1. Kaya sleeps! I'm sure I'm jinxing myself, cursing myself etc. etc. so on and so forth, but I'm going to come out and say it anyway. My girl sleeps! She's been sleeping from 11pm to around 4am, getting up to nurse and going back down until between 9:15 and 10:15. I've had to go in to make sure she's still breathing. But, before you hate me too much, remember that I am also the mother of the non-stop puking will not sleep ever child. So, this is nature's way of making sure Kaya survives infancy. (On that note though, Hayden went to sleep like a big girl tonight for the first time in a month after Daddy had a long talk with her about how she can do it...I think it was her Father's Day gift to him.)
2. I thought Hayden would be jealous of me nursing Kaya, because I can't really do much with her while Kaya is eating. What I didn't count on is that Hayden was/is TERRIFIED of seeing Kaya nurse. The first time she saw it she came running over yelling, "No, Baby! No!" and "Uh Oh Mommy!" She was desperate to get Kaya to stop. In all the "You're a Big Sister" books we got for Hayden, none of them mentioned breast feeding. They all said things like "babies drink milk" with pictures of a baby with a bottle. Fine, but not that helpful to our situation. So, we've talked about how the baby isn't biting Mommy and how the baby isn't hurting Mommy (which some of you know is only slightly true, since nursing hurts like hell the first week or two). But, she seems to have come around. Unfortunately now she says things like "Baby Booby?". I tried for "breast" but it just didn't feel right. I should have known that "booby" is way too much fun to resist saying.
3. Hayden and Maria are both obsessed with watching me change Kaya's diaper. It's like a national pastime for those two. I don't know if it's just that she's so small or if it's the fact that someone other than them has a diaper, but whatever it is, they seem to love the fact that Kaya is almost always poopy. Me, not so much.
4. Hayden has renamed herself and her sister. She is now "Dee Dee" and Kaya is "Ki Ki". Most of the time Kaya is "baby" but when pressed, she'll call her "Ki Ki". We don't discourage this.
5. I feel like our family is complete. I loved, loved, loved being pregnant and I really thought I'd mourn the fact that this is probably our last child, but at least in the last week (which I realize isn't much time in the overall scheme of things) I really feel like we're a family. With Hayden it felt like us as a couple with a baby, but now I really feel like we're a family in a more solid, complete way. I don't know if that makes sense, but it feels good to feel that way. Who knows, maybe we'll have more, but I feel like I can put away my maternity clothes without a pang.
6. I think I had Post Partum Depression with Hayden. I don't know if it was to the point of being full scale PPD, but looking back now I can see that it was there. I remember being afraid to pick up Hayden, afraid to put her down, terrified about driving with her, feeling incapable of taking care of her basic needs, and feeling utterly dependent on Brian. Now, some of that is just first time parenting and some of it was because I was so incapacitated by the c-section, but I really think some of it went beyond all of that, or at the very least came out of that and then grew. In the past week, I feel like myself. Not some supermom but not an incompetent freak who doesn't deserve children. Just me.
I'm sure there's more but my baby is calling....
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Birth
Saturday June 13th was Kaya's due date, but as of Friday night I was still feeling nothing that felt like anything close to labor. I wasn't comfortable, but at 40 weeks pregnant, who is? At about 3:45am I felt the first real contraction, so I started timing them and trying to rest in between each one. They were about 10 minutes apart at that point so I just glanced at the clock to make sure things were on track and rested. Because we were going for a VBAC (Vaginal birth after c-section) they didn't want me to labor at home for too long so I figured when we got near the five minutes apart mark we'd have to think about leaving. But, in the meantime I wanted Brian to be able to rest as much as possible. By 6am the contractions were less than 7 minutes apart, so I got up to take a shower. Brian was up when I got out, and we decided it was probably a good idea to make some calls to get Hayden taken care of for the day.
Michelle and Paul came over with Maria at around 7:30, which was perfect, because we knew Maria was exactly the kind of distraction Hayden would need. Sure enough, they took Hayden with them to Maria's swim class and she occupied herself happily throwing toys in the pool and splashing in puddles, blissfully unaware that her little sister was on her way. In the meantime, we called my mom to come up for the weekend so that Hayden could stay at home in her comfort zone.
