Peanut's Grand and Graceful Entrance

I'm pretty sure you all have guessed where I've been lately.  Our little Peanut has been with us for over 2 weeks now and time to write here has become very, very scarce.  She came "into the light" at 2:04 on October 16th, 7lb 10oz and 19 inches of pure sweetness.  I am one incredibly blessed woman, to be given the gift of two beautiful children to raise.  And what's more, Peanut came into the world so gracefully, her birth so surreally smooth that it barely disrupted anyone's day.

For a few days before it started, I was getting annoyed.  Lots of contractions, and not painless ones, either.  I felt like one perpetual menstrual cramp.  At night, I was woken by contractions, and on the Thursday night before she was born I was kept awake until about 4am by so many of them I wondered if I was in labour.  It turned out to be what they call prodromal labour, sometimes called "false labour" but since it feels very real, let's honor it with a proper name.  Some poor women online reported having this for weeks or even months before they went into labour, and learning that discouraged me quite a bit.  

So when I was woken the next morning at 5am with contractions (after already having a couple that woke me previously) I was skeptical.  I lay in bed checking the clock and noted that they were pretty regular, every 8 minutes or so.  When Sean woke up at 6:30 they were still coming at 8 minutes, and we lay in bed cuddling and talking, cozy, while we timed a few more.  Boodge woke up and came in for his pee and morning "boo", and then we all got up and had coffee.  Sean made me eggs and toast, my mom and my cousin (who had come for the weekend in the hopes she could witness the birth) got up.  By then contractions were every 6 minutes or so, but I was still skeptical that it was the real thing.  I guess I didn't want to be disappointed again.

But also, I was aware of not wanting to make a big deal of labour.  My last birth, everything was so focused on the labour, I ended up a watched pot that stopped boiling.  This time, I didn't want to feel like the center of attention, I just wanted everyone to go about their business.  I was inspired by birth stories I had read in which women were finishing painting the rocking chair or working in their garden right through early labour.  That is the type of birthing woman I wanted to be this time.  So I told everyone that I didn't want to be watched, and we should just go about the day doing what we needed to get done.

So Sean started puttering around, replacing light bulbs, fixing squeaks and leaks, charging phones and cameras.  My cousin Natasha made some playdough and my mom, she and I play-doughed with Boodge for a while.  When a contraction happened I told Natasha and she noted the start and end. 

When they had been coming every 6 minutes for a while I called my doula.  She said things sounded promising and asked me what I wanted.  I didn't want her to come over yet, I felt like that would put too much emphasis on the labour.  So I told her I'd call her back when I felt I needed help.  About half an hour later I called the midwife while pushing Boodge on the swing outside.  She said I sounded too perky and to call her back in half an hour or so to see where we were.  By now, I was pretty convinced it was the real thing, so I decided to go inside and make Peanut a birthday cake.   Boodge and I got busy mixing the ingredients, and my contractions moved from 5 to 4 minutes apart while we cooked.

 Yep, I'm having a contraction here.

As I turned on the timer without putting the cake in the oven, I realized I needed to start focusing on the labour.   It was Boodge's nap=time.  I spoke to my midwife, and when I told her I was about to nurse Boodge to sleep she was confident that it would kick things into gear.  Nursing releases oxytocin, which stimulates labour.  And so it was, when Boodge was asleep, I put in my contact lenses so I could clearly see my babe when she arrived,  and announced that I needed to go to the hospital.  "I don't want to be here when Boodge wakes up.  Let's just go and get this done," I said. I called my midwife again, and as soon as I said hello she said, "Ok, your voice sounds ready."  In no time we were in the truck and on our little joyride to the hospital. 

We arrived at about 12:30.  My doula met us at the door.  I had a contraction before I got out of the truck, right after I entered the hospital, two on the way to the elevator, on on the way up, and one as soon as we exited.  I checked in, had a contraction, my midwife met us, I had a contraction, we got to the triage, I had a contraction.  In between contractions she checked me and the baby and then checked my dilation.  I was six centimeters.

