First Few Days

We've made it through a whole weekend with the Tiny Squee. We haven't broken her or anything.

So far, she's been pretty well-behaved. She spent most of the first two days sleeping with only occasional waking periods. In fact, she slept so much that it was really hard to get her to nurse frequently enough. Tiny babies are supposed to nurse every 4 hours minimum, but she just wouldn't wake up to eat. Dr Liz said it wasn't too much of a problem unless she was getting more lethargic instead of more alert as time went on.

We haven't had much luck getting her to sleep in the cosleeper. She spent the first two days blorking up bubbly mucus stuff, which is apparently due to amniotic fluid in the tummy. Every time we'd lay her down on her back, she'd start making this noise that sounded like backed-up plumbing and she'd start to get fussy and cough this stuff up. It's disconcerting to hear your baby making plumbing noises and I was worried that she'd aspirate stuff and choke. On the plus side, it's a noise that wakes you up immediately out of a sound sleep (like the horking-up-hairballs noise that cats make), so it's been easy to tip her over on her side before she actually spits anything up.

The cosleeper also just seems so large and cold for such a tiny, warm squee. Friday night, I slept with her head on one of my shoulders for the first half of the night, then moved out to the couch and slept part-way sitting up with her on my tummy. Saturday and Sunday worked out pretty similarly, except that we stayed in the bed instead of on the couch. Periodically, we wake up and try to nurse. We're getting a couple of hours of sleep in a row with maybe one period of 3 or 4 hours near morning. I've been napping during the day, so I'm actually not feeling too exhausted at this point.

Last night, my milk started to come in. Tiny Squee got much more excited about nursing once that happened. She's also been much more alert and has spent a lot more time awake. This also means that she's spending a lot more time mad about various things (mostly the fact that she's not nursing at any given point). I'd be happy to let her nurse all the time except that it hurts. She chews and my nipples are sore. She's a little piranha squee.

Birth Story

Wednesday night as I was falling asleep, I some contractions, but nothing major. Thursday morning, I took Vu the degu into the vet. I was bleeding slightly when I woke up, and the contractions had continued, but at that point, they were were pretty mild. By the time I made it home from the vet (about 10am), they were coming about every 5-6 minutes. They were sort of in my lower belly and some were beginning to wrap around my back, which was the body part that hurt the most.

I downloaded a contraction tracking app for my phone and started timing them. I sent a text to Dr Liz, who called and we discussed what was going on. At that point, she said that it wasn't really labor and that it could go on like that for several days, or it could turn into real labor. If it was real labor, it would progress. If it wasn't real labor, it wouldn't.

I spent the day mostly sitting in my rocking chair knitting, watching movies, and puttering about online. Contractions continued about every 5-6 minutes the whole day. They got slightly more intense and slightly closer together, but not much. At 7:30pm, I reported into Dr Liz by text message. She said that it sounded like early labor but that it seemed like it might be progressing. She told me to sleep as much as possible that night (Thursday) and that it could get stronger or it could continue on for days. I asked when I should call her. She said "you will know when to call, grasshopper." She also said that everyone calls too early.

Contractions continued all night. Mike went to bed because he was going to go into work on Friday if no baby was arriving. I didn't go to bed because they were too painful to allow me to sleep, but they still weren't too intense. I spent the night microwaving my "uterus warmer" (bag of rice that we use for cramps and other pains) about every hour and alternating sitting in my chair on the uterus warmer with walking around. Contractions picked up speed slightly, but stayed between about every 4-6 minutes for the whole night. I tried to sleep, and managed to catnap in 5 minute intervals between contractions.

At about 11, I stopped being able to keep anything down. I tried banana, bread, apple juice, milk, and just plain water. Nothing stayed in. I'd have a contraction and end up walking around carrying a small garbage can through the rest of the contraction. I gave up on eating and drinking.

Around 5:30, the contractions increased markedly in intensity. I went in and woke up Mike. I told him it was time to call Dr Liz. He called and she said she would be at the birth center in about an hour. I said something in the background about her having been right that I would know when to call. It was totally true. He packed up last minute stuff and made himself some breakfast. I lay over the edge of the bed and made a lot of noise with each contraction. He would come in and rub my back, which helped keep the pain level of the contractions slightly below totally unmanageable. At this point, I had given up tracking contractions, but Mike kept it up for a while.

Finally, he came in and said it was time to go to the birth center. It was cold and the windows were iced over. After they defrosted, we drove the 3 minutes to the birth center and I waddled inside. Dr Liz said I looked like I was in labor. I had a contraction in the hallway on the way to the birthing room and rested against the wall for a while.

I lay down on the bed and yelled through some more contractions (several? many?). I remember writhing around and saying "ow, ow, ow" a lot, but Mike would probably be more help with what I was doing at this point.

