Andi’s exciting life.

I didn’t think it would take me over a week to get a chance to write my birth story, but Mr. Falco doesn’t allow for much blogging at this point. Let me warn my dear readers that this is the whole story with all the details, so be ready for a very long post with a lot of female information. To see the photos that go along with this story, check out Matt’s blog.

Here goes…

I woke up on Tuesday, 11/28, at about 4:00 a.m. with what felt like menstrual cramps that would come and go every few minutes. I went to the bathroom and had a good bit of spotting that I now know was bloody show. I got back to sleep from about 5 to 6. Then Matt and I woke up to get ready for the nonstress test we had at 8:30 to check on the baby since he was overdue. When Matt woke up I told him I thought I might be in early labor, and we figured we would find out for sure when we got on the monitors. When I got up from bed again, there was more spotting and the contractions were still going on, but I could easily talk through them.

We got to the testing center and first had an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid level. Two different nurses measured the fluid level and determined that it was borderline low. (The level was 6.5 and anything below 5 is low.) We were then hooked up to two monitors, one to measure the baby’s heartrate and one to measure my contractions. The contractions were about five minutes apart and only very slightly painful. (The nurses said they could tell by how I was handling them that they weren’t real labor contractions, which I couldn’t understand until later in the day.) The baby’s heart rate was staying steady at 120 and he wasn’t active at all. During contractions, his heart rate would very slightly drop, which was worrisome because it should have increased instead. They used a vibrating buzzer to try to wake him up and get him moving, but he seemed to be sleeping and just wouldn’t get active.

So, based on my amniotic fluid index, his inactivity, and his heart rate dips during contractions, the doctor decided that I needed to go to labor and delivery for further monitoring to decide if I should be admitted. Before I left the testing center, the nurse checked my cervix and said that it was soft and I was one centimeter dilated, the same as I had been at my appointment two weeks earlier. During that exam, there was a good bit more bloody show and the nurse seemed surprised by it.

Matt and I had not brought our bags or even eaten breakfast because we felt sure that I was in such early labor that we would be sent home to labor for a while before needing to go the hospital. We were told to go straight to the birth center from the testing center and that we couldn’t go home first to get our things. We walked across the street and on the way grabbed gigantic pastries from the coffee cart and ate them as quickly as we could before getting to labor and delivery.

When we got to the birth center, they put us into a small triage room for more monitoring so that they could assess whether or not I should be admitted. This room had two small cots divided by a curtain, and there was another lady on the other side of the curtain. After being monitored for a while there and having the same results as in the testing center, a resident doctor came in to talk to us. She said that based on all the findings from the monitoring and the amniotic fluid index, the best course of action was to admit me. She said that early labor can go on for days sometimes so they would likely do some form of induction to augment my labor. She then did another cervical exam and said that I was more like 1-1/2 centimeters dilated.

Next, a nurse came in and moved us to a temporary room because all the labor and delivery suites were full. She said that it should just be a couple of hours before we would get our own suite, but we were placed in a postpartum room until then. At least this room was a little bigger and had a TV and was private. I was reconnected to the monitors and the nurse placed an IV catheter. She had to stick me twice, but it was no big deal. I have found that after all my blood tests after the miscarriage and then during this pregnancy, I’m not really squeamish about needles anymore.

By this point it was around 12 or 1:00. A new nurse came in and said that she was assigned to me. She said that the baby had become more active and now looked much better on the monitors. She said that my contractions were steady at 3 to 5 minutes apart and that they were discussing doing a Foley catheter bulb along with pitocin for my induction. I expressed my concern about pitocin because I didn’t want an epidural and worried that pitocin would make the contractions more painful. The nurse said that she would try to campaign for me to not have the pitocin because I was contracting well on my own but that it would be up to the doctor. She also said that pitocin has a bad rap for making contractions more painful but that actually it is the same hormone that my body is already producing. She said not to be afraid of it.

A little later, a doctor and a very sweet third year medical student, Jeanna, came in to talk to me about the induction. They explained what it would entail and said they would be back shortly to check my cervix and start the induction. We decided we had better eat lunch, so Matt went across the street and brought back burritos. My pain level wasn’t too bad at this point, but I didn’t have a very good appetite.