After a quick drive through Dunkin Donuts, we made it to the hospital by 8:30. By then, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and I couldn't walk or talk through them. I think we freaked out the front desk guy when I stopped mid-directions to have a contraction. Funny, it's a hospital, you'd think they'd be kind of used to that sort of thing.
We ended up in triage for an hour with an older, fairly grumpy nurse who asked me about where I was on the pain scale about fifty times.
Just a word or two about hypnobirthing: Since the whole idea is to use hypnosis techniques to distance yourself from the intensity of the experience, there are certain things that are discouraged, for example, usually you ask the nurse to word it some way other than "pain" when talking about the scale, and you also tend to discourage talk of time tables, since in hypnobirthing once things get going an hour tends to feel like about 10 minutes anyway, but talking about time can make it harder to stay in that "happy place".
So, I worked on getting myself into hypnosis while listening to a woman on the other side of the screen throwing up, and the nurse marking off my pain scale over and over (I was about a 6 at that point - 4cm with contractions just under 4 minutes apart.) All I wanted to do was get in the tub and relax, but the triage was just never ending. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but because VBCACs are higher risk, there's a lot of poking, prodding and monitoring that goes on. One thing I did kind of like was the monitor that tracked my contractions. It was nice not having to tell Brian when one was coming since he could just see the rise of the line on the screen. At that point the way it worked was, every time a contraction started, Brian would work on relaxation/visualization/b
Finally, my doctor came and asked if we had seen any rooms. The whole floor is set up like a bed and breakfast and the rooms are all beautiful, with big jacuzzi tubs and all medical necessities tucked behind movable pictures and in other out of the way spots. The first room they showed us was "Charmingfare" the name of the farm we take Hayden to all the time. It seemed like a good omen, and I had zero interest in room hopping, I just wanted to get in the tub ASAP.
We had to wait for the doctor to come in to hook me up to the heart monitor, give me the IV for Group B strep and God knows what else. Luckily, it could all go in the water. But, waiting for the doctor felt like forever. Brian and I danced quite a bit over the course of the next hour. When a contraction came, I'd lean my head into his chest and he'd apply pressure to my lower back - it looked very much like Junior High 80s dancing. It helped quite a bit, and between contractions I could talk and just get settled in. Then, when one came I'd just say, "Brian, over here" and he'd come over and dance.
Just after 10am the doctor came in and checked me. 6cm and around 80% effaced. Not too bad for just a few hours. Finally, they approved me to get in the water. We "lit" some fake candles that we had (nice, gentle flickering) turned on the music and Brian put some eucalyptus on a washcloth (such a great smell! Reminded me of riding on the motorcycle outside of San Francisco). I relaxed in the water and Brian read hypnobirthing scripts to me. Most were water related, so it was pretty easy to just close my eyes and get into the zone. Every time a contraction came, he would switch over to coaching about breathing and relaxing, and I just stayed down in my "hypno-place".
It was interesting because there were people around quite a bit in the next few hours, poking, prodding, trying to take blood, etc. At one point there were three or so people in the room arguing about taking blood. I was in the water too deep and they couldn't get to my arm. I would have moved but they were trying mid-contraction, and there was just no way at that point that I could do anything other than just breathe. The tuned on the lights, came over and started arguing about what they should do. Brian put a washcloth over my eyes and just kept talking to me. I didn't realize any of it was going on until later when he told me about it. I knew he covered my eyes, and I knew there were people in the room, but I didn't have any idea that there was tension or that they were arguing.
There was no clock in the room so I have no idea where things were at time wise, and one of the greatest things about hypnobirthing is that an hour tends to feel like about 10 minutes (because you spend so much of the training convincing your mind of that) but I knew things were getting close because there was no breathing room between contractions and things were much more intense. My friends who have done hypnobirthing and I have talked about whether or not we'd describe the feeling as pain, and after a lot of thought, I'd really have to say no. I guess that's because when I think of pain I think of pulsing, radiating sensations (being cut with a knife or slamming something in a door) whereas this is just so totally different it doesn't really fit into that category. It's just intense, intense pressure. In my mind now I think of it kind of like being forced under water. For a while you're held under water for 30 seconds and you have four minutes to recover, then it's two minutes to recover, and then you only have about 10 seconds to catch your breath before you're down again. The more relaxed you are the more you can just keep going, but if you panic you start to drown and there's just no way to get back to relaxing after that.
