An Angel Is Born

I was so ready to be done being pregnant by the time the new year rolled around. This pregnancy felt so much harder than the previous ones, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because it was the fourth time? Maybe because I was older (though still not old)? Maybe because I was so stressed out my body just couldn't handle it gracefully? My sickness was less - I only threw up 17 times, yes I actually counted - so that was an improvement. But I did have varicose veins, which I'd never experienced before, and wow those are painful.

Still, I was not at all looking forward to the experience of giving birth again. During this pregnancy, I finally accepted the reality that nothing I could do in the way of breathing, imagery, relaxation techniques, etc. would ever reduce the agony of childbirth, because apparently my body just doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, because of my last two harrowing and drug-free labors, I was terrified to go through it again and had many episodes of fears and tears during my pregnancy because I was sure I was going to die during the birth. I honestly did not see how I could live through it again! I was planning on having an epidural this time, but being my paranoid self, I was worried about going that route too. Obviously there was nothing I could do about it, and the due date arrived just the same.

Although I didn't want to go through the labor, I definitely did want to have my sweet baby out of me. Poppy was due January 20, and as usual I was hoping she would decide to come earlier, but more than that I was hoping that just for once I could go into labor on my own. I've been induced in one way or another the past three times, after trying many recommended methods of inducing labor naturally -- walking a ton, walking uphill, spicy food, etc. -- and even though those have never ever worked, still I had to try something! So late in my pregnancy I started bouncing gently on our indoor trampoline regularly, and around week 38-39 I started drinking three cups of raspberry leaf tea every day. And lo and behold, I actually dilated to a two before I went into labor! That in itself was a miracle. It was even more miraculous when, around 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday Jan 23, I started having a combination of contractions/pain in my abdomen. Of course at that time I was at the furthest point out on my walk around Mission Bay with Eli, and the pain started while he was playing at the playground. I continued having pain on my walk back and while we were going to school to pick up the kids. The whole drive home (about thirty minutes) I had pain regularly 4-5 minutes apart, they were excruciating even at this stage.

I called Seth to notify him that this maybe could be something, so to get ready to come home if I still had them after taking a hot shower, and sure enough, they kept coming. So he came home, and I remember I fixed pasta with broccoli and parmesan for the kids for dinner, all the while doubling over in agony every few minutes. When Seth finally got home and they were 2 minutes apart, I thought I was going to die but was trying to keep it together for the kids, while waiting for Carmen to come stay with them (bless her!) Around 6 p.m. I said goodnight to the kids and went out to wait in agony next to the car so we could leave the second she pulled up. They were so close together and so incredibly painful, it was an awful ride to the hospital. but we finally made it there and it took fifteen minutes just to get from the parking lot to L&D because I had to pause every time I had a contraction (every minute!). I was beyond ready for my epidural. The midwife checking me in suggested that it might be over fast enough to not need the epidural, and I remember saying I didn't care if it was only ten more minutes, I WANTED that epidural! After all that time and squeezing I was only dilated to a 4 so I knew I had a long way to go. It felt like an eternity before the anesthesiologist got there, but boy, was it a relief to have that epidural. It's amazing to me how my mental clarity increased once the pain was under control. I hadn't realized how foggy I had been during the thirty minutes at the hospital before the epidural, but once it kicked in, I realized I didn't even recognize the various people who had been in there -- I couldn't even identify the anesthesiologist. Crazy how intense labor is to be able to create such a mental block.

Anyway, the epidural kicked in, the intensity of the labor increased, the broccoli dinner came up (that's why I remember what I fixed), and finally the moment we'd all been waiting for arrived and our little Ivy Elisabeth slipped into the world, at 9:49 p.m.. And she was an absolute darling. I'd known she was tiny all along because even at full-term, I hadn't felt "stuffed" as is usually the case during the last weeks of pregnancy -- no baby kicking up in my ribs, no fullness and pressure in my pelvis -- but I wasn't prepared for just how tiny she was. She was 19 1/4" and weighed in at slightly under 6 lbs 3 ounces and was just as tiny and sweet as could be. No matter how agonizing the pains of childbirth are, there truly is nothing as incredibly amazing and sweet as the moment of birth, when that tiny, slippery creature emerges and is placed in your arms and makes her first tiny cries. That is an experience I could repeat a million times without ever tiring of it. It is truly a miracle. Especially with babies as beautiful as ours.