Jack’s Birth Story – Tuesday, July 28th 2009
On Tuesday morning, I woke up around 8am to a ton of bloody show, and lost my mucus plug. I was actually unsure if it was just mucus or my water had broken, there was so much of it. I tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen, so I hopped in the shower and then put on some fresh underwear to evaluate for a while. John and I decided that he should probably stay home from work, at least until we figured out if this was heading into labor or not.
I called Nichole to tell her that something was happening, but I wasn’t sure what. We talked about the differences between really thin show and amniotic fluid, and she said she was going to be home packing all day and to keep in touch with any changes. After a while I checked and saw that it really was just mucus – though it was thin, I could stretch it – and I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to rush in to the hospital.
When Emily woke up and nursed, I had a few contractions, but they stopped as soon as she stopped. At 10am I took a nap, since nothing was really happening and I was tired.
I slept until noon and woke up in a totally foul mood. Every question anyone asked me got a totally frustrated, snippy reply. I was bitching to Nichole on IM that I wanted coffee and John dared to ask me what kind of coffee?! Seriously! I just wanted coffee! I was very cranky.
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:25 PM): why is “I want coffee” something that elicits 20 questions??
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:27 PM): I want coffee
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:30 PM): what kind of coffee?
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:32 PM): I want coffee
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:35 PM): from the machine?
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:38 PM): I want coffee
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:42 PM): my special coffee?
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:45 PM): I WANT COFFEE
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:53 PM): just get me some fucking coffee dude!
stinestrain (7/28/2009 12:56:57 PM): ow.
I drank my coffee, took another bath, and ate lunch. Emily nursed again before her nap, and again I had some contractions but they stopped when she stopped.
Elaine (7/28/2009 1:32:26 PM): stalk.
stinestrain (7/28/2009 1:33:01 PM): nothing too exciting
stinestrain (7/28/2009 1:33:07 PM): piddly ctx every 5 minutes or so
stinestrain (7/28/2009 1:33:10 PM): but short, stupid ones
stinestrain (7/28/2009 1:33:59 PM): still lots of bloody mucus
Elaine (7/28/2009 1:34:03 PM): ooo fun
John and I discussed whether or not we should call his parents – they live in FL and it’s a 6 hour drive – and I decided we should, because even though I wasn’t contracting regularly I was still having a lot of bloody show and I felt like it was going to be soon so they might as well head up just in case. He called them around 1pm and they said they would get on the road as soon as they could.
I still wasn’t having any contractions without Emily’s help. I wondered if he was posterior or in another position that was keeping things from getting a move on, so I had John bring the birth ball up from the basement and re-inflate it, and I watched an episode of Unwrapped on my knees leaning over the ball. The episode was “Comfort Food” and featured a company that makes 12 different kinds of macaroni and cheese. It looked so good, I really, really wanted some mac & cheese!
A little after 3pm, I was still only having very sporadic contractions and getting frustrated. I called Nichole to whine that perhaps I had called everyone up too soon and it wasn’t going to happen today. She said it was fine, stuff would happen when it was meant to happen, and that I shouldn’t worry and should just try and rest.
I took another bath and then lay down in the bed to try and nap again. As soon as I did, the contractions started coming 8-9 minutes apart, and lasting over a minute long. At 4:45 I figured out how to use the IM program on the iPod touch, updated nichole and also told John I wanted him to run out to the store to get some last minute foods for the girls, and to stop at Boston Market and get me macaroni & cheese. He seemed to take forever to leave, and when I heard the doors shut, I got up to go downstairs, and found my BIL George there. He had just stopped by to see if we needed him yet (to watch the girls) but I wanted to be alone, so I sent him away. He said he was going to run at the Y and he’d keep his cell phone on.
After he left, the contractions picked up quickly. I was on IM with Elaine and Nichole, and the contractions were 4-5 minutes apart. It had gotten dark out. I suddenly realized that I was alone, in labor, with a storm on the way and it was rush hour. We live 30 minutes from the hospital with no traffic! Nichole said that her husband had just gotten home, so I asked her to get ready and come to the house. Elaine suggested that I call Dr. Tate to give him a heads-up, but I thought it was still too soon.
stinestrain (7/28/2009 5:42:46 PM): haven’t called tate yet
Elaine (7/28/2009 5:42:54 PM): give him the heads up
Elaine (7/28/2009 5:42:56 PM): at least
stinestrain (7/28/2009 5:43:56 PM): if I have one more that is close together I will call him
A few minutes later I was on hold with his service.
