Caroline's birth story

It's been three weeks since I delivered Caroline and I have not yet written down her birth story!  Frankly, there's still very little time of the day when she's content to be out of someones arms and I'm still nursing quite a bit during the day, so any kind of blogging has taken a backseat.  I hope it won't be too much longer until I can blog more frequently again...but that may just be hoping and not reality.  We'll see.

Anyway, my parents have been here this week, along with my grandma for a few days, and we've been so blessed to have them here to play with the boys and love on Caroline and help get a few meals on the table and dishes washed and laundry done and folded.  Mostly, though, it's just been great to have them here to be moral support and extra sets of hands. 

While Levi is in bed, Lucas is coloring with Grandma, and Caroline is asleep, I'm going to steal this moment to blog about her birth.  (We're home from church this morning, thanks to icy roads and some snow overnight. I'm sad to miss church, but it is nice to be warm and snug at home with nothing pressing for the day.)  Besides, if I don't get this written down in the next few days, even more details will have left my not-so-great memory these days.  (DISCLAIMER:  If you are not interested in these details, please feel free not to read the rest of this post.  I will be writing down as much as I can remember, partly for myself and Caroline in the future.  It could get long...)

I was contracting on and off for several days before my labor really began.  Sunday, the 11th, I felt the first, real, stronger contractions, but they were very irregular and never lasted for very long.  Tuesday and Wednesday, I felt more contractions, but, again, they were inconsistent and irregular.  I was SO uncomfortable that I wanted her to come, but I also felt the need to hold out until Thursday because Lucas had his Thanksgiving program and feast at preschool, and I felt the need to be there with him, and I certainly didn't want him to miss what had been so excitedly promoted for weeks prior.  We made it to the Thanksgiving feast (Levi and I with Lucas - Daniel had a job that morning), but we left before a lot of other families, because I was so uncomfortable.  Several of the other moms asked me when I was due and how I was feeling.  I was tempted to say, "I think she may come this weekend,"  but I didn't want to say it out loud, partly thinking that if I said it, she would decide not to come, just to spite me.  I felt more, stronger contractions the rest of the day.  For a few hours here and there I'd time them and would get close to the point that I thought about going to the hospital, but then they'd space out a little bit more and I wasn't sure it was really time.  I did call the nurse in L&D at the hospital in the evening and she said, since we are so close to the hospital, I could wait to come in until the contractions were a minute long, five minutes apart for two hours consistently.

We went to bed that night and I slept until about 2:00AM.  At that point, the contractions were waking me up and consistent enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep.  Around 4:00, Levi woke up, inconsolable.  I wonder now if he knew something was about to happen.  Daniel and I both rocked and shushed Levi and eventually brought him back to our bed.  (I should say here, holding a squirming, just-shy-of-9-month-old baby against your contracting abdomen is one of the least comfortable things ever.  But I also new that Caroline would be coming soon and I felt so guilty that Levi would "lose" his place as baby, that I just couldn't bring myself to put him down.) Around 4:30, he fell asleep in our bed and, with the contractions getting stronger and stronger, I left the boys asleep in bed and went downstairs to try and get comfortable on the couch.  With no luck on that front, at 5:00AM I decided it was time to start timing contractions again.  I started writing down times and by 6:00, I woke up Daniel and told him that I was going to take a shower and that, if the contractions continued as they were going for the next hour, we'd have to head to the hospital around 7:00 or 7:30. 

After my shower, I called (or did I text?) my friend, Ellen, who had agreed to be our immediate child care, since she lives right down the street.  She said she'd be over as soon as she could.  I also called the woman from our church who agreed to be the more long-term babysitter for the boys, for the duration of Daniel helping me through labor and getting me settled in my recovery room.  She said she would be on her way soon, as well.

It was about 7:30 that we left for the hospital and arrived at about 7:45.  By that point, I was doing a low moan to get through the contractions.  We got up to the L&D ward and checked in.  I had pre-registered at one of my earlier appointments (I think around 36 weeks).  We were told to have a seat in the waiting room and one of the nurses would come get us. 