The thing that made the biggest difference for me toward the end was the understanding that when you hit the point of wondering what the hell you were thinking, it means you're almost done. I never wanted drugs and I never told Brian I couldn't do it, but at one point I did start to end contractions with, "shit, this is hard" and variations of that basic theme. Right around that time the doctor came in to check me. I was at 8 cm and +1 station (not sure what that means, even now). She said, "things are progressing well; it looks like it will be about another hour, maybe a bit more." Worst moment of the whole experience. The idea that this could go on for another hour almost did me in. Thank God for Erin and Mindy who both told me over and over that when you feel like you can't do it you're almost there. I just told myself over and over that she was wrong, that we were looking at ten minutes, and I imagined a graph in front of me, with all the mountains of contractions I had been through and about another 10 or so ahead of me. I figured I'd take those 10 one at a time and if I needed to add to the chart from there, so be it.
The nurse came in and told me it was probably time to get out of the water, since I could go from 8-10 really quickly. I told her I'd get out of the water after my doctor checked me again. I could just see myself standing there shivering and uncomfortable for an hour if my doctor turned out to be right. She kept trying to convince me to get out, and I told her to get my doctor in for another internal and we'd go from there. I'm sure she thought I was being pushy, but at that point I really didn't care. She left to get the doctor and all of a sudden a strong contraction hit and I found myself pushing. My water broke and I said something like, "I'm sorry, I pushed". The nurse rushed back in and said that I needed to get out of the water. Okay, but by that point, I had no idea how to do it. I was trying not to push, but it was completely beyond my control at that point (kind of like throwing up, the muscles just contracted without my consent). Brian coached me out of the tub step by step and I stood at the door of the bathroom asking where to go from there.
"We need to get her into the bed," the nurse said.
I went over to the bed and stood next to it.
"Can you get in?" the doctor asked?
"No," I told her.
"We need her in the bed," they told Brian. I really didn't think I could get into the bed, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they needed me laying in bed. Internals are done in all sorts of positions and situations and the last thing I wanted was to be laying down in a bed, because in terms of gravity there's no worse position to birth in. But, somehow they did manage to get me into the bed. The doctor examined me and then said, "don't push yet, I have to go get your chart". Um, okay. Will do. Again though, it's like throwing up, it's really not something one can control beyond a certain point. I found myself pushing hard with the next contraction, and apologizing as I did so. Brian kept telling me to just go with my body and I think the nurses just adjusted to the fact that this was going to happen with or without a chart. The next contraction her head crowned and they put my hand down to feel it, and then the next contraction I opened my eyes for the first time in about 2 hours and I saw Kaya come out. I never really "pushed" in a traditional sense, it was all muscle contractions and I just went with them. The actual birth part didn't hurt at all (until later when the results of her having been born with her fist up next to her face became apparent).
They put her right on me and she stayed there for about 20 minutes curled up under a blanket. One of the great things about having been in the water was that I wasn't wearing anything so it was skin to skin contact. Not something I thought about at all, but it sure was nice. Just the feeling of looking at her after the whole process and after seeing her born was so different than it was with Hayden. With Hayden I was drugged and scared and they took her away right away and I just felt so removed from the whole process. With Kaya it was the exact experience I had wanted and everything about it just felt so right. The staff was completely blown away by Brian's involvement and coaching (I was too, but I knew from the last time that he'd be amazing). Apparently, for all the natural births they see, the don't see many at all that have the level of husband involvement that this one did. Honestly, there's no way I could have done it without Brian. No way at all. It's just too high a level of focus that's needed and the whole experience is too intense to go through alone, at least for me.
So, in the end on a scale of 1-10 I'd rate it a 10+. Amazing, empowering and beyond anything I've ever imagined. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Not sure that I'll have the chance, but I just feel so blessed to have had the chance to do it my way after everything that happened with Hayden's birth. Honestly, one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Michelle and Paul came over with Maria at around 7:30, which was perfect, because we knew Maria was exactly the kind of distraction Hayden would need. Sure enough, they took Hayden with them to Maria's swim class and she occupied herself happily throwing toys in the pool and splashing in puddles, blissfully unaware that her little sister was on her way. In the meantime, we called my mom to come up for the weekend so that Hayden could stay at home in her comfort zone.