stinestrain (7/28/2009 5:59:20 PM): his service has the worst hold music ever
stinestrain (7/28/2009 5:59:27 PM): and it sounds like I am calling Tibet
Elaine (7/28/2009 6:01:10 PM): Dude you totally need to get people’s butts in gear
Elaine (7/28/2009 6:01:13 PM): you are a 3rd time mom
stinestrain (7/28/2009 6:01:22 PM): well I am on hold with his freaking service
stinestrain (7/28/2009 6:01:25 PM): I almost typed cervix
stinestrain (7/28/2009 6:01:26 PM): lol
Elaine (7/28/2009 6:01:28 PM): lol
stinestrain (7/28/2009 6:01:29 PM): on hold with his cervix
I seemed to be on hold forever, but I finally got through to him just after 6pm. “How long have you been in labor, Christine? I thought you wanted time to get your antibiotics!” – I swear, I didn’t think I was in labor until just now! At that point I still thought it was early enough that I’d have time for the 4 hours between antibiotics that I’d need for the Group B Strep.
I told him that there was no one at my house to drive me to the hospital, but people were on the way so I would head out as soon as they got there. He said he would meet me there. I called John to see where he was and tell him to call his brother to come back, that we needed to leave right when he got home. He was almost to Boston Market and asked if I wanted him to just come home. I said NO! I wanted my macaroni and don’t come home without it!
I hopped in the shower. Shortly after I got out, John and his brother both got back. I was suddenly pretty frantic to leave for the hospital, and I snapped at John to get everything in the van, we needed to go NOW! I told him I would eat on the way, but since it took a few minutes for him to get everything loaded, I scarfed down my macaroni and cheese. It was wonderful. I thought I couldn’t be too far along in labor to still be so hungry. I called Nichole and told her to just meet us at the hospital. She asked if she could call Cat now, and I said yes.
I picked up Emily to kiss her goodbye, and started to cry… she wasn’t going to be my baby anymore! I tried to get a kiss from Catie, but she kept running away from me and I couldn’t really chase her. I told her that I was going away to have her baby brother and I would see her very soon. I got in the van and off we went. John had brought half of his barbecue chicken sandwich, and I stole it from him and ate most of it. I don’t even really like barbecue stuff, but it tasted like the perfect food right then.
We left just after 6:30, so we didn’t hit much traffic. I was timing contractions still and they were 3-4 minutes apart. We were happily chatting in between, then I would stop talking and give a deep low moan during the contraction, and go back to talking. John wondered aloud why it was so much worse this time, and I asked what he meant. “Last time you were just breathing through the early stuff. You weren’t moaning like that until after he broke your water.” I hadn’t really thought about it but he was right. I wondered how far along I really was and if it was going to hurt a lot more this time. As he pulled off the Interstate I started to get anxious. I said “they’re going to poke me in there!” and then laughed at how silly it was that I was about to have a baby and nervous about the IV needle.
We parked and walked into the hospital shortly after 7pm. My phone rang as we were getting into the parking garage elevator, it was Nichole. She had beaten us there and was waiting upstairs. As I made my way through the lobby, people were staring and getting out of the way. For some reason this really annoyed me, and I commented that it was much nicer last time when it was the middle of the night and no one was staring at me.
I went to the desk to check in, and after I convinced the person at the desk that I was really in labor, they took us straight to a triage room. I was surprised, as I’d had to wait for a while last time in the lobby, but grateful because the lobby was full of people at that time of day and I didn’t really want to labor out there. As she was leading us to the room, I had a contraction, and started to moan, but she didn’t stop so I just kept walking along, moaning, until we got to the room.
Another surprise – the triage room was an actual L&D room! Last time it was a tiny room, barely bigger than a broom closet, but this was a regular room with all the furniture and everything. John set down all of the stuff and Nichole found some ice water to make my Crystal Light with. I went to the bathroom, and complained that the toilet paper was single-ply and rough. I said “next time remind me to bring my own toilet paper, too.”
There was a dilation chart on the wall, and asked them both: which circle do you think I am? John pointed to 5cm, and Nichole said between 5cm and 6cm. The triage nurse came in and I asked if she had heard from Dr. Tate and she said “oh yeah, he’s already here!”
Soon after, Dr. Tate came in the room, eating dinner from a gladware container. He said hi to Nichole and the nurse and then said to Nichole “Tell her your little secret”. Nichole just looked at him confused “my secret?” and the nurse looked at her and said “oh, did you have a homebirth too?” I knew then that I’d at least gotten a cool triage nurse! She hooked me up to the monitors and started asking questions, and Dr. Tate gloved up and got ready to check me.
He waited for a contraction, checked me and said “so, no antibiotics after all then.” I watched him and waited for the status… “9cm, 90%, -1, with a bulging bag.”
Whoa…
He said there was no way that I’d have time for the antibiotics so there wasn’t any point to doing them at all, and I was fine with that. I think I was actually relieved, after worrying so much about if I was going to have the time to have both doses, that the decision was just taken out of my hands – too late! I’d just have to see what happened afterward as far as the observation/testing. I didn’t have time to worry about it right then.
