Whew. I am finally getting around to posting Ace's birth story. But first, a disclaimer: if you can't handle a little TMI about a birth, then spare yourself and just skip this post. Also, brevity isn't my strong suit when it comes to things like this, so congratulations in advance to those who actually read this entire post.
Ace’s due date was Tuesday, March 8th, 2011. One week later, I was still pregnant. That was the longest week of my life. I went to my doctor’s appointment at 1:15 on March 15th, the appointment I had made 2 weeks earlier but never thought I would need because surely I wouldn’t be a whole week late. I expected him to be late, but not over a week. Ace, apparently, had other plans.
At my doctor’s appointment, she stripped my membranes and told me to make an appointment at the hospital for an NST for that Friday. She also told me that if I hadn’t had the baby by 42 weeks, I would be induced, which I was not too keen on. I left the hospital determined to get that baby out within the next 48 hours.
My doctor had told me to go home and walk around as much as possible, so that I did. I got home and went for a long walk by myself near our house. By the time I got home, Kirk was on his way home from work and we planned to meet up in San Clemente after he surfed so we could do some more walking on the beach trail. Once we got down to the trail and started walking, I felt my first real contraction. It felt a lot like the Braxton Hicks I had been getting for weeks, but accompanied by some mild back pain. But, it didn’t hurt and I didn’t feel another one for quite a while later.
On the beach trail that night. Wearing Kirk's shirt, hugely pregnant, and not too happy about it.
At least it was a pretty night.
I felt a couple more contractions that night, but I didn't get my hopes up that they were real labor, since I had been hopeful that every other contraction I had had the previous week would be "the real thing" and they weren't. So, I went to bed thinking that if they got any stronger they would wake me up (and I was secretly hoping that they would).
They didn't. I slept through the night and woke up wide awake just before 7 (which is a miracle by itself). I was terrified that the contractions had stopped during the night, and I held my breath and prayed that they hadn't. Just when I had just about given up, I got one. After that they came about 20 minutes apart. Kirk woke up and asked how I was feeling, and I told him today might be the day. I told him to go to work anyways, though, because I was still paranoid that they might stop altogether. Off he went, but the contractions kept coming.
At around 10 the contractions were every 15 minutes, and I decided that I would call my mom around 11. She called me first, though, around 10:15, and told me I should probably have Kirk come home. Up until she said that, I wasn't too worried or hopeful since the contractions still weren't very bad at all. But, I called Kirk and told him to come home. I packed my hospital bag and anxiously puttered around our apartment.
After Kirk got there, the contractions were consistently 10 minutes apart, but not very strong. We walked down to the shopping center across the street to get some lunch and walked back, in hopes of prodding the contractions along. We then watched Avatar since I had never seen it (and I still haven't seen the whole thing). About halfway through the movie I started getting frustrated because the contractions were still 10 minutes apart and not really progressing. Then, during a particularly strong contraction, I felt a tiny pop high up in my stomach. I thought my water had broken but when I stood up I didn't feel anything, and I couldn't tell if there was a slow trickle or not. They ended up breaking my water later anyways, so I'm not sure what that pop was. All I know is that immediately after that happened, the contractions started coming every 5 minutes and were a lot stronger. After sitting out a few, I told Kirk we should go and we headed to the hospital.
We got to hospital around 3:30, where I'm sure all the valet guys out front were quite amused to see me have to stop and suffer through a contraction in the middle of the street, and went to go check in upstairs. The nurse told me they were cleaning beds and I would have to wait in the waiting room until they were ready. That half hour we had to wait was probably the worst of my labor, since all I could do was sit on a hard chair while the other people in the waiting room stared at me. During that time, my contractions went from uncomfortable to downright painful. I also remember towards the end this young guy came in and sat across from me on his Iphone, and his typing noise was SO LOUD and annoying that I wanted to take his Iphone and chuck it at his head. I tried to give him some dirty looks in between contractions but he didn't notice. Thankfully, the nurse called us back not long after that.