After a quick drive through Dunkin Donuts, we made it to the hospital by 8:30. By then, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and I couldn't walk or talk through them. I think we freaked out the front desk guy when I stopped mid-directions to have a contraction. Funny, it's a hospital, you'd think they'd be kind of used to that sort of thing.
We ended up in triage for an hour with an older, fairly grumpy nurse who asked me about where I was on the pain scale about fifty times.
Just a word or two about hypnobirthing: Since the whole idea is to use hypnosis techniques to distance yourself from the intensity of the experience, there are certain things that are discouraged, for example, usually you ask the nurse to word it some way other than "pain" when talking about the scale, and you also tend to discourage talk of time tables, since in hypnobirthing once things get going an hour tends to feel like about 10 minutes anyway, but talking about time can make it harder to stay in that "happy place".
So, I worked on getting myself into hypnosis while listening to a woman on the other side of the screen throwing up, and the nurse marking off my pain scale over and over (I was about a 6 at that point - 4cm with contractions just under 4 minutes apart.) All I wanted to do was get in the tub and relax, but the triage was just never ending. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but because VBCACs are higher risk, there's a lot of poking, prodding and monitoring that goes on. One thing I did kind of like was the monitor that tracked my contractions. It was nice not having to tell Brian when one was coming since he could just see the rise of the line on the screen. At that point the way it worked was, every time a contraction started, Brian would work on relaxation/visualization/b
Finally, my doctor came and asked if we had seen any rooms. The whole floor is set up like a bed and breakfast and the rooms are all beautiful, with big jacuzzi tubs and all medical necessities tucked behind movable pictures and in other out of the way spots. The first room they showed us was "Charmingfare" the name of the farm we take Hayden to all the time. It seemed like a good omen, and I had zero interest in room hopping, I just wanted to get in the tub ASAP.
We had to wait for the doctor to come in to hook me up to the heart monitor, give me the IV for Group B strep and God knows what else. Luckily, it could all go in the water. But, waiting for the doctor felt like forever. Brian and I danced quite a bit over the course of the next hour. When a contraction came, I'd lean my head into his chest and he'd apply pressure to my lower back - it looked very much like Junior High 80s dancing. It helped quite a bit, and between contractions I could talk and just get settled in. Then, when one came I'd just say, "Brian, over here" and he'd come over and dance.
Just after 10am the doctor came in and checked me. 6cm and around 80% effaced. Not too bad for just a few hours. Finally, they approved me to get in the water. We "lit" some fake candles that we had (nice, gentle flickering) turned on the music and Brian put some eucalyptus on a washcloth (such a great smell! Reminded me of riding on the motorcycle outside of San Francisco). I relaxed in the water and Brian read hypnobirthing scripts to me. Most were water related, so it was pretty easy to just close my eyes and get into the zone. Every time a contraction came, he would switch over to coaching about breathing and relaxing, and I just stayed down in my "hypno-place".
It was interesting because there were people around quite a bit in the next few hours, poking, prodding, trying to take blood, etc. At one point there were three or so people in the room arguing about taking blood. I was in the water too deep and they couldn't get to my arm. I would have moved but they were trying mid-contraction, and there was just no way at that point that I could do anything other than just breathe. The tuned on the lights, came over and started arguing about what they should do. Brian put a washcloth over my eyes and just kept talking to me. I didn't realize any of it was going on until later when he told me about it. I knew he covered my eyes, and I knew there were people in the room, but I didn't have any idea that there was tension or that they were arguing.
There was no clock in the room so I have no idea where things were at time wise, and one of the greatest things about hypnobirthing is that an hour tends to feel like about 10 minutes (because you spend so much of the training convincing your mind of that) but I knew things were getting close because there was no breathing room between contractions and things were much more intense. My friends who have done hypnobirthing and I have talked about whether or not we'd describe the feeling as pain, and after a lot of thought, I'd really have to say no. I guess that's because when I think of pain I think of pulsing, radiating sensations (being cut with a knife or slamming something in a door) whereas this is just so totally different it doesn't really fit into that category. It's just intense, intense pressure. In my mind now I think of it kind of like being forced under water. For a while you're held under water for 30 seconds and you have four minutes to recover, then it's two minutes to recover, and then you only have about 10 seconds to catch your breath before you're down again. The more relaxed you are the more you can just keep going, but if you panic you start to drown and there's just no way to get back to relaxing after that.
