I had planned during my entire pregnancy to work up until my due date. As my ankles bloated, and my blood pressure climbed, I was forced to stop working and restricted to bed rest. I didn’t want to stop working, even though it had become a total struggle to get up and out of bed every day of the week, I had wanted to save my time off work for after Parker was born.
It was after my appointment on Wednesday the 23rd that I had to make the stop into work to notify them that I wouldn’t be coming in anymore. I was upset, but also relieved by the fact that I wouldn’t have to sit at my desk any longer and watch my ankles get bigger.
Thursday morning I made a visit to my dentist for the finishing touches on a crown. What’s funny is I’ve only known my dentist while pregnant, and had a ridiculous amount of trouble with my teeth. Dentists must make a fortune on pregnant women, or at least ones like me. He was still surprised to see me pregnant, thinking that I’ve been pregnant for so long it seemed as if I should have had my baby months ago. After he was done, he gave me the final go ahead to have my baby. As I drove home I thought about the nothingness I might do while resting in bed. To my surprise I received a phone call from my very friendly neighbor, inviting me to a game of bunko because she was missing a player. (A dice game for those of you who don’t know.) Sadly I declined because I was tired and my tooth was very sore from that morning. I told her I would come if it meant that they wouldn’t be able to play, but it just wasn’t a great time for me at the moment. She was very understanding and we agreed maybe another time. Next thing I know she is calling again at five minutes to seven and explains that she is actually short two players and really needs me to come. So with five minutes to get there, I put on a more suitable outfit (rather than the baggy PJ’s) and make my way down the street for a game I’d never played before. What a fun time I had, playing the game and getting to chat more with my surrounding neighbor ladies. Incase you’re unaware, the game of bunko involves a lot of standing up and moving from table to table…which may have been what brought me to labor later that night.
Returning home around 9:30, I got myself ready for bed while giving Justin the skinny on how much fun I had. My tooth was really bothering me from all of the talking I had done, so I took some Tylenol and tried to sleep. Wasn’t happening. I started to feel my first contractions around midnight and I rolled with them in bed until about 2:00 am. I decided to get up. If I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, there wasn’t a reason to stay in bed and be uncomfortable. (Being so large at the end of pregnancy makes getting comfortable quite a pointless challenge.) I knew that Parker was on his way and there were a couple of last minute sewing projects I wanted to finish. So I filled my water bottle, brought the dogs with me, and descended down to the basement. I worked on the slip cover for the rocking chair that was in Parkers room (it came with a rather ugly denim fabric) covering it with a more exciting print. I would pause to breathe through my contractions, which I felt were pretty manageable while I focused on drinking water and sewing.
At 4:00 am I decided it was time to tell Justin. I was tired from not sleeping and knew I would need to rest before going into full blown labor, so I crawled into bed and whispered Justin awake with the news that Parker’s coming. Well that’s one way to get a man to not fall back asleep. He was now awake and thinking every thought about the future and what was to happen.
I rested, maybe even slept some until 6:00 am. I decided it would be a good time to call my mom with it being 8:00 am her time. I’m not sure what it’s like to feel the excitement of a grandmother, but it must feel amazing knowing that you child is going to experience one of the most precious things in life. My contractions were definitely getting stronger and I would have to tell her “Hold on.” So I could put the phone down and breathe through each one. It took her a while to figure out what I was doing, but she confirmed that they were at least 5 minutes apart if not sooner. She advised that I be one my way to the hospital soon.
Luckily I had a scheduled doctor’s appointment at 8:00 am and I thought I could just wait until then. That way they would check to see how far I’d dilated and let me know if it was time to go to the hospital. Indeed at 6cm dilated, it was time to go.
We made our way to PVH and got settled in our room. A couple of large windows to let in the morning light, a couple of comfortable chairs for Justin, and the large hospital bed. To my disappointment there was not a tub in the bathroom, but maybe that was a good thing because I’ve heard from a few people that the tub is very long and it is hard to keep yourself upright. Also, the rooms that do have tubs apparently don’t have windows, so I’m glad that there was nice natural light. I was hooked up to monitors and asked a barrage of questions before Justin and I were left to just…wait. And that’s what we did. After I had been lying in the bed for my tests and evaluations my contracts had slowed down. I got up as soon as I could to try and get them to kick back into gear, while I filled out paperwork and signed up for donating Parker’s cord blood. Then we waited some more. I guess both Justin and I underestimated the time that we would be there, not having anything to do. We kind of envisioned going into labor, getting to the hospital and maybe this kind of chaotic scene of nurses and doctors and screaming and baby. Wasn’t like that at all.