Dr Liz checked my cervix and said that there was good news and other good news. I was 9.5cm dilated and the baby was in a very good position. They filled the birth tub for me, which took a while because the water didn't want to warm up.

I moved into the tub, which was fabulous. It was relaxing and made it a little easier to get through the contractions. Dr Liz said that I could push if I felt like it, but that she wanted to check me again before I really got into the pushing. I did most of this part on my hands and knees because then Mike could get to my back and rub it.

This part starts to all blend together. There were lots of contractions. They hurt. At one point, I remember saying I couldn't do it anymore. In one part of my brain, I knew that was something that women in labor typically say, and I felt a little silly for saying it. In another part of my brain, I knew that there wasn't a choice and I'd do it no matter what because there wasn't an alternative. And with some other part, I just wanted the reassurance of someone telling me that that yes, I could do it.

I started feeling like pushing. Contractions with pushing caused me to make a whole different noise than contractions without pushing. Apparently it's just the noise one makes when pushing down a baby, because someone mentioned later that they had come into the birth center and said "yup, she's pushing." I pushed on my hands and knees for a while, then flipped over and lay on my back with my legs up. I could push against the wall of the tub doing that and it worked better than on hands and knees (my knees kept slipping a little bit).

Eventually, Mike got into the tub behind me and I held his hands and pushed. I had had this idea that pushing was a constant thing - that once it started, I was just going to push and push until out popped a baby. The reality was that my contractions actually slowed down and I would push hard three or four times, then stop and make "ow, ow, ow" noises while I adjusted to the new position of the baby and caught my breath. Then, I'd have another contraction and push again. It seemed rather well planned to me at the time: I never would have been able to make it through if it'd been constant, but because I could stop and catch my breath part-way, it was doable.

Dr Liz kept telling me she could see the head. She got a mirror and Mike was able to check it out. She said baby had hair. With every contraction (and accompanying three or four pushes), I could feel the baby move down further and things got painful in a different, stretching sort of a way. I really appreciated the pauses between contractions when I could adjust to what was going on, but I also would have appreciated just being able to push through it and get the whole thing done faster.

Dr Liz started telling me that in just a few more contractions, the baby would be out. "Baby in your arms," she kept saying. I decided I was just going to go for it and pushed hard through two contractions. The head came out and then the rest of the baby just sort of blorped out after it. They lay baby on my chest and covered it with a towel and poured warm pool-water onto it to keep it warm. It started to cry almost immediately upon exit. Some said we should check which flavor it was, so we looked under the towel and it was a girl. At that point, I didn't care what it was as long as it was out.

She lay on my chest and cried for a while and we looked at her and said things that I'm sure were terrifically profound like "look, it's a baby." It's probably good we weren't video taping at that point. Baby was born at 10:00am after about 4.5 hours of labor including about an hours-worth of pushing.

After the cord stopped pulsing, they clamped it and Mike cut it with a pair of scissors. It spurted a little bit of blood and then the baby was a totally separate person. Mike and baby got out of the tub and sat in the rocking chair for a little early bonding. I slowly got out of the tub and headed over to the bed, where I delivered the placenta. It was incredibly weird-feeling. Dr Liz said it was going to feel unpleasant, but that it didn't have any bones so it wouldn't be too bad. That pretty much described it.

They brought baby over to me in the bed and we got her to nurse a little bit. She was wearing a little green hat. At that point, my mother came in. The plan had been for her to drive up and stay at the apartment to let the dog out. However, she didn't have keys and was stopping by the birth center to pick them up. She didn't know the baby had been born and was very surprised to walk in and see me in bed nursing a tiny green hatted person.

Eventually, we had breakfast, I took a nap, and Dr Liz checked over me and the baby (I can't remember what order those things happened in). Everything was very quiet and relaxed. My mother eventually headed over to the apartment to walk the dog and we prepared to leave. Mike packed up our stuff, most of which we hadn't even looked at, we strapped the baby into the car seat and left the birth center at about 3:30pm. We'd been there for about 10 hours.


I'm not sure what I was expecting from my birth experience because I don't think I went in with very many expectations other than the desire to not do it in a hospital. I couldn't really say if it was harder or easier than I expected - I think it was probably both. It was both shorter and longer than I was expecting. I hadn't expected to spend close to 24 hours having fairly minor contractions and I definitely hadn't expected to move so abruptly from those into such a short period (only 4.5 hours) of painful, active labor. I hadn't expected my reaction to the pain of contractions to be quite so intense and loud with screaming and ow-ow-ow-ing. I didn't expect pushing to have breaks in it. The sensations of giving birth are pretty much impossible to accurately describe and are fairly difficult to accurately remember. I can remember that things hurt, but I can't actually remember what the pain felt like. And really, I'm fine with that.