I reminded him that I did not want my water broken, and I wanted to labor on my own until I felt ready to push. He had another patient who needed a surgical procedure done, so he said he was going to go do that while I got moved to the regular L&D room and he would be back.
My assigned L&D nurse, Jeanerre, came in. When the triage nurse saw who it was she said “oh she is AWESOME!” – phew! I had been very worried about getting good nurses, and it seemed like I had lucked out.
The new nurse finished up my check-in questions while the triage nurse prepared to insert my INT line. Yuck. I saw that tray of instruments and started to panic. She started jabbing me, and it really hurt – more than the contractions I was having. Ow, ow, ow!
I closed my eyes and pictured the beach in Jamaica where we’d gone on our honeymoon. Someone tried to talk to me and I interrupted them –
“Shhhhhhh! I’m on the beach… in Jamaica…. Smoking weed”
The room erupted in laughter. Soon she finished up with the INT and taped it in place. It still pinched me and throbbed a little. Ugh.
I called Elaine’s house, and Matt answered and said that she’d gone to the gym. How dare she go to the gym while I was in labor?! I sent her a text with my status.
At 8:20 the nurse came in and said we could all move to my L&D room. When I got into the hallway, I saw two male med students and said “my student friends are here!”, I then turned to go down the hall and saw the two female students walking towards me – “ALL of my student friends are here!!”. Ralene (one of the female students) asked “you’re 9cm? did he give you the paracervical block?” I said “nope!”. She couldn’t believe how cheery I was.
We walked down the hall and I asked which room we were headed to – room 8. I looked at the numbers on the doors and realized that room 8 was the corner room, the same room that I’d birthed Emily in, which I thought was very cool.
We all piled into the room. John got the mini-laptop set up and online, and a few minutes later I was once again chatting with Elaine.
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:32:17 PM): I am literally laughing out loud over here.
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:32:22 PM): you are freaking IMing me at 10 cm
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:32:45 PM): cat better take a pic of you IMing
My in-laws showed up, and everyone introduced themselves and they were all chatting. During a contraction, the talking got to be too much for me. “Sorry y’all but if you want social hour you’ll have to go outside” – FIL left, and everyone else got really quiet, and that was almost as unnerving as the chatter.
stinestrain (7/28/2009 8:46:10 PM): doc t is here
stinestrain (7/28/2009 8:46:19 PM): he says hi elaine
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:46:25 PM): well tell him to wait, we’re chatting
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:46:26 PM):
Elaine (7/28/2009 8:46:30 PM): Hi doc T!
Dr. Tate came in to check on me at 8:45. I was still just hanging out, working through contractions with some long moans and chatting, IMing and generally having a good time in between. The monitor belts were bothering me and I complained. He came over and hugged me, and whispered something in my ear.
He left and I proclaimed “I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM! I think I will take these belts off for a minute!”. I disconnected the belts and felt so much better. I said something like “I’m not going anywhere, I don’t need a seatbelt” LOL
I got into the bathroom and peed, and I realized that I had to poop. I had read in so many birth stories, though, that when mom felt like she needed to poop, it was really the urge to push. I knew that this was NOT what I was feeling, so I didn’t want to draw attention to it. I called out to John and just asked him to close the door. I did poop and I did not have the baby in the toilet 
I once again lamented the low-quality toilet paper, and ended up grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser and wetting it into a wipe. Much better.
I came out and sat on the couch. My contractions were starting to be a lot longer and more intense. When one started I would do my usual moan of “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” but then it still wouldn’t be over. I started filling the end of the contractions by talking to the baby, reassuring him (and myself) that it was all ok. “Relax relax relaxxx, it’s ok, shhhhh, mommy’s here, it’s ok”… “good baby, gooooooood baby. Open open open…. Shhhhhhhh, it’s ok”
In-between contractions though, I was still having fun, chatting and hanging out.
The nurse came in to put me back on the monitor. The baby was down so low that she could barely even get the heart tones while keeping the belt on. I was wincing as she fiddled with it, and she said “we should invent a better way to do this” and I agreed. She got the heart rate and fixed that belt, and said we didn’t really need the contraction monitor anyway.
I could feel how low he was in my pelvis. During contractions I began to feel that “split in two” feeling, and I knew that it would not be much longer. At 9:20, Dr. Tate and the students came back in.
He leaned against the wall, looked at me and said “So – you wanna have a baby now?” and I took a deep breath and said “Sure. Why not?”
I got in the bed and he checked me – “OWWWWW! What are you DOING?!” I yelled at him. “I’m just holding back a lip. Your bag of waters is bulging out”. “Break it, just break it” I was begging. I thought it would feel better. One of the med students got the crochet hook out, but he didn’t take it. “Just give a little push, push through this lip…” I pushed and hollered and my water broke with a gush.
