. I’ll spare you the details but it involves every muscle in your body. Andy said it reminded him of that scene at the end of “Total Recall.” You know the one when Schwarzenegger ends up outside on Mars all bulgy-eyed and screaming. Thanks, babe.

After an hour or so of pushing our daughter Parker Violet Lippitt was born on May 17, 2012 at 12:25am. 6 pounds, 15 ounces, 20 inches. That’s 38 weeks and 3 days for those keeping track.

Eyes wide open and high marks on the APGAR screening. They called in a team from the NICU because of the fever but all was well. She, as usual, was unfazed by any of my issues.

We spent two days in the hospital. Because of the fever, Parker had to be on antibiotics as well. But she’s all good. Perfect even, considering the long and bumpy road we took to get here. We are relieved, elated and exhausted. Now the real fun begins, I suppose.

Getting dressed to go home.

Waiting for her ride.

The shellshocked new parents.