Owen's birth story
How Owen came into the world, from his mommy's perspective...
Although my medical file used the date of May 2 that was predicted by the six-week ultrasound, my due date as calculated from my last period was April 29, 2008. Around 8 p.m. on April 28, I started having Braxton-Hicks contractions that were stronger and more frequent than any that I had had before. That’s not saying much, because they had always been very weak and never more than three in a day. Now they were occurring at intervals of about fifteen to forty minutes and felt like menstrual cramps. Eric and I had a very nice dinner of salmon, asparagus, and baked sweet potatoes and joked about the possibility that it was our “last meal.” I went to bed around 10:30 but couldn’t sleep; every time I was almost out, another little contraction would wake me up. I started my usual insomnia/illness routine (make up a bed on the couch, watch Lord of the Rings DVD extras on low volume), and spent the next few hours dozing very lightly and getting up every twenty minutes to use the bathroom.
About 1:45, just as I was walking back to the couch from the twentieth trip to the toilet, I felt a trickle of water running down my leg. What the heck was that? I thought. Did my water just break? I was surprised because as far as I knew, I had not lost the mucous plug. I spent about fifteen minutes observing, just to make sure it continued and to convince myself that yes, this was really it, and then I woke Eric up (he professed later to be disappointed that I didn’t use the “Thundercats are go!” line from Juno). I called the hospital and they told me to go ahead and come on in. We turned the lights on and started the last-minute details of leaving the house - getting the final toiletries together and turning on the dishwasher and watering the plants. It felt absurdly like Christmas vacation, because we usually have to get up around 3 a.m. when we fly home for the holidays. The B-H contractions had also stopped, so I was feeling nothing but excitement.
We arrived at the hospital around 3:15 a.m., having caught practically every red light in downtown San Francisco on the way, and the OB on duty verified that my water had broken. She wanted to start me on pitocin because I wasn’t having contractions and didn’t appear to be dilated at all, but I asked if we could wait two hours. It took all of fifteen minutes from that point for me to begin labor with contractions that started at five minutes apart. (Take that, pitocin!) They felt completely different from the ones I had had earlier in the evening – much more focused and directed – and they began to strengthen very quickly. In the LDR room, Eric and I experimented with labor positions while the nurse asked questions, prepped me for an IV, and had us sign some forms. In that span of time I went from “Oh, so that’s a contraction!” to “Want hot tub. NOW.” We got the water going for the Jacuzzi, but just about the time it was ready, the nurses decided to move us to a different room because the computer monitoring me was on the fritz.
Once we were in the second room, with a working telemetry monitor, I got in the bath and felt significantly better. The hot water and Jacuzzi jets helped for a good half hour or more, but the contractions were intensifying and were also coming faster and faster. Eric sat on the edge of the tub rubbing my shoulders and giving encouragement, and I think I managed not to say anything terribly rude to him – the first time I cried out, he shushed me, and when the contraction had passed I warned him rather sternly NOT to shush me again, but I think that was the surliest I got with him. At some point the nurse also came in and said they had decided I didn’t need the pitocin after all. I managed to wait until she left the bathroom before spitting, “NO SHIT I DON’T NEED PITOCIN!” Sometime soon after that I decided I was ready for the nitrous oxide because the contractions were about two minutes apart and too much for me to handle anymore.
I got out of the tub and kneeled up on the bed, and the nurse handed me the gas mask, which I started inhaling from like my life depended on it. The gas was, shall we say, not as effective as I had hoped. My memory gets hazy at this point. I do remember that someone asked whether the gas was taking the edge off and I said “NO!!” About every other contraction was so painful that my “vocalizing” turned into just plain screaming. They got me to lie on my back for long enough to check my cervix, and I heard someone say, “Great, she’s at about four or five centimeters already.” Four or five? said the tiny part of my consciousness that was still responding to the outside world. You mean we’re only halfway there?! That was when I asked for an epidural.