After waiting a while more for the doctor to come back, it was after 3:00 and we still hadn’t been moved to a suite and Matt hadn’t gone to get our bags. He decided to go ahead and go home because I really wanted my own nightgown instead of the hospital gown and all the other stuff we had packed for labor. It took him a while to get home and back because of traffic, and it was a little lonely and sad to be there by myself while he was gone. I kept waiting and waiting for the doctor to come back for the induction, and the nurse said they were so busy that it was taking a while for them to get to me. She said it was a good thing because it gave me more time to labor on my own and maybe not need the induction measures at all.

Around 4 or 4:30 they finally came back in to check me and see about inserting the Foley catheter. Matt still wasn’t back yet, but the procedure wasn’t painful or anything so it was OK to be by myself. The doctor checked my cervix and said I was still about one centimeter but that my cervix was very soft. Apparently my cervix was in a position that made it really easy to insert the catheter, so she asked the nurse to give it to her so she could place it. They said that when I got to be three centimeters dilated the catheter would fall out.

Just before Matt got back, I think around 5:00, the nurse came in to start the pitocin. She said she was starting it at a very low dose and that it would take an hour or so for me to feel it at all. Within just a few minutes, my contractions got way, way stronger and more painful and closer together. I was very frustrated because we still hadn’t been moved to a suite and I was stuck on constant monitors so couldn’t get up very easily. They had wireless monitors in the suites that would have allowed me to move around freely and even get into the tub while being monitored, but in the temporary room I couldn’t even get to the bathroom on my own and was stuck in the bed.

When Matt got back at around 5:00, we tried to start doing some of our planned tricks for easing labor pain. We tried playing cards as a distraction, but the contractions were too painful and close together at that point for me to concentrate. I did manage to get out of bed as long as I stayed close enough for the cables to reach the monitor. I tried a few different positions for the contractions like bending over the bed or table, but no position really seemed to help. I got back into bed and lied on my left side. Through each contraction I moaned through it and clenched the rail of the bed. I tried to relax my body but it was so hard because they were so painful.

By about 7:00, I had been having very hard labor for about two hours and the contractions were very intense and right on top of each other. I was very confused about how labor could be so intense if I wasn’t even three centimeters dilated yet, which I assumed to be the case because the catheter still hadn’t fallen out. I started talking about wanting an epidural because the pain was almost constant and I knew there was no way I could bear it for hours more if I wasn’t even really in active labor yet. I told Matt that when the contractions came I felt like I was going to die; that’s how intense the pain was.

The nurses’ shift changed at 7:00, and a new nurse, Sarah, came in. She said that we were going to be moved to a labor room soon, but they had been saying that for the past seven hours. Anyway, I told Sarah that I was pretty sure at this point that I wanted the epidural. She helped me to the bathroom and pulled on the catheter and it still didn’t come out. She also checked my bleeding and said that it looked like I had an amniotic fluid leak and that meconium might be present in the fluid. She helped me back to bed and talked about pain relief options. We decided that I would try a half dose of Fentanyl, an IV narcotic, to help ease the pain until we got into the labor suite. Just before she gave it to me, we found out our room was ready. She moved me in a wheelchair and Matt carried our stuff to our new room.

As soon as we got to the suite, she gave me the Fentanyl. It made me feel kind of like I had been drinking and more relaxed. I thought at first that it helped considerably with the pain, but that was because the pitocin had been turned off during the move. When she turned it back on, the contractions came back in full force. Over the next hour I got two more half doses of Fentanyl while we talked about whether or not I was sure I wanted the epidural. She was able to pull out the Foley catheter during that hour, so I knew I was at least three centimeters dilated. That wasn’t that comforting though because I thought I still had a long way to go. I finally said I was sure I wanted the epidural, and the anesthesiologist came in and was getting set up.

Before they could administer the epidural, a doctor needed to check my cervix to see how far along I was. A doctor finally came in, and I was in disbelief when I heard her say, “Well, there’s still a little anterior lip, so I would say she is nine, almost complete.” I was shocked and thrilled to hear that in the past four hours or so I had gone from one centimeter to almost ready to push! Of course I declined the epidural at that point and felt so proud that I had made it through labor. That doctor broke my bag of water (the leak earlier was very small the bag was still basically intact). It felt like a huge gush when she did that, and they said that there was meconium in the fluid. That meant that pediatricians would need to be there to examine the baby immediately after birth to make sure he was OK.

I think another hour or so passed before it was time to push. During that time, I barely had a break at all between contractions and felt a lot of pressure like I needed to push and was all around miserable. They were telling me to wait to start pushing, but eventually my body was starting to push on its own. Through all this, Sarah was really awesome and supportive. She could see that I couldn’t wait any longer and said we had to get me started pushing.

