All the Gory Details, part two

Part Two... on to delivery day...

July 13th, 2010. Today is the day we're going to have a baby! Woo Hoo! I had an induction scheduled for late in the afternoon and was going to spend the morning getting the house ready to be abandoned for two days, getting my daughter ready to be abandoned for two days, and basically just psyching myself up. Cate had other ideas.

At about 4:15am I woke up pretty sure my water had broke. That, or my bladder had broke, one or the other. I took a little time to try and figure myself out, I wasn't really having contractions so it was a little confusing, and eventually called Granny to come over and watch Maggie while Jason took me to the hospital. By the time we got to the hospital, got through triage, and got to our delivery room - about 6:30am - my contractions seemed to be about five to six minutes apart. Even though in triage they said I had NOT broke my water (which I still don't believe), I was definately in labor.

The rest of the morning was a waiting game, nothing too exciting. I had decided to wait longer this time to get the epidural than I had with Maggie. With Maggie I was so scared that it would get bad fast that as soon as I started feeling something I called for the anestheologist. This time, by the time I started asking about the epidural, and they called for the order from my OB, and they called the anestheologist, and the damn doctor got there (the women next door got to her first), the contractions felt like they were practically right on top of each other and I had my one truely bitchy moment of the day... told Jason to "Shut up" as he was trying to distract me with commentary on the HGTV show that was on the TV. Seriously though, I couldn't have cared less what that damn house was being sold for in Argentina - GET ME SOME DRUGS! That was at about 11:00am.

One funny thing that happened, that I almost forgot about...I think it was after the epidural, but it might have been before... I was sitting in the bed talking with my nurse as she took my blood pressure after having checked my progress down below, when all of a sudden this little boy, maybe about three years old, came careening into my room giggling and running in circles. For a second I thought maybe my mom had brought Maggie over, but then said, "Oops, that one's not mine!" My nurse looked horror stricken, rushed the kid out of the room, and came back in apologizing. "No big deal," I told her, "Good thing he wasn't about five minutes earlier, or he would have had a very unpleasant education about where babies come from."

So anyway, back to Cate...
From 11:00am to about 2:00pm I was totally happy and doped up. I took a little nap, tried to read a magazine, but right around 2:00 I started getting really uncomfortable. I tried to roll over on my side and discovered that this time, everyone agreed, that my water had broke for sure. The nurse checked me out and it was time to get the doctor. No induction, Cate was going to do this all by herself.

The doctor came in a little while later, all hyper and jovial, had me push once, and the baby's heart rate dropped. He wasn't so jovial any more. I pushed once more and it happened again. All of a sudden I was in that movie She's Having a Baby and Jason had turned into Kevin Bacon. I could hear the Kate Bush song playing in the background. They put an oxygen mask on me, called in about four more people and told me that they were going to use a vaccum to help get her out ASAP and I had better push as hard as I can or I was going to end up with a C-section. I was fighting back tears, praying she was OK, and trying not to look at my husband becuase I knew he was doing the same thing. It took about five more minutes and she was born, it was 2:40pm.

She was having some trouble catching her breath so the nurses took her across the room to work on her. I was trying hard not to start screaming "Give me my baby!" and keep my shit together. I don't think I've ever wanted anything so bad in my entire life than to have her in my arms, a little bit of drama can really crystallize a moment for you. I got to see her very briefly, kiss her, and she was wisked away to the nursery to be better monitored. So then I started crying, and shaking. Everyone was telling me she was going to be just fine, but I didn't want just fine - I wanted perfect. Not perfect for me, but for her. I didn't want her to be struggling, or scared, or hurting, or whatever was going on with her, I just wanted her to be perfect... is that so much to ask?

After about five hours the breathing issues resolved themselves, and by the next morning the giant dome on her head from the vaccum had dissappeared. They said they didn't really know why her heart rate dropped so much right at the end there - or maybe they did know and it just wasn't so important to tell me anymore.

We're home now, learning how to live with a newborn again, and watching her get closer and closer to perfect with each passing hour. Maggie loves her sister, and Jason and I love them both so much it will be impossible to ever tell them... until maybe they have their own little girls. Like Jason wrote to friends the other day, our life is pretty good right now. Pretty good... pretty amazing.