Around noon my midwife Terri, wanted to see how far I was dilated since the morning, but I had only come to 8cm. She had a meeting to go to at her office and would check me again when she got back. My water hadn’t broken and my contractions were still far apart. One of the greatest things about my birth experience was the fact that I got Terri as my midwife. (Out of 4 midwives you end up with whoever is on call that day for delivery.) I actually knew Terri before I was pregnant from the first job I had upon moving to Colorado. I always enjoyed seeing her at visits throughout my pregnancy because she has a great sense of humor and she’s not a bullshitter. She is actually the one who saw me the day I stopped working. She had checked my cervix then and I’m pretty sure she stripped my membranes without telling me and sent me on my way. My blood pressure had started to become a concern, hence the reason for scheduling the Friday morning appointment at 8 am.
I tried walking the halls of the hospital so that maybe my contractions would come together, but the hall was short and boring. I think my saving grace through labor was my tens-unit, but trying to walk the halls with it (cords running from the front of my pelvis and on my back) made it difficult to keep in place. The first strips that went on my back weren’t nearly sticky enough to stay attached, so they kept peeling off whenever I moved. I had the unit slipped into the front pocket of the moo-moo (hospital gown) I had on which was sketchy because there was a slit above the pocket which would expose my boob if I wasn’t careful. All in all trying to walk the halls was annoying and embarrassing, so we went back to our room and I started doing laps around the perimeter. With my I Pod on, I tried to focus on getting to the next stage of labor until Terri came back.
I don’t remember ever feeling nervous or anxious. I felt extremely prepared and very ready to have Parker. I had experienced my freak out moment about a week before Justin and I took our birthing class, but we had since gotten all the tools of the trade and educated ourselves about all that we could. Like I said before the tens-unit is what saved me from having to take pain medication. I knew that I had to start it when I arrived at the hospital because sometimes if you start with it too late it can make things worse. Every time a contraction would start I would turn the unit up a little so that I could feel it tingle and distract myself from the contraction.
I had always wanted to give birth without medications. I guess I wanted to really know what it was like for the women before me. My mom gave natural births, my midwife did, and one of my coworkers did. I’m a firm believer in the power of the mind, knowing that if I focused hard enough I could accomplish anything. There was only one other women in my birthing class that wanted to go all natural, everyone else was on board with pain free. I understand the other side of things, taking advantage of modern medicine isn’t a stupid idea by any means, it just wasn’t for me. Out of all honesty, if I hadn’t been able to endure the pain I would have probably had an epidural, but since my water hadn’t broken and I had the tens-unit I was able to breathe through contractions without much difficulty.
At 2:00 pm Terri returned to see how I was coming along, but not much had changed in two hours so she convinced me it was time to break my bag of waters and see if that would help move things along. One word: yucky. Warm, icky liquid that never seems to stop. I was informed that Parker had passed his meconium in utero, but that the water was only lightly tinged and there wasn’t much to worry about at that point. After some time I still wasn’t really progressing which made it time for pitocin. I wasn’t feeling very good about getting the pitocin, but without it Parker may have ended up in distress which would have made things worse, so away I went with the IV drip. It is pretty annoying to be hooked up to an IV and fetal monitors, because when it’s time to go to the bathroom, it is extremely challenging to get up and around without getting tangled. Without a doubt the pitocin did the trick, my contraction became very frequent and much stronger, and continued to use my tens-unit.
I remember wanting to stand. Lying in the bed was not comfortable for me. Moving positions during a contraction is very hard and painful. So with the help of everyone I was able to get up and lean on the back of a tall chair until I was ready to push. The feeling of pushing was not what I had imagined. I guess I didn’t realize that you wouldn’t be able to stop the feeling from the “pushing sensation”. In movies and birthing tapes you can always hear the doctor saying “push” but I thought maybe it was more by your own will to go through with it. It’s weird to lose that control and have a forced feeling come over you.
Justin tried his hardest to be there for me, but he ended up becoming overly anxious and needing to concentrate on his own breathing and welfare to not pass out. But all of my nurses and my midwife were great coaches. I remember how tightly I had my eyes closed the entire time. After what seemed like forever I gave birth to Parker Lee Van Alstyne at 7:31 pm on Friday, April 25th. Completely exhausted, my tiny son was finally here. Full head of hair, a strong cry, the tiniest hands, rather large feet, and the sweetest face I’ve ever seen.
Welcome to the outside world Parker.
Love, Mom
