"Life is just what happens to you..."

"...While you're busy making other plans."

Sunday, April 24, 2011.


Easter Sunday.

3 weeks, 1 day until Due Date.

To-Do List:
- Church at 7:45am
- Prep lamb, etc. & start making bread
- Tidy living room, dining room, bathroom
- Guests arrive at 2:00/2:30pm for Easter Dinner
- Clean up, do dishes
- Pack overnight bag for hospital
- Make contact list/ phone tree for when Baby arrives
- Finish typing Birth Plan


That's sort of how the day was supposed to go. And yet, here I am, holding my sleeping 25-day-old son in my arms, typing this blog post one-handed.

That morning, I woke up well before the alarm to make one of my many trips to the bathroom, and I noticed an unsettling sensation. Trying to dismiss it, I went back to bed...only to be awoken again a half-hour later by another odd feeling. After another trip to the bathroom and back to bed, I woke Jason: "Hey. Um... I think my water may have broken?" This being my first pregnancy, the announcement came out more like a question. Jason, doing the best he could to make sure I wasn't just overreacting, responded: "What makes you think that?"

[For the sake of you readers, and because I'd like to maintain some modesty, I will do my best not to get too graphic in my accounting of this story...]

Let's just say that some of the things that happen to a woman's body at the very earliest onset of pre-labor were happening. We decided to skip church, because I wanted to avoid the possibility of being in the middle of the service and feeling and/or looking like I all-of-a-sudden wet my pants. At this point, we were still set on having dinner guests, so we headed to the kitchen to get an early start. As we were having a quick bite of breakfast, I started to notice some cramping -- it felt like mild menstrual cramps. My first thought was, "huh...that's sorta weird." And my second thought was, "wow, these cramps seem to be recurring pretty regularly every few minutes." Let's start the Timeline here: 6:45am.

I called my mom to explain the situation. See, Mom had a flight booked to arrive in California on May 10th -- sixteen days away. I thought she should consider bumping up her flight. Mom recommended I call the hospital, and of course Jason thought doing so was unnecessary. 7:30am -- I called the hospital. I spoke to a very nice nurse, Joy, who told me, "Okay, call back in an hour and let us know if anything's changed. And if nothing's changed, still call back in an hour and let us know." At the same time, Jason was on the internet researching "Braxton Hicks contractions". Jason's expert recommendation: "lie down on the sofa, put your feet up, and drink some water; the cramps should stop in 30 or 40 minutes." Not wanting to be that spastic pregnant woman that overreacts to every little thing, I agreed. I reluctantly sent Jason on an errand to buy me some maxi pads (after all, I was sort of leaking), and I headed for the sofa. Not two minutes after I laid down, I had that "uh-oh" feeling again, and I ran to the bathroom. This time, things seemed a little more abnormal than what I would have expected of normal, run-of-the-mill labor. I was still having cramps (we'll call them contractions, even though, at that point, they didn't really feel very intense or painful), and I had started bleeding. I frantically called the hospital back, informed them of my newest symptom, and they suggested I come in to get checked out...just in case.

By the time Jason got home from the store, I was pretty panicked. He went upstairs to pack our overnight bag, which I said we didn't have time for, and he argued that it would only take a second and we should probably have it with us...just in case. We started haphazardly throwing things into a suitcase. We grabbed the laptop, the cameras, the birthing ball, our suitcase, and some towels for me to sit on (...just in case) and rushed outside to the car. 8:30am -- we're on our way to the hospital. I called to tell them we were in transit and to expect us in about 10 minutes. Once we got there, I hurried to the Family Birth Center (labor/delivery ward) where I was greeted by Joy, the wonderful nurse I spoke to on the phone. First thing's first -- they have to verify you're actually in labor before they admit you and put you in a room. Okay.

8:45am -- first exam at the hospital. The verdict: yes, I was most definitely in labor! This fact was made abundantly clear when the nurse announced, "Wow, you're 5-6cm and 100% effaced! Let's get the doctor on-call." Oh yeah, this would be a good time to point out that my body decided to go into labor the one weekend that my doctor is out of town -- awesome. Luckily, I'd heard good things about the on-call doctor, Dr. Alexander, so I didn't worry too much when he walked into the room and said, "Looks like we're gonna have a baby today!" That was Jason's que to retrieve all of our "just in case" stuff from the car. In the meantime, they moved me to a room. According to the monitors they strapped to my belly, I was contracting every two minutes or less and the baby's heartbeat was in good shape. At that point, I was definitely feeling the contractions more intensely, and I had to rely on Jason to keep me focused and breathing. Thankfully, I was able to walk around my room while I was laboring, and I only had to get back in bed long enough for Joy to put the monitors back on and check my progress.