The nurse went over to the computer as he called out “spontaneous rupture of membranes and complete, 9:31pm”. As I felt a contraction start I held my breath and started to push. I was determined to get the pushing over with faster than last time, and I wasn’t going to need anyone to tell me what to do. Dr. Tate had his fingers inside me “push my fingers out!” and I did. After a few pushes, he seemed pretty convinced that I wasn’t going to need much direction this time, either, and he moved to the side. I just kept taking deep breaths and PUSHING with everything I had. I was leaning my head back and he was telling me to tuck my chin, but it was Nichole’s voice that I focused on: “Curl around your baby Christine. You’re doing great. Curl around your baby”
Nichole was wiping my forehead with a cool cloth and holding up my drink. Ralene was trying to coach me (“good pushing noises! 1,2,3,4,” etc) but I blocked it out and pushed and pushed. Dr. Tate was narrating the baby’s rotation to the students. I tried to watch in the mirror, but I was closing my eyes while pushing.
I was holding my own legs up, with my hands on my knees, and dr. tate suggested that I wrap my arms around my legs instead. I thought, whatever will get this baby OUT cuz this HURTS! and I did it. Suddenly his head was RIGHT THERE, and they were telling me to slow down, slow down but there was just no way I could slow down with that head right there!! I roared at the top of my lungs and pushed with everything I had, and his head came out and then the rest of him shot out in the next push, and at 9:44pm he was born!
They started to wipe him down at the foot of the bed but Nichole reminded us “do you want your baby?” and I was like “YES!”
So they put him up on my chest, still somewhat gooey and wonderful. He latched on immediately, and continued to nurse for a long time. They wiped him down and did their initial assessment, and a few minutes later Dr. Tate asked if it was ok to clamp the cord. I said yes, and he clamped it and then John cut it.
Dr. Tate started to show the med student how to do gentle traction on the cord and I objected. “The placenta will come out when it’s ready, it is fine, DO NOT PULL ON IT”. He stopped, although he did tell a story about one time when the mom was bleeding behind the placenta, yadda yadda. I said I didn’t care, I wanted him to wait until the placenta was ready. He checked me for tearing, declared a 2nd degree tear, and tried to see if he could repair it with the placenta still in there, but he couldn’t, so we waited. It wasn’t long until he was like “ok the placenta is right there, just push it out will you?” I gave a little push and it did come right out, followed by a waterfall of amniotic fluid! Whoa! No wonder he’d been moving around until the very end, he apparently had a lot of fluid in there to swim around in.
I called Elaine to let her know the baby was here.
As I was on the phone with her, Dr. Tate and the med student started to repair my tear. I asked that the mirror be removed, as I really didn’t want to see this part! Poor Elaine got to hear me yelling at him – “ow! That hurts! Ow ow!” and then a very loud “OW!!! Did you just STAB ME? That was my leg you–” as he’d accidentally nicked my leg with the needle. He gave me a sheepish glance and said “sorry” and I said “I’m sorry too… I almost just called you a very bad name”
After the repairs were done, I asked if he could show me my placenta before we put it in the cooler (I donated it for search & rescue dog training). He quickly waved the tray in front of my face, and I was like “no! Show it to me!” so he brought it back and gave us all a little tour of it. He showed us the side that was attached to me, which was pretty bloody and gross, and then stretched open the amniotic sac and showed us where the umbilical cord was and how big the sac was – which was REALLY cool. I hadn’t expected the “membranes” to look so much like, well, membranes. It looked very similar to what you would find while cutting raw chicken or something.
Nichole told me that I should eat something, and that reminded me that I had cookies for Dr. Tate. Michelle had made them for him, and he opened them right up and started eating. He shared some with the students, too. I could tell that they were getting ready to leave, and when I saw him head for the door I was like “wait! Get over here!” – it turned out he was actually just going to enter something in the chart – but then he came over and hugged me and I started tearing up and babbling like a drunk person - “I love you.” (hug) “I mean it!! [cry cry cry] I really love you!”
Jack had been nursing nonstop since birth and hadn’t left my arms yet. The nurse came to the bed to do the vitamin K shot, took his footprints and put the bracelets on us, and then I finally gave him up to be weighed:
After that, John and his parents all held him, and I started to fill people in online. During my labor with Emily I’d been very public, posting my status updates on a few boards (pre-facebook days!) but this time I’d felt very protective and private of it all, so only a few people even knew I was in labor.
Then John’s parents left to go to our house and stay with the girls, so George could go home. Cat and Nichole and I chatted for a while and then they headed out too. John got our stuff ready to move to the postpartum room, and I cuddled my new son.
I had such a great time giving birth to you, Jack! And big thanks to my birth team for helping to make it such a wonderful experience – I’m so glad that you all were there. 