The thing that made the biggest difference for me toward the end was the understanding that when you hit the point of wondering what the hell you were thinking, it means you're almost done. I never wanted drugs and I never told Brian I couldn't do it, but at one point I did start to end contractions with, "shit, this is hard" and variations of that basic theme. Right around that time the doctor came in to check me. I was at 8 cm and +1 station (not sure what that means, even now). She said, "things are progressing well; it looks like it will be about another hour, maybe a bit more." Worst moment of the whole experience. The idea that this could go on for another hour almost did me in. Thank God for Erin and Mindy who both told me over and over that when you feel like you can't do it you're almost there. I just told myself over and over that she was wrong, that we were looking at ten minutes, and I imagined a graph in front of me, with all the mountains of contractions I had been through and about another 10 or so ahead of me. I figured I'd take those 10 one at a time and if I needed to add to the chart from there, so be it.
The nurse came in and told me it was probably time to get out of the water, since I could go from 8-10 really quickly. I told her I'd get out of the water after my doctor checked me again. I could just see myself standing there shivering and uncomfortable for an hour if my doctor turned out to be right. She kept trying to convince me to get out, and I told her to get my doctor in for another internal and we'd go from there. I'm sure she thought I was being pushy, but at that point I really didn't care. She left to get the doctor and all of a sudden a strong contraction hit and I found myself pushing. My water broke and I said something like, "I'm sorry, I pushed". The nurse rushed back in and said that I needed to get out of the water. Okay, but by that point, I had no idea how to do it. I was trying not to push, but it was completely beyond my control at that point (kind of like throwing up, the muscles just contracted without my consent). Brian coached me out of the tub step by step and I stood at the door of the bathroom asking where to go from there.
"We need to get her into the bed," the nurse said.
I went over to the bed and stood next to it.
"Can you get in?" the doctor asked?
"No," I told her.
"We need her in the bed," they told Brian. I really didn't think I could get into the bed, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they needed me laying in bed. Internals are done in all sorts of positions and situations and the last thing I wanted was to be laying down in a bed, because in terms of gravity there's no worse position to birth in. But, somehow they did manage to get me into the bed. The doctor examined me and then said, "don't push yet, I have to go get your chart". Um, okay. Will do. Again though, it's like throwing up, it's really not something one can control beyond a certain point. I found myself pushing hard with the next contraction, and apologizing as I did so. Brian kept telling me to just go with my body and I think the nurses just adjusted to the fact that this was going to happen with or without a chart. The next contraction her head crowned and they put my hand down to feel it, and then the next contraction I opened my eyes for the first time in about 2 hours and I saw Kaya come out. I never really "pushed" in a traditional sense, it was all muscle contractions and I just went with them. The actual birth part didn't hurt at all (until later when the results of her having been born with her fist up next to her face became apparent).
They put her right on me and she stayed there for about 20 minutes curled up under a blanket. One of the great things about having been in the water was that I wasn't wearing anything so it was skin to skin contact. Not something I thought about at all, but it sure was nice. Just the feeling of looking at her after the whole process and after seeing her born was so different than it was with Hayden. With Hayden I was drugged and scared and they took her away right away and I just felt so removed from the whole process. With Kaya it was the exact experience I had wanted and everything about it just felt so right. The staff was completely blown away by Brian's involvement and coaching (I was too, but I knew from the last time that he'd be amazing). Apparently, for all the natural births they see, the don't see many at all that have the level of husband involvement that this one did. Honestly, there's no way I could have done it without Brian. No way at all. It's just too high a level of focus that's needed and the whole experience is too intense to go through alone, at least for me.
So, in the end on a scale of 1-10 I'd rate it a 10+. Amazing, empowering and beyond anything I've ever imagined. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Not sure that I'll have the chance, but I just feel so blessed to have had the chance to do it my way after everything that happened with Hayden's birth. Honestly, one of the greatest experiences of my life.
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