I lied on my back and Sarah held up one of my legs and Matt held the other. When a contraction came, I curled my body around my belly and pushed with all of my might for about ten seconds three times in a row. As soon as the pushing started, the pain was really gone. I just felt an incredibly overwhelming urge to push, but the pushing didn’t hurt. Unbelievably, the pushing lasted for at least two hours. I have never been so exhausted in all my life, and it took all my strength and then some to keep it up. Matt said that in between contractions I would kind of pass out and he could see my eyes moving back and forth like I was in REM sleep. I just remember closing my eyes and panting between contractions and Matt keeping an ice cold washcloth on my face that felt so good.

Eventually, after all that hard work, I finally pushed baby Falco out. My first words were, “He’s so tiny!” They took him immediately to the pediatricians to have all the fluid sucked out of his mouth and nose and for his exam. Matt went over to him and I could hear Falco crying. The doctors said he looked great and said his weight was 7 pounds, 4 ounces.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t really focus on my joy because I could hear the doctors still working on me talking about bleeding. I guess I was having more bleeding than expected after delivery, and they were trying to get my uterus to contract down and make sure there wasn’t a tear in my cervix. One doctor in particular was being really rough about rubbing my belly to get my uterus to contract, and that was very painful. I was lying there moaning through this part because it was really uncomfortable. The bleeding stopped fairly quickly though, and I heard them say that my cervix was intact. I had a second degree tear that had to be repaired, and that was quite uncomfortable as well. They used lidocaine, but again that doctor seemed to be very rough about everything she did and there was a lot of pressure and pulling and more rough massaging of my belly. All that lasted about thirty minutes, and Matt held Falco during that time. It made me so happy to see him in Matt’s arms.

After my suturing was done, I finally got to hold my son and nurse him for the first time. It took us a few minutes to get the hang of it, but with Sarah’s help he latched on and nursed like a champ. It was so surreal to finally hold my baby boy, and he was unbelievably beautiful. His birth was the happiest and proudest moment of my life, and I am moved to tears every time I remember the experience. There was a lot of pain involved, but I would go through it a thousand more times because he is so worth it.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and our baby has still not made his appearance. I honestly never expected to go this late, and my patience is definitely running thin. I still feel perfectly fine, but I’m just sick of waiting and wondering when I will go into labor. My midwife set my due date at November 25, which I don’t agree with based on my dates, but now I’m overdue even by her date. I have an appointment tomorrow when we will talk about induction options. I have my fingers crossed that I will go into labor before my appointment so that we don’t have to make that decision.

It’s the end of the night of my due date, and no labor for me so far. I’m surprised that I’m really OK with that. I was pretty anxious last week when I was thinking it was going to happen early, but seeing my due date come and go has been no big deal for me. I know he’s going to come in the next few days on his own or I will probably be induced at the end of next week, so he’ll be here soon one way or the other. This way, Matt and I can still enjoy Thanksgiving dinner before we welcome our new baby into the world. We’re going to a friend’s parents’ house in Sausalito for dinner tomorrow, which will be nice I’m sure. It was sweet of them to invite us since we don’t have any family in the area and I didn’t want to plan to cook at our house in case the baby decided to come on Thanksgiving.

I was also thinking that our baby might be cuter at birth since he will be born a little after his due date. He will have had time to fatten up more and maybe be a little chubby. I expect him to be 8+ pounds by the time he is born.

Thankfully, I’m still feeling pretty great. My cold is pretty much gone with just a little residual stuffy nose. I’m still able to walk a couple miles each morning with Matt and overall feel much better and less uncomfortable than I expected at this point. I’m ready for pregnancy to be over because I want our baby boy here on dry land and I want to get my figure back, but I really can’t complain about being pregnant because I have had such an easy time. Let’s all hope that my labor and delivery goes as smoothly as pregnancy has!

I don’t think I ever mentioned this here, probably because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I had convinced myself that I was going to have this baby between November 15 and 17. Well, it’s November 18 and I’m still pregnant. I guess I’m not much of a fortune teller. I have extended my prediction to think that I will have him by the end of the weekend. If he doesn’t come by then, I will give up on guessing when it will be because it will be obvious that I have no idea.

Today’s appointment went well. The baby measured right on target, with my fundal height being 39 centimeters, and his heart rate sounded good without any weird rate decreases or anything like last time. The midwife said he is a moderately-sized baby, and she estimated that he is about 7-1/2 pounds. My body appears to be getting ready for labor, so that was good to hear. I have one more appointment scheduled for November 28, almost a week after my due date, but the midwife says she really doubts that I will make it to that appointment. I hope she is right!

