Tasty Turntable

I had a baby. And maybe this isn’t something you want to read… but I’ve been hanging out with a lot of pregnant ladies and midwives and stuff… so, I know there are some people who will want to read all this gross info.

Consider yourself warned.

I woke up on the morning of July 4th and felt…. weird. I was all leaky (but not the regular pregnant, “oh I kinda peed” leaky, this was different) and my abdomen was all tight. Something was going on, so I called the emergency on-call line and described what was happening. And they told me it might still be a few days and it’s no big deal.
Pfffft!What the heck do they know? I suspected this baby was planning his escape.

I let Ed sleep while I tied up some loose ends work-wise and packed up my hospital bag. I woke him up a couple hours later to tell him I was maybe having a baby. He looked a little panicky so I reassured him it was okay.

We went to Steveston for a late brunch. It was weird and crampy and kinda uncomfortable for me. But nothing crazy was happening. At 2pm, after eating we walked back to the car and my water broke. Ick. I was wearing a pad so it didn’t pour out all over everything but it sure felt really warm and gross.

Then light contractions started and they were fine. I just breathed through ’em.
Once we got home I tried to nap… but every few minutes a contraction would start up and ruin it. And I was super uncomfortable doing anything except sitting on the toilet.
It got to the point a few hours later where the pain increased and I had to take some tylenol and gravol.

I was really feeling the pain early in the evening, so I decided to have a bath. The bath felt great and I didn’t want to leave it. My sense of time was totally messed up, so I just yelled to Ed every time a contraction started so he could time them.

Once the contractions were a minute long was about the same time couldn’t handle the pain any more. We decided to pack up and get to the hospital.

We got there around 10pm and met up with our Midwife. She checked me out and commended us on showing up to the hospital when I was dilated 8cm. Perfect timing.
We got up the room and I immediately hopped into the tub there. Ed and the doula took turns giving me nitrous oxide during every contraction and a sip of juice after each had passed.

With the pain steadily increasing I reached 10cm and my breaking point. It was now around 1am and time to get on with the pushing. The pain in my right hip during each contraction was now totally unbearable. Every time someone asked me how I was doing I responded “horrible” and flashed a thumbs down. I decided to get out of the tub and get my epidural on. But, since everyone else at the hospital was getting a c-section that night, it would take a while to get the anesthesiologist up to see me.

I got into the bed and got ready. They checked me out and said they could see the baby’s head. Ed and I both thought, “Sweet! This will all be over soon!” After 2 hours of pushing there was very little result. My contractions were getting weaker, I was getting weaker, and the baby was…. lazy. He was good to just hang out int he birth canal making no progress. He wasn’t making the J-curve around the bone and I was too worn out from the 12 hours of labour up til now to push him along.

The anesthesiologist finally made his way up to me and gave me the epidural so I could ignore the contractions and get some rest. I slept for about an hour before I woke up for some more pushing. Push, push, push for about a half an hour and we actually made enough progress that they decided the baby could be removed with only forceps. Which I admit sounded terrible at the time and it made me cry to think about it.

I was taken down to the OR and prepped. There were about a billion people in there and too much going on for me to keep track of. But I think they gave me a second epidural, so I was numb from my clavicle down to my feet.

They got me all set up and after a push from me and a pull from the forceps the baby’s head was out. One more push and he was out. It took like a half hour, I didn’t feel a thing and it was over. 8am, July 5th.

Ed and Koa have the same birthday.

Everyone kept exclaiming how special and amazing it was. Ed didn’t think so. He spent his birthday in the hospital watching me writhe in agony. I admit, not the greatest way to spend a birthday.

The little guy was good. He snuggled up on me and was happy and quiet. Even though he was a gross purplish-grey colour (I guess that’s normal).

I got stitched up and everyone marvelled and the minimal tearing and great stitch job. I only had first degree tears and my perineum was completely intact. Which is rare for a first birth and practically unheard of for a forceps birth. Thanks Dr. Azat! I appreciate you staying late after your shift was technically over to do a freaking amazing job of ensuring my vagina didn’t rip to shreds. You rock!

We stayed in the hospital the next 2 nights because Koa and I are terrible at breastfeeding. I wasn’t making milk and was too fussy to figure out how to work my nipples, anyway. We eventually went home with donor milk.

All I kept thinking the whole time was”hello baby, welcome to planet earth”. And laughing because “welcome to earth” seemed so ridiculous. Like he came from space or something.

Oh, and when people say you forget how painful childbirth is…. it’s true. Even the next day, I was all, “it was okay”. Then Ed reminded me how terrible it was and how I was writhing in pain, moaning, for 12 hours. I was like oh, yeah… that sucked. Worst pain of my life. I thought my hip was going to break off. But… it didn’t. Yay.

The end.

We have a baby now. He is little and wiggly and likes cuddling and eating and sleeping and yelling. And he has a real name. Little Pepsi Supernintendo is now known as:

Koa Montague Azuela Starkiller Samonte

Yes, it is ridiculously long. But we could only agree on Starkiller. So I picked 2 names and Ed picked 2 names and we hung on to Starkiller and … there you have it.

And if this post makes zero sense, it’s because I haven’t slept in 3 weeks. Sleep deprivation is the worst. Good thing this little baby is extra cute. He is squirmy and he likes my terrible singing. I think I’ll keep him.