The anesthesiologist started the epidural about 7:20. In retrospect, I was impressed with both of us – myself for holding as still as I did through at least one contraction while she set it up, and her for getting it done so quickly when I’m pretty sure I wasn’t really all that still. It took effect around 7:50, and after some dosage adjustments, I entered Blissful Drug Land. The sun was up; it was a beautiful spring morning. Our windows looked east toward downtown, and we could see as far across the bay as Mount Diablo. Several very peaceful hours followed. Eric put on some music and pre-wrote our birth announcement email. I crunched on ice chips, wishing mightily that they were breakfast, and, depending on which side I was lying on, watched either the fluffy white clouds outside the window or the contractions, which no longer corresponded to any sensation, on the computer monitor. We dozed a little and woke up and smiled at each other and dozed a little more. I was happy that I had gotten to five centimeters on my own and equally happy that I wasn’t enduring any more of it.
It was about noon when the midwife came in to check my progress again. She was concerned that the contractions were still coming at intervals of about two to three and a half minutes and thought they might have to resort to pitocin after all. Before she examined me, she asked the nurse to guess how far dilated I would be. The nurse said, “I’m going to be very optimistic and guess, oh, let’s say seven centimeters.” The midwife checked and then looked up at us in surprise. “Oh my goodness!” she said. “You’re complete. It’s time to push!” (Take that again, pitocin!)
The nurse and midwife talked me through the positioning and put Eric in charge of counting. I could now feel the contractions just enough to know when one was starting, so I had some sense of control. At first the hardest part was just holding my breath for three successive counts of ten. After every push, they reassured me that I was doing a great job. When I asked how they knew that, the nurse showed me in a mirror what kind of movement they were looking for, but I found it too distracting to watch and push at the same time. It didn’t take long before I could feel the baby’s head moving down the birth canal. Great, I thought, we must be nearly there! Ha.
The pushing, which went on for roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, got pretty difficult before the end. Between contractions I was gasping for breath; eventually they gave me oxygen. Someone gave an order to get the room prepped for delivery. I was vaguely aware that there were suddenly a lot more people in the room, getting into scrubs and turning on equipment, but I didn’t have much mental space to notice them. Once the baby was crowning, the midwife got the mirror out again so I could see the top of his head, and they had me reach down to feel it. Finally there was a point where the contraction ended, but when the midwife said, “Great, breathe,” I responded, “No, I want him OUT!” The midwife and the OB who had arrived said, “Okay, just push then!” Not long after that they told me to stop pushing and blow, which sounded like the best news I had ever heard just because I was so tired – and then someone told me to open my eyes to watch the birth and then there was a head coming out and then the shoulders and then the whole baby was lying on my chest and crying and I was putting my arms around him and he was here. It was 2:12 p.m.
Eric cut his umbilical cord. His color went from blue to pink very quickly and I heard the nurse say his one-minute Apgar score was an eight. He calmed down so fast that she had to pick him up to make him cry some more, and his five-minute score was a nine. Meanwhile, the OB and another nurse were still hard at work on me. I had read and heard that women often don’t really notice the final phase of labor, but even through the awe at my son’s presence, I was quite aware that there was still something else in there trying to come out. They did, finally, put me on pitocin just to deliver the placenta – it weighed two and a half pounds. Then it took about half an hour, I think, to stitch me up; afterwards they told me I had had a second-degree perineal tear. All that time I was holding my baby on my chest. After a while the nurse took him across the room to the scale. The result: nine pounds, eight ounces. Together the baby and the placenta accounted for a third of my pregnancy weight. Good lord, I thought, no wonder that hurt so much!
As the OB was finishing with the sutures, Eric was standing over me and we were both staring at this little person I was holding. “So,” I whispered, “the name?” Throughout the whole pregnancy we had refused to reveal our baby name plans, insisting that we had to meet him first, but really we had all but decided months ago. “It fits him, right? Because I can’t imagine calling him anything else after all this time.”
“Yeah,” said Eric. “I think it’ll work just fine.”