I got a flu shot today, but I don’t really see the point because I am now sick with my second cold in about three weeks! As mentioned in an earlier post, we went to babysit our friend’s toddler on Sunday, and he seemed to be sick. He sneezed right in my face at one point, and I’m convinced that’s when I was contaminated with this virus. I woke up this morning with a scratchy throat, and I keep feeling worse as the day goes on. This especially sucks because I’m so close to having this baby, so it’s now very likely that I will be sick during labor and recovery. I asked if I would have to worry about the baby getting sick if I was sick, but the midwife said that wouldn’t be a problem.

I went to the grocery store today and got ingredients for a few meals to cook and freeze, so I’ll spend a lot of time tomorrow in the kitchen. I also got my wooden giraffe today for the clock, so I’ll paint that tomorrow too. The clock parts I got are too big for the giraffe, so I might actually just make a little giraffe sign for the baby’s door and scratch the clock idea. I’ll see how it goes.

Bring on the indignity of labor and delivery because my pregnancy embarrassment has already begun. Today over at our friends’ house, when I bent down to pick up their toddler, I ripped the ass out of my pants. Of course this happened before Robin and Sandy walked out the door to leave us for babysitting, so it was right in front of Sandy. I don’t think (I hope) that he actually saw my underwear at least. I heard the rip when I bent over and then stood and turned so that my rear was facing away from everyone. They went on their merry way while we stayed to babysit, and I raided Robin’s clothes to find some pants. I did find a pair that she wore when she was pregnant, but they were not very flattering on me and I felt highly unattractive for the rest of our stay there. I do have to admit that it could have been much worse and happened in the middle of the grocery store or something, but splitting your pants in front of your husband and male friend is pretty humiliating.

Our due date is now two weeks away. I hope it really will be two weeks or less until Baby G is in da house, but I guess I’m just as likely to be late as early. OK, I’m probably more likely to be late than early since this is our first, but let’s stay positive here. I’m penciling him in to arrive next week, and hopefully he will cooperate.

In the past few days I’m pretty sure he has dropped. My belly looks lower, and he feels heavier and lower. I’ve had a few contractions here and there, some a tad painful, but nothing to make me think it could be the real thing. I’m basically constantly on watch for any signs of labor at this point.

Friday is my last day of work, which I am happy about. I’ll probably spend a good bit of my time off hanging with my friend, Lynne, and also just trying to stay busy on my feet to try to get things moving along. I’m planning to make some meals to freeze for after the baby comes. I’m also going to work on a little craft project, which is making a clock for the nursery, so hopefully the parts I need for that will be here by early next week. I really don’t have any artistic abilities, so it’s likely that it won’t turn out well, but at least it will be a fun distraction to pass the time.

My appointment today had a little excitement. I saw a midwife who I hadn’t met before. She was nice and friendly but seemed rushed (she was about 20 minutes late getting to us). She palpated my belly and said that I had a nice sized baby. I asked her how big she thought he was, and she said about seven pounds! At 37 weeks!? She said she thought he would be over eight pounds by my due date. Then, she measured my fundal height and listened to the heartbeat with the Doppler. She heard the heartbeat right away and started to say that the baby sounded great, but then his heart rate sort of abruptly slowed down. I said, “That sounds slow, doesn’t it?” and she said yes. I asked her if she was sure it wasn’t my heartbeat, that’s how slow it sounded to me, but she checked my pulse and said that it was faster than mine but slow for the baby. It sped up a little and then slowed down again. So, she said she was going to send us to antenatal testing to be on the monitors for a little while. I was a little worried but couldn’t really feel too worried because I had been feeling the baby move like crazy all morning and thought he was doing fine. I was really glad Matt was with me at this appointment so that he could be there during the monitoring.

So, then we go wait for a while to get called back to the testing center, which is just a room with a few tables separated by curtains where they have ultrasound and fetal monitors. The nurse who brought us back said they wanted to see his heart on ultrasound and then use the fetal monitor for about 20 minutes to watch for normal (or abnormal) accelerations and decelerations. She asked if I had been feeling the baby move today, and I said he was very active about an hour earlier but that he was calm now. So, she starts the ultrasound and he was still being pretty calm. He is head down (yay!), and his heart looked fine with a normal rate. Then she hooked me up to the monitors.

