Fairness has already reared its ugly head at me and taunted me with not being a good mother because for my FIRST child, I handmade birth announcements, had someone come take really nice photos of our family for those announcements, and I eagerly blogged and posted about each little thing that my little baby did immediately after it happened.
Not so with baby #2.
For my darling Kierstin, I will ignore the piles of laundry around me, the clutter on the table, the unmade beds, and the boxes and bags of Christmas and baby gifts strewn all over the floor, and I will WRITE.
So here I will attempt to even out the seen efforts of my love for my new daughter by chronicling the events that led to her arrival into the breathable world.
The story begins, not the weekend she was born (that would be far too dull), the weekend of December 21st with my body telling me that it was getting ready to have a baby. Contractions were coming fairly steadily throughout the day, and when Garry and I would go for a brisk walk, they would increase in frequency and strength. It was hard to breathe and keep walking through some of them.
By Sunday morning, I was convinced that this baby was coming. I walked up and down the stairs a few times and the contractions were getting stronger. Then I walked outside for awhile. They got even stronger. Then I walked on the treadmill inside (it had started raining). I waited and waited until it was very uncomfortable when a contraction happened, so that I had to focus on breathing through it and not move. Then I called my midwife and Garry and I went to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital and I was still feeling the contractions. I was checked in to see what was happening with the baby and my body. I was definitely having regular, fairly strong contractions every other minute. But I was barely 2 cm dilated. Boo.
So we walked around some more. And some more. And some more.
And stayed only about 2 cm.
And my body stalled out and the contractions stopped completely.
By this point I was exhausted from not sleeping well and walking over 6 miles. So when the midwife sent me home, I was a bit relieved that I wouldn't be going through hard labor that day.
But I was also emotionally drained and incredibly disappointed that I wouldn't be meeting my little girl that day.
We drowned our sorrows in In-N-Out burgers and fries (Oh yes. We are in California now. WHAT?? I know. I will try and get back to that in another blog post...someday) and continued to wait for our girl to arrive.
A week went by, along with the festivities of Christmas. I did enjoy being able to enjoy Christmas without juggling a newborn and present time and being able to help with cooking Christmas dinner.
I had another appointment on Friday, the 28th. My body hadn't been doing anything to prep for a baby. Barely any contractions happened on a daily basis. I was beginning to feel like I was going to be pregnant forever.
I mentioned to my midwife that we were concerned about our insurance changing on January 1st, and that we would have to pay a LOT more out of pocket for being in the hospital after the 1st. Since it was close to my due date, and I was ready physically to have the baby, and she wanted to make sure I was given the antibiotics for Group B Strep in time for the baby to come, she said we could induce the next morning.
Okay!
So we arrived at the hospital, again, and got checked in to our delivery room a little after 8 AM. I was given an inducing pill around 10:30. I had to stay in bed til 12:30, which wasn't so bad because I had Garry go get me pudding and jello and a sandwich from the little fridge stocked with food for the women who are about to go through childbirth. Once the time struck 12:30, I started to walk around to see if labor would start.
Not much happened in the way of contractions, but apparently the pill worked enough for my midwife to recommend breaking the bag of waters around 1:30.
I kept waiting for my head to get to that fuzzy place where it accepts the pain and sort of blocks it out while the rest of my body deals with it. It took awhile to come. But by 3ish I was in LABOR. And BACK LABOR. AGAIN.
I wanted an epidural. Back labor sucks. I hate the idea of a needle being put into my spinal column, so I avoid these if possible. Anika came without one. But I sure asked for one near the end of that labor too. So I asked for one now.
I found out later that by the time I asked for the epidural, it was obvious to everyone in the room that I was so far into labor that there was no way an epidural would do anything in time. But my midwife and Garry let me believe it was possible to have all that pain taken away by that stupid needle.
Thankfully, the midwife and Garry were flipping me over and propping me up in different positions to attempt to get the little girl's head to turn the correct way to give me some relief. She ended up flipping over all on her own, which was awesome.
About an hour after I had asked for the epidural, I was finished. I only had to push for about 5 minutes. No post-op stitches required. And our little girl was perfect.
All done. Whew.
Kierstin Noelle Riezebos was now able to be cuddled and hugged and kissed and loved outside of my body. What a wonderful blessing.
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| Yummy Jello. Well...some flavors were better than others. |
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| Totally worth it |
