Our Baby Story

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the comments and emails! It's definitely been the most overwhelming week of our lives, but we are overjoyed to finally have our baby girl in the outside world. Today marks the one week anniversary of me going into labor, so I thought it would be a good time to tell our Baby Story.

It all started around 5:30am on June 6th. This timeframe fit in pretty well with the labor dress rehearsal we ran through during our childbirth class, so I stayed in bed until around 6:00am and then woke up Steve. Right on schedule, he got up and made banana pancakes, which was our planned labor breakfast (high in carbs, easy to digest). Steve called his parents, who live near Portland, and they bolted out of bed and were in the car on their way down within the hour. I was having fairly regular contractions, so we all thought that we'd have the baby with us by dinnertime. No such luck!

After breakfast, the contractions slowed down significantly. We went for a walk around the neighborhood to try to speed things along, but they were still very irregularly spaced and inconsistent. As the day went on, the contractions sped up and slowed down several more times, each time increasingly more frustrating for me, as now everyone was waiting on me to have the baby already. By evening, we decided to give up trying to speed things up and just go to bed. I got a couple of hours of sleep interrupted by periods of intense pain. By the morning, 24 hours after labor began, the end was still not in sight.

After eating leftover pancakes for breakfast, we called labor and delivery to ask for advice. To my dismay, they said that it is very common for first-time moms to be in early labor for up to 3 days! Once again we were told to stay at home until the contractions were 5 min. apart, lasting for 1 min. over a period of at least 1 hour (the 5-1-1 rule). By the afternoon, I started to think that I would be in labor for the rest of my life.

Then around 3pm, the contractions suddenly intensified and grew closer together. By 4pm I was wondering if I could even make it to the hospital in that state. We arrived at labor and delivery around 5pm. I was put through triage where they determine how far along in labor you really are and if you are ready to be admitted. I was told I was already 5 cm dilated and at -1 station. Not too shabby! The hospital staff were all impressed that we stayed at home through 36 hours of early labor and didn't come to the hospital until it was really time. One of the nurses asked me to rate my pain level on a scale from 1 to 10. I said that some of the contractions were a 9 but that it was hard to say because I've never really experienced a 10 on the pain scale. Ah, how I had spoke too soon ...

By the time I got through triage, my contractions went from 5 to 3 min. apart lasting for around a minute and a half. We were offered a choice of labor and delivery rooms, one with a park view and one with a city view. I got a contraction when we went into the room with a city view, so that's where we stayed. Unfortunately we were never able to enjoy the nice view.

In no time at all, the labor had progressed past any imaginable level of pain. This stage of labor, known as transition, is the final stage before you can start to push and is characterized by the most intense contractions with almost no break in between. I went through transition in the bath tub, which is supposed to help relieve pressure on the lower back, but it didn't feel like anything in the world could have helped with that pain. Fortunately, transition didn't last too long, and before I knew it, it was time to push.

It took me a couple of contractions to get the hang of "pushing." First of all, it was enough to deal with the overwhelming pain of the contraction without have to exert energy on something else. Also, having never given birth before, it's hard to know who/what/where to "push." By some miracle, I figured it out, and after only 10 min. of pushing, Ruby was born at 7:05pm.

Childbirth is definitely some serious business, and it was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done. I was really glad I was able to do it all naturally like I wanted, but I think I also got pretty lucky that everything went so quickly, and Ruby was born just 2 hours after we arrived at the hospital. It's also fortunate that in the altered state created by extreme pain, one loses all modesty and inhibitions. I think that there were about 20 people in the room when I delivered, but I really could have cared less, and I was still screaming and carrying on as I felt necessary. All of the hospital staff seemed quite impressed/entertained by my delivery. Many of them told me afterwards that it's not often they get to see a natural childbirth. I guess even at a place like UCSF where many women come in with a natural birth plan, few actually come to fruition. Regardless of how she was born, I'm just happy and relieved that I got a squishy little baby out of it.

It's taken a while to reconcile the fact that the little baby in my lap is the same one that was in my tummy. It's also hard to believe that this perfect baby is ours to keep forever. She is definitely worth the 9 months of waiting and even the 38 hours of labor.