Tuesday, March 16th - Due Date
Tuesday, March 16th was Laura's due date. On that day, we visited Laura's OB/Gyn. Since there had been no contractions or signs of labor at all, Dr. Wong strongly advised scheduling an induction for Sunday night. Laura and I were disappointed - we were hoping for a natural birth. Induction is often painful, increasing the chance of needing an epidural, which increases the chance of getting a C-section, which has a long recovery time. Nonetheless, we didn't want any birth complications due to a deteriorating placenta, so we'd induce if necessary.
When we got home, Laura and I immediately started every natural labor induction method we knew. She walked for hours every day, ate spicy salsa and chips, made a "pregnancy salad", and I forget what else. If necessary, we decided to try castor oil. We had heard that it worked, but the side effects sounded nasty. (Diarrhea and painful contractions at the same time... fun!)
Friday, March 19th, 6:00 a.m. - Prelabor
Castor oil wasn't necessary after all. Friday morning Laura woke me up around 6 a.m. with "I think I'm going into labor." Thursday night I had stayed up late working, so I had only slept for 4 hours. Bad move. I think my response to Laura was "uh huh... zzz" She was having small contractions every 10-15 minutes, though they seemed painful at the time. Eventually she noticed a bit of bleeding and so we called the hospital, packed the car (with PILES of stuff we might need), and headed in.
After a painful 30 minutes on 101, we made it to Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. A nurse attached Laura to the fetal monitor, watched us for an hour, and sent us home. The contractions had slowed or stopped. :( She said to come back if the contractions occurred every 5 minutes, lasting for a minute each.
On the way home, Laura suddenly started vomiting in the car. Luckily we had some trash bags handy. I pulled over in Menlo Park, let her finish, and then got her home. She took a relaxing shower, vomited some more, and active labor began.
Friday, March 19th, 2:30 p.m. - Labor Begins
It's hard to stay calm while your wife is having frequent painful contractions, but I did what I had to: I let her go an hour with 1-minute contractions every 3 minutes. Yes, for one third of an hour, her uterus was painfully squeezing tight. To pass the time, I finished transplanting some of my herb seedlings to the garden. Laura would say "it's starting" and I'd run inside and hit the Lap button on my iPhone's stopwatch. Then she'd say "it's over" and I'd do the same. It was clear that the contractions were getting faster and more intense as time went on. This was it.
After a long hour, I called the hospital and told them we were coming back. This time the bumpy highway 101 was even worse. I drove as carefully as possible, but it still sucked for Laura. At least she didn't vomit.
The hospital was BUSY. We had to wait in line for our car valet and there wasn't a room immediately available. It didn't take too long for them to get us situated in the maternity ward, though.
Friday, March 19th, 4:00 p.m. - Active Labor Continues
By this point it was about 4:00 p.m. The nurse examined Laura - she was at 4 cm! At least there was some progress already. We had already put the weeks of a mere 1.5 cm behind us.
Laura signed a gazillion documents (during contractions!), and I'm sure she signed her life away, et cetera. Since the hospital was so busy, our nurse (Anselma) had to run. We ended up spending an hour alone, during which Laura vomited for three minutes straight. While Laura was vomiting, the baby's heart rate fell from 150-170 (normal) to 70 (really low). This prompted Anselma to return for another checkup at 6:00 p.m. (Every nurse has a large monitor where they can see the heart rates and contraction rates of all of their patients.) She was concerned about the heart rate dips. Laura had planned to try hot showers to help deal with the pain, but the heart rate dips concerned Anselma. Thus, she required that we stay hooked up to the fetal monitor for at least another hour.
Unlike Laura, I could see the fetal monitor so I was completely aware that Cecilia's heart rate was dipping to 70 after every contraction. This was a bit concerning, but I guess if the nurses were leaving us alone, there was no need to get worked up...
Just after the nurse shift change at 7:30 p.m., our new nurse Jeanne dropped by to introduce herself. She gave Laura an exam. At this point, Laura said she couldn't go much longer without medicine to dull the pain. Although our plan had been to do everything naturally, with no medication or an epidural, Laura was getting to the point that the pain was too much.
