She's Arrived!

On September 24th at 8:40pm our little Lola Ray Bailey was born.

It was absolutely miraculous. I couldn't believe my eyes when she finally came out crying.

But a lot happened before then, much of which I wrote down as it happened. On Tuesday, Sean and I attended my morning OB appointment thinking that it'd be a fast in and out as usual. The previous Thursday we were getting results from our ultrasound and I had been convinced that the doctor was going to say I needed to be induced then, but to my surprise she said that everything looked fine. However, baby was still in the 10th or 12th percentile so needed close watch. As such, she asked me to come back the following Tuesday instead of Thursday as I had planned. 

So, both Sean and I were completely in shock when during a quick exam on Tuesday the doctor informed us that she had booked a spot for us the following day for me to be induced. She said that I was showing signs of being near ready to have her anyway, and since I was 39 weeks as of that day, she didn't want to wait any longer. Ultimately she said I could say that I wanted to wait but when she measured my belly and told me I was now only 30cm (instead of 34cm which I had been only 5 days earlier), we immediately decided better to be cautious and get her out sooner rather than later. 

Going home that day was surreal. It felt like I had 20 hours left in my life as I knew it. What do you do with that time? Sean was insistent that I spend it resting and conserving my energy as he knew good and well I wouldn't be able to sleep that night. So I tried to do just that but all in all I probably only put in about an hour of couch time. With the rest of the time I went and got my hair coloured (what?! the appointment had been made the week before!), packed and repacked my hospital bags (thank you Vanessa for skyping me through it!), and... honestly, I don't even know what else I did but somehow it felt like I had very little time. It felt like getting ready for a big trip somewhere far away and not being prepared at all. 

The next morning we arrived at the hospital at 7:30am and were led to our labour and delivery room. My OB came and broke my waters, which was incredibly painful but luckily also very quick, and I was hooked up to a monitor and an oxytocin drip. Thats when things started feeling very...clinical. I couldn't go to the bathroom without assistance from the nurse, fluids are leaking out of you every second, and things are beeping all the time. A feeling of absolute terror set in. I felt moments away from a complete panic attack - how was I going to do this?!

My contractions started to get stronger and stronger and more and more painful. Because of the drip I could see what level I was at in the process. It starts at a 2 and goes up to 24. Around level 6 I was reaaaaalllllyyyyyy getting the idea of what labour was all about. Then this screaming, moaning woman started walking the halls. She was in natural labour so I could only guess as to what level she would coincide with if she was on my drip. I estimated about level 18 and looked to the pain chart on the wall in front of me and guessed that she was a 9 out of 10. Every time she moaned I wanted to punch her in the throat. Shut up lady! Don't let me hear what this is going to be like!!! I'm scared enough! Clearly my capacity for empathy was already completely shot. I went into survival mode and told myself (and Sean) that that woman probably just can't manage her pain well. It would be different for me. Right? Right?! My terror level continued to rise with every sound that walking woman emitted. 

Then, an emergency C-section happened somewhere on the floor and since there were so many labouring women and not enough nurses to monitor those of us being induced, my drip was stopped. By this point I had reached level 10 and was in a significant amount of pain. Every time a contraction came on, which was starting to be about every 2 minutes, I could no longer speak or concentrate on anything other than the pain and feeling like I was going to throw up everywhere. So honestly, I was kind of relieved at first to get a break. But an hour into that break, with the majority of my contractions subsided and further and further apart, I started getting impatient and bored. I changed locations to a rocking chair beside the bed and Sean laid down for a rest. The nurse came back to find us like this:

I made sure to snap a picture (a feat as it was very hard to move around and get items out of my reach, like my phone, as I was still hooked up to the monitor) so that I could prove this actually happened later. Honestly though, I didn't blame Sean for napping, I would of if I could have!

At 1:40pm, 2 hours after stopping it, my drip got going again. Things go intense almost right away, which freaked me out significantly. I was feeling in about the same amount of pain as before but this time the drip was only at a 2 or a 4. How in the world was I going to get up to level 24?! And then another screaming woman came in. Oh dear God was she screaming. It sounded like a horror movie. I wanted to punch her in the throat too. But a few minutes after the screaming started, a baby started crying - just like that. The nurse told me the woman had come in only a few minutes earlier and was very advanced in her labour so a natural child birth was her only option. This made me panic. Contractions were soooooo hard, what in the world would pushing feel like? Probably a bajillion times worse I imagined.

