Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Mia's Birth Story
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| Mia Jennifer 7 lbs, 2oz, 19" May 25, 2011 at 4:56pm |
By now, I am hoping that nobody is learning of Mia's birth for the first time from this blog. However, B and I are proud to announce the birth of our daughter, Mia Jennifer, on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011. For posterity, and other people's curiosity, I'd like to share Mia's Birth Story.
On Tuesday, May 24th, I had my final appointment with my OB. I had a morning appointment, but Dr. K was busy at the hospital again, so I didn't end up being seen until around noon. He did an exam, and found that I was about 2 centimeters dilated, but manually pushed me to 3 cm (which hurt like crazy, btw). He warned that I might have some mild cramping and bleeding.
After stopping for lunch at Jimmy John's, my cramps started to become a bit of a nuisance, enough so that I decided not to go into work that afternoon and lay down. The cramps "progressed" and became what I would consider contractions around 3 or 4 pm, and I began timing them at 9 minutes apart around 5. I decided to call B at 6pm, so that I could catch him before he left for his softball game that night. I didn't tell him that my contractions had progressed from 9 to 8 minutes apart by then, but that I'd like him to keep an eye on his phone in between innings. No use in him rushing home if the contractions went away, like I expected them to.
By 2 am, we decided this wasn't a false alarm, and it was time to head to the hospital. After gathering some essentials, taking a shower, we headed to the Hospital, car seat already installed. Mom followed us shortly afterwards. It was a very busy night at the Labor and Delivery, so I spent the first few hours of my hospital stay in a large triage room which lots of people would periodically walk through. I was at 4 cm dilated by the time I was checked by Cindy, my very nice overnight nurse. She had the exact attitude that I needed, especially since I was so nervous about getting the all the little procedures done (like the IV, epidural, etc.), and the fact that I was still not in my own room.
Dr. H, my very nice anesthesiologist came in and put in the epidural around 5 am. It was every bit as unpleasant as I expected, but B and Cindy coached me through and soon enough, I could only feel my toes. My contractions almost stopped once the epidural kicked in, so I was given pitocin after all to speed up my dilation. Cindy put in an internal fetal monitor, which is a little probe that gets stuck to the baby's head, and we had our first clue of what Mia looked like. Cindy had to put in two probes, because the first one got so tangled in her hair that the readings were not coming through!
By the time I was 6 centimeters dilated, they decided that I definitely needed to be moved into my own room. Since there still were no labor and delivery rooms, I was put in a makeshift room by adding the necessary machines/baby nursery/delivery table/bed with stirrups to a postpartum room. It was a bit crowded, but luckily, I wasn't moved again for the rest of my hospital stay.
Once I was settled in my new room, my day shift nurse named Haze started. B and I were thrilled to find that she was the nurse assigned to us, because she taught the birthing class which we attended a couple of months earlier. Haze has been a labor and delivery nurse for about 30 years. She was no-nonsense and efficient. Even though she was basically a 180 from Cindy, she was exactly what I needed as a coach during the actual delivery.
Around 4pm, after laying numbly and miserably in my bed for the whole day, I was finally 10 cm dilated. Mom, B and I asked whether Dr. K had been called yet, since we assumed he should be there before I start pushing. Haze said that Doctors don't get called until crowning, so we had a little work to do first. Dr. K had already stopped by to check on me a few times, since he had 8 women in various stages of delivery at the hospital at the time.
Apparently, I was unexpectedly efficient at pushing, because after about 30 minutes, Haze urgently called for Dr. K. When he still hadn't arrived 5 minutes later, Haze made a "NURSE DELIVERY" announcement into my call button and about 5 different people came rushing in to "catch" our little girl. Dr. K came in about 30 seconds later, welcomed by a crying baby. Unfortunately, Mia came out with one of her arms up by her face, rather than it staying down by her body as most babies do, so Dr. King arrived just in time to fix the damage. Luckily, it was nothing too serious.
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| Our first family photo! |
At 7 lbs, 2 oz and 19 inches, Mia showed everyone that she was quite a bit trimmer than she was expected to be. She also had a full head of dark hair, very chubby cheeks and an adorable round nose. Our new little family spent the next two nights in the hospital, to make sure Mia was feeding properly and I was healing well.
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