However, Jeanne's exam showed that Laura was already at 9-10 cm, and almost completely effaced, so no medicine was necessary She was just about done! Since Cecilia's heart rate still wasn't good, Jeanne gave Laura an oxygen mask. By increasing the amount of oxygen in Laura's bloodstream, we hoped to improve Cecilia's heart rate.
At this point I started to break down from the stress and emotions. I was so proud of Laura for trucking through labor with hardly a peep. She did so well and we were in the home stretch.
Laura noticed my hands were shaking and, being the martyr she is, offered me her oxygen. Jeanne cracked up - I guess it's not common for laboring mothers to offer their husbands support.
Friday, 8:00 p.m. - Pushing
Our OB/gyn, Dr. Wong, lived 30 minutes away and we doubted she would make it here in time. We gave her a call anyway. At this point, Laura said "I feel the urge to push." Jeanne asked Laura to do the impossible: don't push at all until Dr. Wong arrived.
Nurses began a flurry of activity, preparing our room for the birth. Laura managed to hold on, even though you could tell it was hard to avoid pushing. Cecilia's heart rate continued to dip to 70 bpm.
Eventually a nurse suggested we call in an unplanned delivery doctor, Dr. Hoff, who was across the hall with another patient. Dr. Wong was still 15 minutes away, so Dr. Hoff introduced himself and asked Laura to push.
There were 5 or 6 nurses in the room and Laura started pushing. She hadn't made a sound (besides her breathing and vomiting) during the entire process, but I'm sure everyone in the hospital heard that first scream. After a push or two, we noticed that Cecilia's heart rate was still dipping, so Dr. Hoff made the call to vacuum suction her out. I watched them slowly unwrap the plastic packaging on the pump (which looks disturbingly like a plunger - and wouldn't you think they'd have all of the supplies ready?). Dr. Hoff planted the suction cup on Cecilia's skull while Jeanne created the vacuum. Then Dr. Hoff asked Laura to push one last time and Cecilia entered our world!
There was a bit of tension since Cecilia's color wasn't good - she was a bluish brown, and she didn't breathe for a minute or so.
At this point I was alternating between sitting and standing and wildly pacing around the room. I had so much adrenaline in my system that it felt like my fingers were plugged into a wall socket. Everything was tingly and I could barely move my arms. I've never felt anything like it.
Since everything had happened so quickly, nobody had a chance to read our birth plan. I had explicitly put on the birth plan "I don't want to cut the cord", but Dr. Hoff offered me the scissors anyway. He made some crazy joke about my adrenaline causing the cut to be jagged. Eventually he made the cut himself.
Finally Dr. Hoff grabbed the umbilical cord tug-of-war-style, told Laura to push, and pulled out the placenta. No, we did not eat it. Nor did we plant a tree with it.
Laura and Cecilia were both shell-shocked, just staring at each other, not making a sound.
There was some tearing during the birth, so Dr. Hoff stayed to get Laura stitched up. She got about a dozen stitches. Dr. Hoff apologized for not always using anasthetic when stitching and Laura said "It hurts, but it's nothing compared to what I just went through."
Poop Everywhere!
Because Cecilia's heart rate was dipping during labor and pushing, we think it caused her to get stressed and poop out most of her meconium into the amniotic fluid. She then proceeded to swallow and breathe in her poop, causing the doctors some concern about the health of her respiratory system. However, it became clear later that night that her lungs were just fine...
As she was born, she was pooping everywhere. She tagged Laura, Dr. Hoff, and every nurse in the room. I was the only one who escaped unscathed.
On the way out of the room, one of the nurses slipped and narrowly escaped falling because there was a puddle of meconium-filled amniotic fluid on the ground.
It's a Girl! and the First Hour
Cecilia was 7 pounds 13 ounces and 20.5 inches tall at birth. Her APGAR score was a little poor, but her oxygen level definitely improved in that first hour of life.
After Laura and I had settled down and spent a bit of time with our unnamed baby girl, we took a picture with my iPhone and mailed it to the grandparents. "It's a girl!"
