Welcome Miss Lily!

2005-01-17 - 5:33 p.m.

It's been a while. I have been busy being a new mommy! I couldn't be happier! Anyway, I began writing this birth story right after we got home and finally got around to finishing it today!

*****

Well, I went on maternity leave this week. I celebrated the official start on Monday by cleaning, thinking if we had Lily soon, it would be nice to come home to a clean home. I had more cleaning planned for Tuesday.

Oh, that did not happen.

I went to sleep around 11pm Monday night. Around 130AM Tuesday morning, I woke up and felt funny. Not ha ha funny either. Then, I felt something, well, come out. Thinking it was discharge or something (which is normal while pregnant), I waddled to the bathroom to pee and such. More came out.

It was not a gush. It was more of the trickle they tell you about. So, I was not sure if my water had broken or not. I had not lost my plug yet and my contractions hadn't been very close at all! Then, it turned pink. I lost my plug.

Hmm, thought I. So, I called my doctor who told us to head over to the hospital. Eeeep. I got ready, pet the cats and woke Pete up. He was so cute. I turned the light on and woke him. His response, "huh? Did I oversleep??"

"No, honey," said I, "My water broke; we need to go to the hospital."

He was so funny getting up, stumbling all over, looking to all the world like a drunkard heh. We made our way to the hospital and let me tell you, the roads are EMPTY at 2am.

Well, we got upstairs and they sort of checked me (well the oozing anyway) and sent me to a birthing suite right away. The room was large and nice, as everything took place there. One labours there and births there then recovers there. The idea was odd to me at first but it was a nice place.

I got checked. My cervix was closed and posterior. Not so good.

I got hooked up to the monitors to watch my contractions and Lily's heartrate. I got my first ever IV, which was not as scary as I thought it might be. I was put on a pit drip to induce. Pit drips are baaaaaad things that cause baaaaaaaad (painful) contractions but contractions are necessary to get babies out.

I dealt with the contractions for many many hours just fine. At one point they took me off the pit drip but my contractions slowed and I had to go back on it. We walked around, I sat in a rocking chair, I tried the birthing ball and the shower. Actually, the ball hurt my back and hips and the shower made my tailbone hurt and those two are two things moms usually love to use!

Time seemed to fly as I suffered from contractions and did much deep breathing and throwing up. Yah I kept little inside me. They would not let me eat anything, only clear liquids which includes red and orange jello and nastily sweet banana popscicles. Ya see, I am hypoglycemic so this no food for 24 hours thing was not a pleasant idea to us. I eventually got an IV with sugars in it to help me out.

Anyway, time goes by and they check me (which, by the way, hurts very very very badly) and I had gone a whole centimetre. One bloody centimetre.

It got to be after 8pm and we were trying out the shower when a nurse suggested an epidural. They put me on antibiotics while I mentally worked through the epidural idea. (It had been over 18 hours since my membranes had ruptured so I had to be on antibiotics.) Eventually, I let them do the epidural to me. I have a real problem with needles. And needles going into my back. And catheters. And catheters into my back. *shudder*

The nice nurse told me they would have me sitting, leaning over a table with a pillow and Pete would hold my hands. This sounded good to me, bc if he was holding my hands, I figured, I may not shake so much. Well, we get out there and the epidural guy arrives. He promptly shoos Pete out of the room without me even realsing what was happening! He then tells us I am to be lying on my side.

Meanwhile, I am shaking up a storm and feeling seriously like I am going to throw up. So, I said, no I can't lie down at the moment, I am going to throw up. The nurses are telling me to just throw up (like I had a choice) and he was getting crabby, not realising that I seriously have been throwing up tons all day. Anyway, a contraction came and I couldnt move if I tried and he was getting more crabby. He was the only person I dealt with that I wanted to kick in the head.

Finally, they help me to lie down and I survived getting the epidural. We waited for it to kick in and I felt my feet start to tingle. Ooooh. Luckily, my lower half went numb (esp bc I got a catheter ew). My feet never fell asleep tho, so I kept wiggling them and giggling.

Anyway, I was told to sleep and I did. Mmm. Sleep. At one point they added an oxygen mask to me and I went back to sleep. By 1130pm I believe I was about 5 cm dilated! I believe this may have been when I asked Pete to take my picture with all the IVs and various doo-dads attached to me, so we can show Lily just what mommy went through for her.

It was a good thing we took that photo then. The nurses came in at 130am to roll me onto my other side and let me go back to sleep. They informed me that my dr went on duty at 6am and she would prolly be the one to deliver my baby. Then, as an afterthought, they decided to check my progress.

I was fully dilated and ready to go.

Oh my, thought I. Lights went on, the dr was called, things were wheeled in for the delivery, Pete moved all of our things out of the "Splash Zone" and I waited anxiously.

Turns out the pressures I had been feeling inside me that had woken me up twice were not really strong contractions. (I could not feel contractions at all with the epidural) Oh no, that was the baby saying, Mommy time to push!!

We all got situated and Pete fed me ice chips. The nurses told me how to push and I got to hold my legs. So, no, Pete did not get clawed. He helped hold me up when I was pushing, too. I pushed and pushed, not really knowing if I was doing it right. But I suppose I was, because after less than an hour I had a baby pop out!

They put Lily on my tummy and she looked absolutely beautiful! I had been bracing myself for a nasty, slimy alien creature, because, let's face it, newborns come out NASTY looking. But Lily came out looking like a baby. She wasn't even that gooey!

Pete got to cut her free and I let them take her across the room to clean her up and do all that baby stuff. Meanwhile, I had to pass the placenta. Man is the placenta gross looking. Then I had to be stiched up, as I had torn while in labour. I asked not to have an episiotimy if at all possible and I did not receive one.

Heh. While the dr was stitching me up, she told me about what they do with the placentas. I said, "hey as long as it doesn't get sent to the cafeteria!" She said, "well, they might... the shepard's pie..." (As an aside, this was funny because the next day I called the cafeteria menu recording and they were in fact having shepard's pie for lunch!)

So, everything went well and Lillian Mae Lenz was born healthy and fit. She got 9's on her Apgars and all was well.

Pete and Lily and I stayed in the hospital until Friday evening. The stay was nice. They nurses, all but one, were fantabulous. They were very helpful with the learning how to breastfeed and taking care of my pain. (Stitches are no fun down there) The food was even good.

I thank everyone who called or came to visit us in the hospital; it was so nice to have so much company! The folks at work even stopped up, some more than others hee hee. And thanks to Roz for letting BUST know what was going on. Pete was going to, but we never got access to the internet.

The three of us came home and have settled in. It is now over a week past and we are still around! Lillian is a very well-behaved baby. Her eye has been bothering her but we have an ointment that seems to be helping.

I am healing up as well. It took a long time and a few fibro flare-ups. But I have pills and the lochia is really low right now.

We've had many many visitors who want to kidnap Lily.

But, after all I have gone through, I think I get to keep her.

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