Norman's News: August 2010

Hi. My name is Slormpy.

My due date with Jude was August 20th. My mom always went overdue with her babies, so I was most definitely not expecting to go early. I thought I'd be lucky to go into labor close to my due date and not go overdue like my mom.

At about 2am on Wednesday, August 4th, I woke up with the feeling that I was peeing in bed. I rushed to the toilet, leaking what I thought was pee the whole way. It was an abrupt way to wake up, and I just sat on the toilet trying to process how my bladder could have completely given up on me like that. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that maybe I hadn't peed myself, maybe my water had broken!

I woke Ray up and we called the midwife. She advised that I try to go back to bed and get some sleep. I went back to bed, but could not sleep. I kept thinking about all of the things I had still wanted to accomplish before baby arrived. I did rest and doze, though.

Ray and I got up at our normal time and decided that Ray should work half of the day on Wednesday since contractions still hadn't started. After Ray left for work, I called my mom to let her know that my water had broken. She didn't believe me at first, but once I convinced her she said she would come over so I could send her on some errands I had had planned for the day.

I knew I should try to lay down and get some sleep, but felt like I had a million things to do yet. I sent my mom out for groceries and managed to lay down for a bit before Ray came home for lunch. By mid-afternoon, contractions had started, mostly in my back. I would continue to have back labor for the duration of the time I was in labor.

Ray made an ice pack belt for my back that I used early in labor.

Ray timed contractions and rubbed my back. By about 8 or 9pm, contractions had become consistent and 5 minutes apart. It was time for the midwives.

Jill was on-call, so she was the first to come. I also had my mom come at that time. After this, things kind of run together for me. I was in a lot of pain, mostly my back. Ray and my mom did A LOT of rubbing. I actually had bruises the next day.

At some point, Jill checked me and I was 5 cm dilated. I remember feeling a bit discouraged since the back pain was so overwhelming already. In the early hours of the morning, Jill checked again and I was 7-8 cm dilated. Also somewhere in that time, the other midwife, Marijke, and a midwife-in-training showed up.

I think it was at about 8am on Thursday that Jill checked me again and said that I could start pushing whenever I felt like it. I wasn't feeling the urge to push (which I guess is pretty common in first time moms), but started pushing with contractions anyway. It felt good to feel like I was finally doing something.

I had the textbook "30 minutes to 3 hours" timeframe in my head for pushing. I was hoping it would take me closer to the "30 minutes" end of that, but I ended up pushing for 4 hours! The midwives were amazing, telling me that I was making progress with each push and giving me ideas of positions to try pushing in.

Things started getting frustrating for everyone by late morning on Thursday. I had been pushing for what seemed like forever, I was in a lot of pain, and everyone was exhausted. My mom started talking about going to the hospital and the midwives offered to transfer me. I said I wanted to stay at home and keep going. By this time, I could feel the pressure of the baby's head and the thought of trying to walk to a car and into a hospital sounded worse than continuing to push!

At the very end, I was pushing by squatting down against Ray while he sat behind me on the couch. We finally got to the point where the midwives told me that my baby would come out at the next contraction. My last few contractions had been spreading out in time, and that last one took 8 minutes to show up. My uterus was giving up on me. Finally the last contraction came, and baby Jude finally made his appearance! It was 12:01pm on Thursday, August 5th.

The final pushes.

Jude was a little slow to start crying, so the midwives rubbed him and watched his vitals and even gave him a little oxygen until he finally let out a good wail. It seemed like forever at the time, but my mom got it on video and it was actually only about a minute.

The pain relief was immediate as soon as Jude came out. I do remember that!

We thought the hard part was finally behind us. It soon became apparent, though, that my uterus was indeed finished with contractions and had no intention of pushing my placenta out. The midwives had one hour to get it out before they were required to get me to a hospital. They gave me a dose of pitocin. Nothing. They gave me some other medication and some herbs. Still nothing. A second dose of pitocin. I finally got a contraction and was able to get the placenta out. It was right at the one hour mark.

I still wasn't out of the woods, though. My uterus hemorrhaged. It would not stop bleeding. The midwives started giving me fluids and talking about hospitals again. The decision was soon reached that the bleeding was not going to stop on its own. An ambulance ride was in order.

Jude and I right before the ambulance came.

Ray, baby Jude, and I all got our first ambulance ride on the same day. I wondered what the neighbors must be thinking. When we got to the hospital, I was quickly routed through the emergency room and into surgery. My uterus was scraped and I was recovering in a hospital room by 6pm. Ray and Jude stayed the night with me as visitors. I thought it was pretty funny for a 6-hour-old baby to be a visitor in a hospital :)

I was released the next morning and home by 10am. We were happy to be out of the hospital and back home so quickly. It was time to begin life as a family of three!