Anna! Part 1

Little Anna Rae is here!

Since I have a little time on my hands, I thought I'd share her "birth story." It may be kinda long--I'm feeling wordy.

Last Thursday I went to the doctor for my weekly check up. I was a week "overdue" and only 3cm dialated (up 1cm from the week before). So we began to have the conversation I'd been dreading all week: when to schedule the "C-section."

Many people have asked me 1) why the doctor jumped straight to C-section without passing "induction" first, and 2) why I'm so set on having VBACs, when scheduling a cesaerian seems so much "easier" and less "risky." For the first question, the answer is that having had a C-section already, induction with something like pitosin is incredibly risky. Chances of rupture or hemorraging increase like a gazillion percent, so unless they have a really good reason to think labor will progress on its own after a very tiny push, they try to avoid it. My doctor referred to it as setting me up for failure. If I was induced and my body didn't kick in quickly, I'd probably end up with a C-section anyway, only I'd have more complications, and my body would be super exhausted.

So why not just embrace the C-section? While it is true that having had major abdominal surgery 4 years ago makes parts of labor a bit more dangerous, I would never categorize a C-section as "easier." When you have a baby vaginally, you're tired and sore, but barring any major tearing or hemmorraging you can be up and about pretty soon. After a C-section, you're out for the count for a while. You spend the first day asleep, the first few days in bed, and the next few weeks hobbling around, trying to walk faster without pulling your stitches, or laugh without hurting, and you can't even carry your baby in a baby carrier for the first month. Basically, C-section=long recovery.

I don't regret that Tommy came the way he did. He was healthy and happy, and the circumstances surrounding his birth made everything work. My mom was living with us, so even when Logan was at school I had someone to help me get up from the couch, pick up the baby and do household stuff. It worked. But things are different now. I have two other children to take care of, Logan works full time (and can only take so much time off of work), and my mom, while still nearby, also works full time. So the thought of another C-section scared me stiff. To top it off, my brother is getting married on Friday, so if I wanted to attend, I'd have to have surgery on Monday--Memorial day--to give myself time enough to recover.

I was freaking out! The doctor was willing to push the date back as far as Thursday, but that would mean no wedding, and virtually no time with my family (who are all scheduled to fly in that day). I left the office quite depressed. All I could think was "Anna, pleeeeeeease come soon!"

When I woke up the next morning still not in labor, my mood hadn't improved much. I called my mom and we made plans to "work on getting the baby here." These plans involved a whole lotta walking. We toured around Costco for about three hours, and I actually did start to have real contractions...just not consistantly.

Around 9:00 that night we were starting to think we should call it a night and try some other things in the morning. Mom stayed at the house with the boys while Logan and I took a walk, and when we got back I felt pretty tired. As a last ditch effort, we looked up some accupressure massage points online, and mom massaged my feet for a while. I was contracting, but it was still pretty erratic. Around 10:30 mom went home, and I told her I'd call her if anything developed. I started to fold laundry, tidy up a bit, and put my pajamas on, ready to get some rest. All this time I'd been using my awesome iPad app to track the frequency and duration of my contractions (have I mentioned how much I love my iPad?) and it began to occur to me that they were consistantly 10 minutes apart. A good sign. I was getting ready to crawl into bed when I noticed that they were suddenly coming much sooner--five minutes apart. I casually walked up to Logan (who was watching a Mariner's game) and suggested that he might want to go to bed, too--it could be a long night. He looked at me, looked at the game, and said "I think I'll be okay." I have a feeling he thought I was crying wolf.

For pain control I use a method of relaxation called "hypnobirthing", which sounds way more hippy than it is. It's really all about focusing on your breathing and removing tension so that your body can do what it needs to help labor along. This worked great with Jack--my labor was less than twelve hours, and only the last three hours were what I considered "difficult" or, my prefferred word, "intense." When my contractions for Anna became regular at 5 minutes apart, I laid down and began my breathing techniques, hoping to keep the contractions going while allowing my body to rest. It was a little harder this time, because, of all things, I had a cold! My nose kept getting blocked up, so I had to try and breath through my mouth, which doesn't work as well when you're trying to relax. It was still working, though, and over the next hour the contractions shrank to 4 minutes apart, lasting about a minute each. My doctor had said to come in after 5-1-1: 5 minutes apart, one minute long for an hour. I called Logan (literally on his cell; I didn't want to get out of bed) and said "Guess what! We're having a baby tonight!"

I called my mom, and then went through my mental checklist of things to do. I felt very in control of the situation, which is an awesome feeling for a control freak like me. I made sure everything was ready for the boys in the morning, showed my Dad (our on-call babysitter) how to handle their routine, made sure we had what we needed, and managed to breath through contractions which were now coming 3.5 minutes apart. We left around midnight, headed for Augusta Health Center, 45 minutes from Buena Vista. I joked to Mom and Logan that the nurses weren't going to believe I was in labor, but hopefully they'd admit me anyway. I was pretty close--they never questioned whether I should be admitted, but they certainly seemed to think I'd be there for a while!