“Okay,” I said. “Hi there, Owen Michael.”
Although my medical file used the date of May 2 that was predicted by the six-week ultrasound, my due date as calculated from my last period was April 29, 2008. Around 8 p.m. on April 28, I started having Braxton-Hicks contractions that were stronger and more frequent than any that I had had before. That’s not saying much, because they had always been very weak and never more than three in a day. Now they were occurring at intervals of about fifteen to forty minutes and felt like menstrual cramps. Eric and I had a very nice dinner of salmon, asparagus, and baked sweet potatoes and joked about the possibility that it was our “last meal.” I went to bed around 10:30 but couldn’t sleep; every time I was almost out, another little contraction would wake me up. I started my usual insomnia/illness routine (make up a bed on the couch, watch Lord of the Rings DVD extras on low volume), and spent the next few hours dozing very lightly and getting up every twenty minutes to use the bathroom.
About 1:45, just as I was walking back to the couch from the twentieth trip to the toilet, I felt a trickle of water running down my leg. What the heck was that? I thought. Did my water just break? I was surprised because as far as I knew, I had not lost the mucous plug. I spent about fifteen minutes observing, just to make sure it continued and to convince myself that yes, this was really it, and then I woke Eric up (he professed later to be disappointed that I didn’t use the “Thundercats are go!” line from Juno). I called the hospital and they told me to go ahead and come on in. We turned the lights on and started the last-minute details of leaving the house - getting the final toiletries together and turning on the dishwasher and watering the plants. It felt absurdly like Christmas vacation, because we usually have to get up around 3 a.m. when we fly home for the holidays. The B-H contractions had also stopped, so I was feeling nothing but excitement.
We arrived at the hospital around 3:15 a.m., having caught practically every red light in downtown San Francisco on the way, and the OB on duty verified that my water had broken. She wanted to start me on pitocin because I wasn’t having contractions and didn’t appear to be dilated at all, but I asked if we could wait two hours. It took all of fifteen minutes from that point for me to begin labor with contractions that started at five minutes apart. (Take that, pitocin!) They felt completely different from the ones I had had earlier in the evening – much more focused and directed – and they began to strengthen very quickly. In the LDR room, Eric and I experimented with labor positions while the nurse asked questions, prepped me for an IV, and had us sign some forms. In that span of time I went from “Oh, so that’s a contraction!” to “Want hot tub. NOW.” We got the water going for the Jacuzzi, but just about the time it was ready, the nurses decided to move us to a different room because the computer monitoring me was on the fritz.
Once we were in the second room, with a working telemetry monitor, I got in the bath and felt significantly better. The hot water and Jacuzzi jets helped for a good half hour or more, but the contractions were intensifying and were also coming faster and faster. Eric sat on the edge of the tub rubbing my shoulders and giving encouragement, and I think I managed not to say anything terribly rude to him – the first time I cried out, he shushed me, and when the contraction had passed I warned him rather sternly NOT to shush me again, but I think that was the surliest I got with him. At some point the nurse also came in and said they had decided I didn’t need the pitocin after all. I managed to wait until she left the bathroom before spitting, “NO SHIT I DON’T NEED PITOCIN!” Sometime soon after that I decided I was ready for the nitrous oxide because the contractions were about two minutes apart and too much for me to handle anymore.
I got out of the tub and kneeled up on the bed, and the nurse handed me the gas mask, which I started inhaling from like my life depended on it. The gas was, shall we say, not as effective as I had hoped. My memory gets hazy at this point. I do remember that someone asked whether the gas was taking the edge off and I said “NO!!” About every other contraction was so painful that my “vocalizing” turned into just plain screaming. They got me to lie on my back for long enough to check my cervix, and I heard someone say, “Great, she’s at about four or five centimeters already.” Four or five? said the tiny part of my consciousness that was still responding to the outside world. You mean we’re only halfway there?! That was when I asked for an epidural.