I finally got in, they checked me and I was a 5! Thank goodness, I had been terrified that I would only be a 2 and they would send me home. Kirk let the nurse know I wanted to do it naturally while I was in the bathroom, and I think I heard her say, "Did I hear that right?" Once the nurse left the room, I looked at Kirk and said, "So this means I'm officially in labor now, right?" He laughed an assured me I was. After that, much of my labor is a blur, as I think I went into some kind of meditative trance. I sat on the exercise ball for a long time. I prayed a lot. I asked Kirk to give me a blessing early on, during which the contractions were completely gone and I felt fine, but as soon as he said Amen they were back in full force - go figure. I asked several times to take the fetal monitoring straps off, but the nurse said no. The nurse and her assistant (a nursing student, I think) were nice but the nurse was so strict. More than anything, I want those stupid straps off because the nurses would not. stop. fiddling. with them - moving them around and pushing on them, even when I was in the middle of a contraction. Thankfully, my nurse talked to my doctor at some point and she I could do intermittent monitoring. Not long after, the shifts changed and I got a new nurse, who was an angel comparatively, helping me get in the right positions and encouraging me. She also informed me that the baby wasn't turned the right way to come out, and I spent the rest of my labor in the bed on my left side, trying to encourage him to turn all the way over.
They decided to break my water but we had to wait for the doctor to get out of surgery to do it. When he finally got there he checked me and I was a 6, only having progressed a centimeter after having been there for several hours. Once my water was broken, the contractions started coming much much stronger, with no break in between. About an hour later, I felt like I was reaching the end of my rope and I begged Kirk to have them come check me. At that point I doubted I would be able to do it without an epidural if I hadn't progressed at all. The nurse checked me and I was still only between a 6 and 7, and the baby still hadn't turned. I wanted to cry. The nurse offered me some kind of narcotic, told me it would only last an hour and I took it. Thank heavens for that narcotic - it let me relax enough in between contractions to let the baby turn, but I could still very much feel everything.
They gave me the narcotic at 8:05, and then came back to check me 45 minutes later. The nurse was surprised and said, "Oh! You're a 9 and a half! You can start pushing in 20 minutes." I wanted to shout for joy. But I didn't, of course, because I was silent this whole time. Thankfully, my doctor was on call that night, so we waited for her to come deliver me. My narcotic wore off completely during this time, and the contractions were strong, intense, and constant, but somehow I got through them knowing that the end was near. While waiting, my nurse kept telling me to just relax through the contractions like I had been, but I was getting the intense urge to push so I just did. I didn't tell her, though, because I thought I would get in trouble.
Finally my doctor got there, everything got set up for delivery and I was told to push. On the first push, they could see the baby's head, and everyone got really excited, even though I didn't know why at the time. The nurse started paging for a baby nurse after only a couple pushes, and I remember wondering why, since I thought he wasn't that close to being out yet. I've had several people ask what it was like to feel the pushing, and all I can say is that is was intense. There is so much going on in your body that you can barely wrap your head around it, and for me, pushing was definitely a relief from just sitting through the contractions. It seemed to fly by - after 15 minutes of pushing that felt more like 5, he was out! What followed was probably the most amazing and indescribable feeling of all time - a seriously out of body experience of intense relief and emotions and of course, amazing joy as I held my baby the first time. Ace was born at 9:44 pm, and weighed 7 lbs., 13 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.
Overall, the entire experience was just extremely surreal and I'm still somewhat in shock that I really did do it without an epidural. To hear Kirk tell it, I was completely silent the entire time, even during the pushing. I honestly don't remember. Everything that I had read on natural birth told me to completely relax during contractions to make them less painful, and so that's what I did. However, that required all my mental and physical capacities, so I really didn't have any energy left for screaming. I think Kirk was the most surprised, though - he half expected me to be hurling things at his head during labor. To his credit, Kirk was, of course, amazing through the whole thing. He was at my side the entire time, supporting and encouraging me. I definitely could not have done it without him.
Looking back now, labor was not that bad and I could definitely do it again (although I am in no hurry to go through recovery again anytime soon). The entire birth was an amazing and intense spiritual and emotional experience, and the hardest work I've ever had to do. And of course, absolutely worth every second to welcome little Ace into the world.
In Kirk's words - welcome to earth, buddy. We love him so much already.
P.S. I think someone was a little hungry. Not much has changed in his 5 weeks of life.
