Holland’s Arrival, Part Three: Thursday

Thursday, August 28th: Around five AM Nurse Jen came in to take my vitals. Envisioning myself stuck in bed for the next week or so, I asked her if I could possibly have a fresh gown and maybe brush my teeth and hair. I also threw up a couple more times (Dignity, Dignity, where oh where have you gone?). She kindly helped me freshen up, and then said it was time for the dreaded check of the stubborn cervix. I braced myself for the worst (”one and three quarters dilated! Maybe you will have a baby sometime before Halloween!”) and was thrown completely off guard when she announced “Five centimeters!” Holy crap, are you serious? Her pitocin magic tricks must have worked, because all of a sudden, my body was cooperating. I asked her how long she thought it would be before Holland was born, and she said that generally it takes about an hour per centimeter, and then to expect about two or three hours of pushing. That put Holland’s ETA somewhere around 1pm. I rounded up to 2pm for good measure.

Unfortunately, Nurse Jen’s shift was about over, and it was time for my day nurse to come aboard the labor ship. Around that time Emily woke up and I shared the good news with her. After she left for work I called my mother, who was just waking up. I told her that there would be a baby today after all, but not to hurry because it wouldn’t be until later in the afternoon. This was around 7:15am. Nurse Debi came by to introduce herself and see if I needed anything. I mentioned that I might be feeling contractions through my epidural, and she said it might be running low again, and to let her know if it got painful.  It didn’t hurt, so I didn’t really give it another thought.  A little later Jen (Friend Jen, not Nurse Jen) came by to visit before work. While she was there I kept feeling the same something through my epidural. Still nothing painful, just pressure.  Soon Jen had to leave for work, and I sat in my room, watching the Today Show, happily and nervously anticipating the day’s events. I started to wonder about the contractions I was feeling. They were a lot lower than the ones from the day before. Was I feeling the urge to push? I convinced myself that I was just overly-eager about having the baby, and that it was highly unlikely that I was anywhere near ready to push. So I ignored the feeling (the feeling that was coming stronger and stronger, every few minutes) and continued to watch the Today Show.

About an hour of this passed, and then a doctor came in. I knew that my doctor wouldn’t be available to deliver my baby that day, he had explained to me the day before that he couldn’t be there because of a scheduling conflict, but one of his partners would be. The woman taking his place was very sweet and friendly, and I decided I liked her. I told her about the feeling I was having, and she suggested that she take a look and see what was going on. The next words out of her mouth were “Oh! Your baby’s head is RIGHT there! I need to go change!” She looked around the empty room next and asked me if anyone was supposed to be there with me. I told her my mom was on her way, but that I wasn’t sure where she was. The doctor told me that we didn’t have time to wait, but she would change as slowly as possible to give my mom time. She then exited the room, crossing paths with my mom on her way out (phew!).

And THEN, it was ACTION TIME. The bright lights came on, my nurse and the baby nurse came in, the lower half of the bed disappeared from beneath me, the stirrups came up, and the doctor and all her doctor tools arrived. I remember feeling really nauseous and shaking a lot (My mom: “You are cold, you need a blanket.” Me: I am not cold, I am just shaking.” My mom: You are cold, I’ll get you a blanket.”), but feeling really excited and not scared at all. Again, god bless the epidural. At around 9:40 I started pushing. My thoughts during that time included being amazed it didn’t hurt, thinking that if my mom took any unattractive pictures of me I would kill her, and marveling at how skinny my legs looked up in the stirrups. The nurse and doctor kept telling me “good job! we can see her head!” and I didn’t believe them, because it was too easy. Then all of a sudden, at exactly 10:18am, less than 40 minutes from when we started pushing, there was CRYING, and a BABY, and my mom’s exact words were “Alexia! She is beautiful! She doesn’t look like you! She is so beautiful! She doesn’t look like you at all!” They put her on my chest and put a warm blanket over us. Boom. Just like that. Holland got really quiet right away, and just stared at me with her huge eyes. I was in complete shock, like I was watching this happen to someone else. They turned off my epidural and doctor finished up down below, stitching me up and all that fun stuff. There was a lot of other activity going on around me that I don’t remember, I was in such a daze. One thing I do remember is how excited I was to get THREE beautiful, magical ibuprofen (forbidden while pregnant, and my personal painkiller of choice), three packets of delicious saltines, and a glass of ice water (and NOT throwing up afterwards!).

The next few hours saw Holland’s first bath, the beginning of the flurry of visitors our room would see over the next two days, the stress of learning to breastfeed, and a lot of staring at my amazing, beautiful baby. I spent the rest of the day showing off Holland, calling/texting/IMing/emailing people and trying to rest. I stayed up until 3AM that night, watching my baby, making sure that she was still breathing, afraid that if I went to sleep she wouldn’t be there when I woke up. Two and a half weeks later, I am happy to report that she is still amazing, still beautiful and still here (and I still wake up every night just to check).

My mother clearly ignored the no unattractive pictures rule. This is me seeing Holland for the first time. We both look pretty worn out.

MY FIRST MEAL! Sooo excited. I ate this and also had my mom bring me up another meal from the cafeteria.

Super Relaxed Baby Holland after her first bath. This is when we first discovered her love of getting her hair washed.

We both look a little more pulled together in this picture. An hour or so after her birth.