Busy day today

This morning, I woke up early then due to work-related happenings (Mike's, not mine) didn't fall back to sleep. Around 8, I finally decided to get up. I started a load of laundry, cleaned part of the bathroom, and generally puttered around until about 9:30, when it was time to go meet my pregnant lady friend to go for our weekly walk.

We walked around the neighborhood around Mt Tabor. Typically, we've walked all the way up, then walked down (for about a 2 hour walk), but we decided that we'd maybe just stay on the flat part today, then go have some tea. Good decision; I'm pretty sure it would have taken me a lot longer than 2 hours to make it all the way up today.

After the walk, I took the dog to get groomed. He's extremely lovely now. The groomer did a very good job on him. While he was getting groomed, I did some shopping at Cascade Station. I bought a pair of shoes (being shipped to me), ate lunch, and wandered around for about 2 hours. By the end, I was pretty much tired out. I picked up the dog and headed home. Then I took a very fine nap.

I have sewing / cleaning plans for this evening. Based on the length of my nap, I may never go to sleep tonight... so there's the chance that I'll get a lot done. There's also the chance that I'll be tired regardless and go to bed early. I'm going to pretty much play it by ear based on how tired I am. I figure the Tiny Squee will decide.

Pregnant Lisa Pictures

I meant to post these right after we took them, but I just didn't get to it. So here's me, about a week and a half ago

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So we didn't go into labor last night

This is a potentially Too Much Information post for those of you who are squeamish about body fluids... so stop reading now if that's the case. You are warned.

For the past week or so, I've been, shall we say, "well lubricated". Way up from normal levels, but that's normal during the end of pregnancy. Over the weekend, it jumped to a new level. Sunday, I resorted to sticking a folded washcloth in my underwear because periodically, I would have a "gush" of fluid. Not a huge enough gush that it was obvious that my water had broken, but enough that I had to change my underwear and my pants would get wet.

Dr. Liz had given me pH paper at the previous appointment (on Tuesday) when I had mentioned that secretion levels were rising. Urine and vaginal fluids usually have an acidic pH, while amniotic fluid is close to neutral. However, when she gave me the paper, she said that these pHs can vary and that many of her colleagues don't even give out pH paper anymore because it's so often wrong. With that in mind, I had pHed various body fluids and determined on Tuesday that my urine was close to neutral and so was this other fluid, so it was probably just an extension of the "peeing when you sneeze" development from several weeks ago.

Sunday evening, I ran another set of pH experiments and determined that urine was now somewhat acidic and the "gushing" fluid was neutral. That evening, I called Dr Liz and we had a consult. The end result was that nothing could be determined, she wasn't that worried because the pH paper is so often wrong and what I was describing didn't sound like it was due to my membranes having ruptured. We moved my appointment for the week to Monday afternoon (from Tuesday morning).

Sunday night I didn't sleep well and had a bad dream that something had happened to the baby. Other than that, it was uneventful.

Monday, "gushing" continued fairly similarly to Sunday. Monday afternoon, we headed to meet up with Dr Liz. She did an exam and collected some fluid so she could dry it on a slide and look for "ferning". Apparently cervical mucus during fertile periods and amniotic fluid both "fern" when they dry. Basically, as they dry, they sort of crystalize into a pattern that looks kind of like ferns (I thought it looked more like snowflakes). Ferning test was inconclusive: it looked like there might be slight ferning, but it wasn't enough to make Dr Liz certain that it was amniotic fluid.

We headed home and Dr Liz dropped by with another test, which ended up basically being pH paper packaged for home use. It showed the same thing as the pH paper did (unsurprisingly). We discussed the options.

Basically, the problem boils down to the fact that I tested positive for Group B Strep, which typically isn't problematic unless membranes rupture well before you go into labor. What we were looking at (pH test, ferning) suggested that it was possible that my membranes might have slightly ruptured. However, it was totally inconclusive as to whether they actually had or not. Irritating.

After literally hours of debate, we decided that I should definitely start taking oral antibiotics. Then we debated whether it would be a good idea to try to get labor started. If my membranes had, in fact, ruptured, then it was advisable for labor to start within 48 hours. At that point, it had already been over 24 (since the gushing started). We bought castor oil when we picked up the prescription for the antibiotics. Dr Liz stopped by her office for another look at the ferning slides, which looked even less convincing the second time.

We called off the "let's start labor tonight" plan in favor of the "let's wait until tomorrow morning" plan. I started the antibiotics and we went to bed.