The nurses taught us how to swaddle her, bathe her, change her diaper, calm her, and breastfeed her.
The nurses were still busy cleaning the room, but eventually they left us alone with our daughter.
The Hospital
Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City was a wonderful experience. We were there for 48 hours and it was so great to have our nurses available at any hour. Jeanne, Andrea, and Margo were the most helpful. Luckily, they try to keep the nurses consistent for each patient.
The food at the hospital was surprisingly good. After Laura gave birth, they brought her a turkey sandwich, but she's vegetarian... so Laura ate the side dishes and I took the turkey sandwich. We were both ravenous. As we stayed at the hospital, they continued to bring Laura high-quality food and we both had a special dinner the next day. I had chicken cordon bleu with roasted squash and rice pilaf. Laura had pasta primavera, I think. We could have had champagne but we both opted for cider. Oh yeah, and Laura's dinner came with cherry cheesecake!
Laura got regular meals, but I had to eat at the cafeteria. Fortunately, new dads get $12 in gift cards to spend at the cafeteria. And the food was great - for a couple bucks I got to eat an entire plate of lasagna - fresh tomatoes, sausage, and spinach. It was delicious. A friend of a friend is a dietician at Sequoia - we told her she does a great job. ;)
Jaundice
Like most babies, Cecilia was jaundiced at birth. Even though it's probably fine, the hospital makes a big deal out of jaundice. They administer a bilirubin test, and if the results don't come back great, they put the babies under a blue light to try to break down the bilirubin.
Cecilia was borderline, so they didn't bother with the light, but they talked about possibly keeping her another night in the hospital. That would have sucked.
Anyway, to administer the bilirubin test, they punctured her heel and repeatedly scraped a tube across the wound until the tube was full of blood. This sounds miserable, but the nurse told us that sugar water acts like morphine for babies. They gave her a pacifier and slowly dripped sugar water into the corner of Cecilia's mouth, so she didn't move during the process.
Cecilia's Name
Since we didn't know her gender until she was born, we came into the hospital with about 20 female names and 5 male names from which to choose.
On the second day, we decided we had better pick a name. Paperwork was getting annoying.
We started rattling off combinations of names from our list. Some were outright terrible. Some didn't fit our little girl. After googling "Jessica Lynn", we decided against naming our daughter after a porn star.
Cecilia was crying at the moment, so we asked her "Are you Cecilia Grace?" and she stopped crying. Laura exclaimed "We have a winner!"
The Trip Home
Since Laura wasn't supposed to carry anything heavy, the nurse had me pack up the car and move it to the hospital entrance. She put Cecilia in the carrier and I carried her down to the car. She started to cry, but once we got on the road, she fell fast asleep. Good to know!
On the way home, I realized I was starving. Since I had to fend for myself at the hospital, I forgot to eat dinner. I asked Laura if we could stop at Wendy's, where I got a burger, a frosty, and fries. A nice round 2000 calories to get me through the next couple days. ;)
Cecilia hadn't pooped since she was born, so the doctors were a bit concerned. But when we got home, we suddenly smelled something really strange. Baby poop isn't stinky, at least not at first. It's more like an earthy bread smell. Anyway, we opened her diaper, said "OH MY GOD", and then rolled around laughing on the floor. Laura and I were in such hysterics that we couldn't actually change her diaper. I have no idea how she could fit that much poop inside of her tiny body.
The First Night
The first night home was pretty rough. She was up crying every hour or two so we didn't get much sleep. We found out she hated being swaddled with her hands tight inside. But if we swaddled her with her hands peeking out the top, she was perfectly happy.
We also discovered she was always hungry, so I started calling her my hummingbird, especially since her heart rate is 150 bpm.
Breastfeeding
As illogical as it may seem, breastfeeding is not a natural process. Both baby and mom have to learn each other and how to best position themselves. It's also emotionally draining for Laura to know she's the direct source of our child's health and weight.
My job is to provide external observations and support (both emotional and physical). We highly recommend having a pump on hand in case feeding gets a bit rough.
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