We went into the waiting room and sat down.  I was still walking by myself at this point, but it was slow and the contractions were coming stronger.  The TV was on in the waiting room with a program called "Dog, The Bounty Hunter."  It's a pretty ridiculous show and having to watch it while in labor just seemed so...wrong.  There were two other couples in the waiting room and I was more and more uncomfortable, moaning through the contractions, and eventually crying through them, too.  One couple was there waiting for a scheduled c-section and one was waiting for test results.  The couple waiting for test results seemed quite young, and the girl seemed to only be about 20 weeks along.  At one point, I heard the husband ask the wife if she was "ready for that" as I was going through another contraction, and she said, "NO!"  I think I terrified her.  I was getting more and more impatient, as the minutes went by.  Eventually, we'd been in the waiting room for an hour and I was not a happy camper.  I just wanted to crawl into a hole and be alone and do what I needed to do without feeling like other people were watching me.  I asked Daniel to go ask the nurses when I'd be seen.  It took about an hour and 15 minutes to finally get back into a triage room where I could be assessed. 

At 9:00AM, the nurse finally checked my progress and I was already dilated 7cm at that point.  They quickly admitted me and brought me to the very last empty delivery room they had.  Once I was admitted and my IV had been started, the midwife asked me about what I wanted to do for pain management.  I asked her what my options were.  She said they could start an epidural or they could break my water and see if things would move even more quickly at that point.  I was so uncomfortable at that point, and I just wanted Caroline to be OUT OF ME that I asked them to forget the drugs and to break my water so I could push her out.

At 9:30, the midwife broke my water.  I had a few more, ever more intense contractions and I felt the need to push.  The nurse checked me again and told me I had about one more cm to dilate before I should push.  I would say the two contractions I experienced in between feeling the need to push and starting to push were the worst part of the experience.  That was torturous.  But then I was ready to push and given the green light.  I had my eyes closed and was so focused during this part of the process, that I don't remember how many pushes it was, but it was probably less than 10 minutes total.  Caroline Rose was born at 10:08AM. 

They put her right up on my chest, skin-to-skin, even before the cord was cut.  I snuggled her for a few minutes while the midwife and the nurses took care of me and then I handed her to the nurse to get cleaned up a little bit, after Daniel cut the cord.  I had to get a few stitches, and the midwife took care of that once the nurse had Caroline. 

I don't know that I can describe how thankful and happy and proud I felt at the way it all went.  Caroline was perfect and beautiful and I had done it!  I was no longer pregnant (which I kept telling Daniel), but we'd had our precious girl.  She was in our arms and not in my womb.  And I did it without drugs!  I kept telling Daniel, "I TOTALLY did that!!  I just did it!!" 

Because it was so busy on the ward that day, we had to wait from 10:00 until 5:00PM to get out of the delivery room and into a recovery room.  Once we did that, I was much more comfortable, had cell service again, thanks to the window in my room, and Daniel felt comfortable to leave me with Caroline to go home and care for the boys. 

Everything with Caroline went very smoothly, and I was feeling quite good, even right away, and so we were told that if we wanted it, we could have a 24 discharge.  Daniel brought the boys to see me and meet Caroline in the morning, and by about 4:30 or 5:00PM on Saturday, we were on our way out the door.  We had to work out the logistics of our first 5-person time getting into the car, but I pushed Levi in the stroller and Daniel carried Caroline in the car seat and Lucas walked (or ran - poor boy had been so cooped up!) through the empty hospital to get to the car. 

Since then, God has been so gracious to us, allowing me to recover quickly and easily and Caroline to be a quite content little one, as long as she's close to one of us.  Being our third, too, I feel much less of a desire to hurry her through milestones and much more patient and willing to let her just be the baby - to nurse whenever and for however long she wants, to be in someones (usually my) arms most of the day, and to sleep right next to me.  Bringing Lucas home was HARD for me.  The transition into motherhood, particularly stay-at-home motherhood was brutal for me.  But this time?  Well, I'm actually enjoying it.  I feel happy and content and peaceful about bringing Caroline into our family and having her at home and I'm not going through any kind of personal identity crisis (or morning sickness, like I did when we brought Levi home earlier this year). 

Next week, Daniel will go back to work and my parents will be gone, and then real life will start.  I'm sure I'll have many moments of sheer exhaustion, total frustration, and completely being overwhelmed.  But this first three weeks has been lovely and I'm so thankful for the blessing of it.  God is good and we are blessed to have our three great kids.  We are also blessed to feel like our family is complete now.  *grin*