I called Dr Liz this morning and we decided that we're both comfortable with me being on antibiotics and not trying to start labor early, unless there is some other, more conclusive sign that my membranes actually have ruptured or that I've got an infection. I could go to the hospital and have them test, but they'll do the exact same tests that we've already done and presumably get the same inconclusive answers. I don't want to end up being induced at the hospital for no reason; that's exactly what I was trying to avoid by having the baby at a birth center.

I'm extremely relieved that I didn't go into labor last night. Apparently I need a few more days to prepare mentally for the baby to arrive. I had things I wanted to get done this week, I had a final to give today, and I just wasn't expecting it to happen quite that quickly. I'm not sure how I expect it to be different in another few days or a week, but somehow it seems less stressful. Hopefully I won't feel quite so overwhelmed when it actually does start, and hopefully it'll be able to start naturally whenever the baby is ready to come out.

Sickness

So I caught a cold. I really don't recommend getting a cold during the last two weeks of pregnancy.

I took off of work Tuesday and Wednesday. I hate taking off work; it's inconvenient for everyone involved. It just means that I have to do more work later on. I ended up taking ginormous naps during the middle of both days. They helped a lot. I felt much better by the beginning of Thursday, which was good because my class Thursday morning was doing presentations and I really couldn't take off. I got through today as well, which finishes my last real teaching day for the term!

Being finished with the term makes this whole "baby" thing a lot more real. I've been counting down to B-day  based on the number of weeks left in the term and now there's only finals left. My finals are Monday and Tuesday, then I'm done teaching. That means that we're down to the wire on baby production. Tiny Squee could be here any time. I had a moment of sudden clarity that boiled down to "Oh my god, we're actually going to have a BABY." It's seemed pretty abstract up until now. I guess it's really time to start getting ready.

I haven't gotten anything ready this past week, what with the being sick. That also means that I'm behind with grading, which then gets pushed back, so I'm not going to get any baby prep stuff done this weekend either. Hopefully Tiny Squee stays internal until at least the due date so that I have a few days to clean and get stuff a bit more organized.

I also need to write a post about my Blessingway, but I haven't done that either due to sickness, business, etc.

It's a watermelon!

Baby position

The Tiny Squee has totally moved down out of my stomach and diaphragm. I'm not sure if this is it "dropping", which it's supposed to do before it's born.. but it's certainly more comfortable for eating. However, it's substantially less comfortable for sitting and for walking. Driving has become slightly more challenging. I have to lean the seat back a bit more than I used to so that I don't compress a head into the lower part of my abdomen / pelvic region. One of my students noticed that the baby had moved down this evening, so I don't think that it's just me imagining it.

There's definitely more contraction activity going on than there was a week ago. I'm having Braxton Hicks contractions (which feel sort of like a tightness going through my whole abdomen) probably once every several hours (at least). I've started to get sort of menstrual-crampy feelings as well. However, Dr Liz was talking about those yesterday at the appointment, so I'm wondering if I'm making them up just because she planted the suggestion.

Prenatal Massage #1

I had gotten a livingsocial coupon for a prenatal massage way back before Christmas. I meant to use it during Winter Break, but didn't get around to it. I remembered it recently and decided that I should probably go and use it before the Tiny Squee decides to make an appearance and a prenatal massage is no longer appropriate.

It was very nice. The woman giving the massage was also pregnant, so we chatted about pregnancy while she rubbed. Tiny Squee got pretty active during the massage. I'm feeling very limber (for certain very pregnant definitions of limber).

I have another prenatal massage that my mother made arrangements for coming up this weekend when I'm in Corvallis. I'm thinking of making an appointment for another one back at the place I went today near the end of next week or next weekend.

The only bad part is that I have to go into work now.

Dr. Visit

Today's Dr's appointment involved the Group B Strep test and a check of cervical dilation. Apparently about 25% of normal, healthy women have strep colonizing their nether regions and experience no symptoms from it. However, it can present issues if the baby gets an infection during delivery... so if you test positive during pregnancy, usually you get antibiotics.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from getting my cervix checked, but it wasn't one of my favorite experiences. Dr Liz got all up in there and poked around, which was fairly crampy and painful. She says the baby is definitely head down and I'm about 2cm dilated, which is about as much as a penny. That doesn't mean much, other than things are moving in the correct direction. I could stay that amount dilated for the next three or four weeks.

Heartburn...

Last night was not my best night. I had Triscuits and ice cream too close to bedtime, I think.

I ended up waking up at about 3:00 with killer heartburn. It was bad enough that I got out of bed and took some Tums, then ended up walking around for a half hour or so. Then I sat in my chair for a while (to keep upright) until I finally felt good enough to head back to bed.

On the plus side, this morning I had a dream that we got a bouncy castle for the Blessingway.

Text conversation with my mother.

Me: Getting pretty pregnant now.

My mother: You're looking like a recycling bag.