At this point, the baby started going crazy. Seriously, he would not be still, and his heart rate was in the 160s and 170s. It would slow down for a few seconds to the 140s or 150s, then he would squirm all over again and get it high again. Matt couldn’t believe how much he could see my belly moving with his movements. This lasted probably five or ten minutes, and she said she was going to try to get him to calm down because they needed to see a baseline heart rate when he was at rest. So, she turned off the light and told me to close my eyes and not talk and pretend I was going to sleep. She also turned on some classical music. I did that, and he was still going crazy! I was having a hard time not laughing because he was more active probably than he had ever been the one time that I actually wanted him to be still.

It seemed to me like he never stopped moving the entire time, but I guess his heart rate did stabilize and she got a baseline for about two minutes of around 135, which is normal. Then she looked at him and his heart one more time with the ultrasound and said he looked great. During that second ultrasound, she said she could see him doing practice breathing movements which was very reassuring and good. Then he just kept on doing them. He was truly putting on a show for this testing! She basically just said that it was a fluke thing that we heard that deceleration during my exam. I asked her if it could have been because I was lying on my back and she said maybe or that he could have pressed against his cord right at that moment or something like that. Anyway, she said everything they saw was good and reassuring and there was no reason that I needed further monitoring. That was good to hear, but I was pretty sure he was OK since he was being such a spaz! Oh, and she checked my amniotic fluid level on the ultrasound too and it was good.

We left there, and he was STILL going crazy! I don’t know what got into him! It probably took a good half hour after we left before he settled down. I’m back to my theory that he will come at least a week early because if he is that big and active I think he’s ready to get out of there and see the world. He is considered to be full term now, so it’s perfectly safe for him to be born at anytime. We are so ready for him, so I hope he will decide to make an early appearance.

Ugh. I’m getting a cold. This is only the second cold I have gotten during this pregnancy, with the first one being in the first trimester or early second trimester. That’s probably about right because I think I usually only get one or two colds a year. I woke up at 3 a.m. with a sore throat bad enough that I couldn’t sleep through it, and a sore throat is how colds always start for me. The good thing is that I’m getting it out of the way now because I was kind of worried about being sick when I went into labor. Although, a friend of mine mentioned that she got a bad cold in the last week of her pregnancy and she thinks that all the coughing she did caused her water to break. I tend to get a bad cough with colds, so maybe I can cough myself into labor next week…

Yesterday I finally installed the car seat in our car. It was no small feat because you have to get it perfectly level and super tight, so it took several attempts to get it just right. I think the installation is easier if you have LATCH, but since our car is a 1999 and LATCH wasn’t added to cars until 2001, we have to use the seatbelt. We’re going to have it inspected at the local police station to make sure it is done properly, although I haven’t made an appointment for that yet. I also got the diaper service set up yesterday, and our prebirth delivery of diapers will be November 8. Those final preparations really made me feel like we are about to have a baby! The hospital bag is well on its way to being packed (it’s a gradual process), and I think finishing that up is about the last thing we have to do.

I’m hoping to feel well enough this weekend that Matt and I can carve pumpkins tomorrow or Sunday. We were supposed to go to James and Lynne’s on Sunday and possibly carve them with them, but we’ll probably hermit up all weekend so that I can keep my illness to myself. I’ll post photos of any pumpkin carving efforts we do. It will be hard to top last year…

Last night we had our fourth and final childbirth class, so we should now know everything we need to know about having this baby. I do feel very informed and like I have a good idea of what to expect, and I think Matt does too. This week’s class was pretty physical because we had a “dress rehersal” of labor. We practiced again using different positions and breathing through contractions. Then, she showed us a couple of different pushing positions and the mechanics of how to hold a breath and push and how many times to push with each contraction. We had to get on the floor with our partners and assume the positions and pretend like we were pushing. I didn’t really like this part because the room was really too small for everyone to be on the floor comfortably, and it was a little close quarters for me to be on the floor with my legs spread open, although at least everyone else was doing the same thing and surely felt equally awkward about it. In talking to Matt about it after class, he thinks it was useful to see just what we will need to do when the time comes to push, which makes sense, especially since he needs to help me through it. Now he’ll kind of know what to tell me to do.

So, now the nursery is ready, our class is over, we have pretty much all the baby gear we can think of, and I’ll be full term a week from today. Even if I went into labor right now, I don’t think they would do anything to stop it and would just let the baby come a tad early. So, the coming weeks are just a waiting game. I am so eager for our new addition to arrive!