I must have been talking a lot about my pain and fears because the nurse calmly mentioned as she checked on my progress, "you just let me know when you've had enough." Confused, I asked what she meant. She explained that epidurals aren't given early in labour because it can slow or stop labour but because I was being induced and my contractions were under their control, I could have an epidural at any time. "I don't want to be a quitter though." I said. "What would you be quitting, exactly?" asked the nurse. I didn't know but I stubbornly said that I would wait it out. Then I texted Adrien and Vanessa to make sure I wasn't missing any information, that getting an epidural early into labour wasn't a terrible decision. In the end, the nurse told me the anesthesiologist (whoa, I spelt that correctly on first guess!!) was passing by if I wanted to catch her before she tended to things elsewhere. Gritting my teeth through a particularly debilitating contraction, I nodded my head yes. It was 3:00pm.

Getting the epidural was by far the worst part for Sean. Knowing this would be the case, they had Sean sit down while they administered it. They tried very hard to work around my contractions but since they had returned full swing, this was rather difficult. It was challenging to be poked with needles and readied while doubled over in pain and told to not move. And Sean's face was looking more and more horrified with each passing second. When it was time to put in THE needle, they told to absolutely not move. But as soon as that needle went in, my left leg moved like a live wire. It felt like electric shock going through it. The nurse held my leg down and sternly told me once again to not move. Sean grew paler. It happened again. Same responses all around. Suddenly the team was a little more concerned with Sean than with me, repeatedly asking him if he was going to be okay. I wrote down after that it was heartbreaking for me to watch. My emotions were extremely heightened so seeing Sean so worried about me was deeply affecting. I felt so lucky to have such a caring husband who actually feels pain when he sees me in pain.

As all this was happening, a numbing feeling was spreading all over my body. Soon I could hardly feel a thing. Whoa what a difference. Except that it was almost overwhelming at first. Besides not being able to feel my legs and contractions, I also couldn't feel my arms and chest... And i felt pretty loopy. I had to try really, really hard not to slur my words and felt like a teenager who had just gone to a pill party (you know, where the kids put a bunch of prescription meds they steal form their parents into a bowl and everyone helps themselves?... or is that just on episodes of CSI: Miami and Oprah?) and felt almost embarrassed about it, as if I should have had more self control. Over time though, that feeling subsided and I settled into the bliss that was feeling nothing while birthing a baby.

Then the waiting game. Around 7:15pm my progress was checked on and I was about 7 or 8 cm dilated. They warned me that even if I got to 10cm in the next little while, it could still take 1.5 or 2 hours of pushing to complete the job. By 8:10 they had set everything up and it was time to push. Terrified that having had too much epidural would make me inefficient at pushing and send me to a c-section, I was determined to do this right! My OB instructed me on how to do it best and then left me in the care of the nurse who got me through twenty solid minutes. At that point she told me to stop pushing even if I felt the urge, she was looking for the OB and couldn't get ahold of her. A few minutes later in she walks. "Where have you been" asked the nurse. "Getting us tea like I said" she replied. They then discussed whether or not the nurse had said tea was necessary or no while I waited patiently to resume this little process. They then dived into the task together and I felt like I was in spinning class with instructors yelling motivating things at you to get you up the imaginary spin class hill, except that this hurt a lot less and actually felt a wee bit easier.

At some point they told me to reach down and feel my baby's head. They told me she had hair and that she was almost here. It couldn't have been much longer when I was instructed to look down. One push later I heard her crying and suddenly there was a baby in the room. A tiny, squirming, full head of hair baby that was all mine. It was an indescribable feeling that literally took my breath away. And they are right what they say: I was instantly in love.

After some incredible time with baby on my chest, she was cleaned up and weighed. Two nurses, the OB, Sean and I all placed our bets on how much we thought she weighed. Of course, her mommy had the closest guess of all.

And just like that, she was no longer baby girl in my belly but Lola out in the world.