Welcome to the world!

Happy New Year! How appropriate that we would be bringing our baby home on the first day of 2006. We can’t wait to see what this year holds for us as parents!

The last 5 days have been a whirlwind. Everything started December 27th, the day after my official due date. I starting having contractions that morning, and they felt different from the contractions I’d been getting for the last couple weeks. Even so, they were sporadic, and I expected them to simply peter out like the others had. But by 10 PM I realized that they were getting much more regular and intense, and Dan wisely suggested I take a shower to help myself both relax and prepare for a trip to the hospital, just in case. After my shower, I sat in Dan’s office, timing the surges and fighting the urge to get very excited at the thought that this might actually be it. Over the next two and a half hours, the surges worked their way down to between 5 and 2 minutes apart, and I was fully engaged in my hypnobirthing visualization and breathing. At 12:30 we called Dr. Robinson, and she gave us the thumbs-up for going to the hospital, so we took one last belly photo and took off for Saddleback Women’s Hospital.

We called Tina, our birth coach, and she met us at the hospital. Flora, our first nurse, checked me out and gave us the good news: I was 3 cm and 90% effaced! Per Dr. Robinson’s orders, they had me walk the halls for 45 minutes to see if I would continue to dilate—which I did, to 4 cm, and at that point I was officially admitted to room 290.

The next few hours consisted of wearing a rut in the labor and delivery hallway and retreating to my hypnobirthing zone in various positions in our labor suite. I’d walk for half an hour or so, then relax and do my breathing exercises for another half hour. While Dan and I paced the floors together, we tried to decide what to do for a name if it was a girl—we’d settled on Holly because of my due date’s proximity to Christmas, but our first choice before we even got pregnant had been Abby. The name discussion (and the “Can you believe we’re actually having the baby now?!” discussion) kept my mind off the surges and helped me to actually enjoy the process I was going through. Finally, after all that work, I was up to 5 and a half—and by 10:30 I was at a nine! “A baby by lunch!” was the new cheer, and Tina announced she’d treat us to a take-out lunch from Ruby’s so I could have the chocolate milkshake I was suddenly craving.

Eleven-thirty, 12:30, 1:30….time passed and my body decided that 9 cm was a nice place to hang out. I was tired, but the hypnobirthing was still doing its thing, and I wasn’t really aware of how much time was passing. Every once in a while I’d doze off for a bit, and Pam, our nurse, was astounded at how easily I managed the pain and could actually sleep. (Pam would later decide to attend Tina’s next hypnobirthing class because she was so inspired by my performance. Apparently she was also bragging to the other nurses on duty about me!) However, my doctor wasn’t comfortable with the way things were going (or not going, as the case may be), and wanted to do a little investigating and experimenting to figure out what was going on and try to fix it. They measured the strength of my contractions, and decided they weren’t strong enough—possibly the reason I couldn’t get to that last centimeter. Their first solution was to break my water (everyone was shocked it still hadn’t broken, given all the strain it had been under and all the poking around they’d been doing)—but that didn’t change anything. Their second solution was one I’d been hoping wouldn’t come up—Pitocin. They hooked me up to that around 6:15, and that’s when things started to go downhill. The Pictocin not only made the contractions stronger, it basically strung all the contractions into one giant surge that never ended. At this point I’d been in labor for over 22 hours and awake for 34, and I could have handled it had I been less exhausted and frustrated with how things were going, but given the circumstances, it was just too much. I bore it for an hour and a half before mentally breaking down. In came the epidural, and I’ve never known such relief—I believe I actually uttered the clichéd, “I love you!” to my anesthesiologist.

My doctor encouraged me with the fact that many women progress after getting the epidural because their body is able to relax a bit and not be so stressed. However, after half an hour it was clear this wouldn’t be the case for me. My doctor, the wonderful, gentle woman she is, broke the news that a c-section would be the wisest course of action. Had she brought this up an hour previously, I would have burst into tears, but by this point, I didn’t care. I was tired, and all I wanted to do was meet my baby!

Into the OR we went, and at 8:56 PM, December 28th, Abigail Joy Morrow was pulled into the world, It turns out we had three strikes against us having a vaginal delivery: she was “sunny-side up,” misaligned with the birth canal, and over nine pounds! (Well, one ounce over, anyway!) They measured her as being 21 inches, but everyone agrees they didn’t stretch her enough. She instantly stopped crying when Dan began to talk to her and stared into his eyes like she actually understood him. Everyone marveled at her hair, which was so perfect it look combed, and at the fact that she looked nothing like a newborn. She looks at least a month old already!

It started out exactly like I’d hoped, and while the ending was the exact opposite of what I had dreamed of, the result was beyond anything I could have prayed for. Abby is absolutely perfect. She’s totally mellow, hardly ever cries, and has the most beautiful face! And Dan was amazing throughout the whole thing—he was so calm, despite the frustration I know he felt and how worried he was for me, and he never let me see his tension or concern. Kelli , my sister-in-law, drove with my brother from Bakersfield, CA in the middle of the night to be there as our photographer, and even jumped in to help now and then and keep track of the day’s timeline for us so we’d know later what happened when. Tina was the perfect birth coach—without her I don’t know if I would have stayed focused, especially when things started to get gnarly.

We’re home now, and the family room looks like an explosion in Babies R Us. As I type, Abby is sound asleep on her daddy’s chest, looking like the angel she is, and Dan and I are beside ourselves with all the blessings we’ve received with her arrival. It still hasn’t sunk in that she is our daughter—that she’ll be here for the rest of our lives, that we’re responsible for this little life—but I suppose the realization will come eventually. Until then we’re content to cater to her ever whim and stare at her while she does absolutely nothing of exception. Sounds like a decent way to spend my every waking moment!