Here we had our only little hiccup. When she checked me, the sack of waters was so hard she wondered for a minute if it was the baby's bum, coming breach.  All of a sudden a doctor was paged just in case, and an ultrasound machine was brought in.  But with the ultrasound and another check, the midwife was able to determine that Peanut was indeed head down, ready to go/  I was checked into a room with a big soaker tub, which my cousin set to filling right away.

By this time, I was hurting.  The tub was a great relief, taking some of the gravity and pressure off my abdomen, but still, the contractions were intense and I was using some choice words to get through them.  "This f@$%ing sucks. I don't want to do this anymore," I told Sean once or twice.  But I knew that feeling that way meant I was probably pretty close, and sure enough I soon felt the "pressure" my midwife and doula had been asking me about.  I called out to tell them, and my midwife told me that I would have to get out of the tub--hospital policy is that we can't birth in there.

After the next contraction ended I eyed the distance from tub to bed, and mentally prepared to make the move.  Another contraction, and then I rose up and out, pushing aside the towel Sean tried to cover me with "I don't care about decency or anything like that. Just make sure I don't slip. I have to get to the bed fast." I believe that was what I said.  "Wow, you really are a 'get her done' kind of birthing woman," my doula commented.  Everyone laughed that she was repeating the phrase I had used when I announced we had to go to the hospital.

Turns out Peanut is a get 'er done kind of woman too, so we worked well together.  At first, I wasn't sure if we were in the pushing phase.  With Boodge, I had a long "calm" period before pushing, and then the contractions changed very distinctly.  This time, my midwife didn't check my dilation after the first check at 6 centimeters, so I wasn't sure we were "there"yet. But then she commented that "my body was very telling" and my doula explained that she didn't need to check because my body was clearly ready.  I gave a push and the midwife commented that it had been my first really good push.  Never one to back away from a challenge, I thought, "Oh, so we ARE pushing? I'll show you good pushes then."  The next push broke my water. Two minutes later I pushed out the head.  And two minutes after that, Peanut came shooting out into the world.  I pushed for about 8 minutes.

I mentioned in my Hidden Tigers post that my fondest wish for this birth was to be able to cuddle and nurse with my baby with no worries after the birth. To bask in the afterglow and the love.  And I got that wish, and it was every bit as elated as I hoped it would be. I felt like a superstar, and I fell in love with my baby the moment I saw her.  She latched on like a pro minutes after she was born, and nursed for almost an hour.  We knew each other already, that much was clear.  After all my anxiety during pregnancy, and my guilt over thinking only of how Boodge would adjust and paying little attention to the baby inside me, I felt so as if Peanut was letting me know it was OK.  And besides that, she was going to be gracious and accommodating enough to come into the world in a way that never disrupted her big brother's schedule.

An hour after the birth, my mom and Boodge showed up and he met his little sister.  He was hyper and happy and his normal, rambunctious self, more interested in the buttons that moved the hospital bed up and down than in his little sister. The midwife and nurses came in and out delivering papers and taking vital signs and making me pee, and decided I was OK to check out that same evening at 7pm.  So my mom and cousin went to find us some take-out food (after the hospital delivered what looked like dog food for my dinner. It boggles the mind that there is a dietitian overlooking the menu at the hospital, and the food is going to ill people....and it's SO crappy!).  We ate, and by then it was pretty much time to go, so we bundled up Peanut and got the hell out of there.

Once home, my mom mixed the icing for the cake while we cracked the champagne.  Boodge and I iced the cake, and we all enjoyed some of Peanut's very first birthday cake.  It was Boodge's bedtime then, so while Peanut slept in my cousin's arms I nursed him to sleep, right on time like I do every night, and he was none the wiser that his life had just changed dramatically that day.  Then Peanut and I crawled into bed and snuggled close, my body still craving her just as I'm sure hers still craved mine. And we drifted off into a long, beautiful sleep.