Approximately 10:30am -- second exam at the hospital. Joy again seemed surprised and was happy to inform us: "You're about 8cm!" See, the first exam was a surprise, because up to that point I hadn't even felt like I was in labor (whatever that was supposed to feel like). And the second exam was so shocking, because I never expected things would progress so darn fast! I spent most of the next hour-and-a-half laboring in bed. The doctor wanted me hooked up to an IV because I had bled quite a bit, and my fluid levels needed to be maintained for my and the baby's sake. I had the monitors on me constantly. Jason and I could tell when another contraction was about to hit, because there was a slight acceleration in the baby's heartbeat. My contractions were getting longer and stronger, and they were coming right on top of each other. All I could do was breathe and moan...and pray that my body was not going to rip in half!

Around 12:00pm -- third exam. Joy smiled and said, "Oh yeah, you're 10...with a little lip. You can probably start pushing any time you feel pressure." At that point, I was starting to feel tired and a little delirious. What the heck is the difference between the pain I've been feeling and "pressure"...?!! Joy told me that I had to stay completely relaxed during the next contraction so I could identify my body's natural tendency to push. I was sure she was on crack cocaine -- what do you mean "stay relaxed"?!!! Well, sure enough, I kept my body as not-tensed-up as possible, which resulted in me letting out a blood-curdling yell, and I promptly confirmed, "yes, it is definitely time to push!!!" That contraction hurt so bad I was practically levitating off the bed! I remember being quite concerned about two things after that moment, and I had to ask Nurse Joy: 1) Has anyone ever broken the rails on these hospital beds? and 2) Is my screaming scaring other patients in the rooms next to me? During the next few contractions, I demonstrated my best "practice pushes"...which turned out to be quite productive. It wasn't long before Joy had to go fetch Dr. Alexander. While the doctor was suiting up, I experimented with pushing in a couple different positions so that I could do what was most comfortable for me ("comfortable" here is a relative term of course, considering I'm trying to push a baby out of my body) and also most productive for getting the baby out. After a few more minutes of pushing, Jason, Joy, and Dr. Alexander all started to notice that the baby's heartrate was decelerating during the contractions (which is normal)...but it wasn't really recovering very well. Dr. Alexander tried to explain that it was urgent we get the baby out ASAP. Like I said, I was kind of delirious, so things weren't really making a lot of sense to me at that point. I just kept right on pushing! Because everything was happening so quickly, my body didn't really have a full opportunity to "accommodate" the passage of the baby, so the doctor had to give me a little snip to make more room for the baby. As soon as that was done, the baby came out with the very next push! And - OH MY GOSH - I have never felt in my entire life such a sense of relief! Euphoria really does consume you at that moment. I heard Jason say, "It's a boy!" and I looked up and saw tears in his eyes. Jason was really a trooper -- he stayed right by my side the whole time, offering encouragement and letting me squeeze the heck out of his hand every step of the way. We heard our baby boy crying right away -- the most beautiful noise we'd ever heard. Jason got to cut the cord, and they put the baby directly on my chest. I laid there, dazed and exhausted, holding my precious baby boy...

Because we didn't know the sex of the baby prior to delivery, we went into the room with two names in mind, one boy and one girl. Once Jason made that announcment, we finally knew who we were dealing with: Everett Thomas Fleming Cole. He was born at 12:40pm.

Once Everett was born, Dr. Alexander was able to identify what was the cause of all the bleeding I had experienced during the labor -- partial placental abruption. Basically, the placenta, the baby's life-line on the inside, was starting to separate from the wall of my uterus, which could potentially be a very bad thing. In a normal situation, this is supposed to happen after the baby's out, when the baby doesn't need that organ any longer. In my case, it spontaneously started to happen some time that morning (as far as we can tell), which is probably what initiated my labor. I guess my body just knew something wasn't right and it was time to get the baby out! Thankfully, a crisis was averted, and we were left holding our perfectly healthy (albeit 22-day-early), 6-pound, 18.5-inch-long baby boy, Everett.

Not exactly the Easter Sunday we had planned.... Oh yeah, Jason was able to send our expected guests a text message, so they knew dinner was cancelled. Too bad -- that lamb sure would've been yummy. And thankfully my mom was able to get on a plane that afternoon, so she got to meet Everett on his birthday. My dad flew out to Cali early the next morning. We spent the next couple days recovering at the hospital. Once the doctors and nurses were satisfied that Everett was absolutely perfect, they let us go home. It was nice to be home, and yet so surreal -- three days earlier, Jason and I were just going about business as usual...and now we have a baby! What a blessing that Mom and Dad could be there with us to help "soften the blow". And here we are, almost a month later (Wow, I can't believe it's already been a month!), Mom and Dad are back in Texas, and it's just me, Jason, and Everett trying to figure things out as we go...

So far, so good!