The anesthesiologist started the epidural about 7:20. In retrospect, I was impressed with both of us – myself for holding as still as I did through at least one contraction while she set it up, and her for getting it done so quickly when I’m pretty sure I wasn’t really all that still. It took effect around 7:50, and after some dosage adjustments, I entered Blissful Drug Land. The sun was up; it was a beautiful spring morning. Our windows looked east toward downtown, and we could see as far across the bay as Mount Diablo. Several very peaceful hours followed. Eric put on some music and pre-wrote our birth announcement email. I crunched on ice chips, wishing mightily that they were breakfast, and, depending on which side I was lying on, watched either the fluffy white clouds outside the window or the contractions, which no longer corresponded to any sensation, on the computer monitor. We dozed a little and woke up and smiled at each other and dozed a little more. I was happy that I had gotten to five centimeters on my own and equally happy that I wasn’t enduring any more of it.
It was about noon when the midwife came in to check my progress again. She was concerned that the contractions were still coming at intervals of about two to three and a half minutes and thought they might have to resort to pitocin after all. Before she examined me, she asked the nurse to guess how far dilated I would be. The nurse said, “I’m going to be very optimistic and guess, oh, let’s say seven centimeters.” The midwife checked and then looked up at us in surprise. “Oh my goodness!” she said. “You’re complete. It’s time to push!” (Take that again, pitocin!)
The nurse and midwife talked me through the positioning and put Eric in charge of counting. I could now feel the contractions just enough to know when one was starting, so I had some sense of control. At first the hardest part was just holding my breath for three successive counts of ten. After every push, they reassured me that I was doing a great job. When I asked how they knew that, the nurse showed me in a mirror what kind of movement they were looking for, but I found it too distracting to watch and push at the same time. It didn’t take long before I could feel the baby’s head moving down the birth canal. Great, I thought, we must be nearly there! Ha.
The pushing, which went on for roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, got pretty difficult before the end. Between contractions I was gasping for breath; eventually they gave me oxygen. Someone gave an order to get the room prepped for delivery. I was vaguely aware that there were suddenly a lot more people in the room, getting into scrubs and turning on equipment, but I didn’t have much mental space to notice them. Once the baby was crowning, the midwife got the mirror out again so I could see the top of his head, and they had me reach down to feel it. Finally there was a point where the contraction ended, but when the midwife said, “Great, breathe,” I responded, “No, I want him OUT!” The midwife and the OB who had arrived said, “Okay, just push then!” Not long after that they told me to stop pushing and blow, which sounded like the best news I had ever heard just because I was so tired – and then someone told me to open my eyes to watch the birth and then there was a head coming out and then the shoulders and then the whole baby was lying on my chest and crying and I was putting my arms around him and he was here. It was 2:12 p.m.
Eric cut his umbilical cord. His color went from blue to pink very quickly and I heard the nurse say his one-minute Apgar score was an eight. He calmed down so fast that she had to pick him up to make him cry some more, and his five-minute score was a nine. Meanwhile, the OB and another nurse were still hard at work on me. I had read and heard that women often don’t really notice the final phase of labor, but even through the awe at my son’s presence, I was quite aware that there was still something else in there trying to come out. They did, finally, put me on pitocin just to deliver the placenta – it weighed two and a half pounds. Then it took about half an hour, I think, to stitch me up; afterwards they told me I had had a second-degree perineal tear. All that time I was holding my baby on my chest. After a while the nurse took him across the room to the scale. The result: nine pounds, eight ounces. Together the baby and the placenta accounted for a third of my pregnancy weight. Good lord, I thought, no wonder that hurt so much!
As the OB was finishing with the sutures, Eric was standing over me and we were both staring at this little person I was holding. “So,” I whispered, “the name?” Throughout the whole pregnancy we had refused to reveal our baby name plans, insisting that we had to meet him first, but really we had all but decided months ago. “It fits him, right? Because I can’t imagine calling him anything else after all this time.”
“Yeah,” said Eric. “I think it’ll work just fine.”
“Okay,” I said. “Hi there, Owen Michael.”
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