Mace's Birth Story, Part II

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention... Mark's dad was in town the week before Mace was born and spoke at a conference up at the base in Killeen (he's a psychiatrist for the VA).  Mark had to wake up around 3 am on Sunday to take his dad back to the airport.  THAT is why we were both so incredibly exhausted by Sunday evening.

Anyway, I didn't want to make Mark get out of bed (yet) since contractions hadn't started or anything.  But of course I couldn't help but wake him up and be like, "My water broke!!! Now go back to bed, I'll let you know when you need to get up and pack."  I was kind of ticked that I had cleaned the house and gotten everything ready, but I *hadn't* packed yet because my due date was still almost 3 weeks away.  (Lesson: Listen to your body's intuition!  It's okay to think you're going to have your babies early!)

I called the doctor and asked her what I was supposed to do, and she said to try to sleep or whatever and come in when the contractions got bad.  Second labors go faster than first labors, etc etc.  With Carmen, my contractions were *never* less than 5-7 minutes apart (they're usually supposed to go to 2-3 minutes apart at some point) and my body took its sweet, sweet time to get ready to push Carmen out.  But then my contractions started and they were all 2-3 minutes apart.  Mark, it's time to start packing!


I tried to remember the things I had learned in my Bradley Method class.  I had my birthing ball and the couch and Mark was willing to do counter pressure.  I made it about an hour before I decided I wanted to die and there was no way in heck I was going without an epidural unless I was dilated past a 7 or something.  I. Hate. Labor. Pain.  I felt like there were millions of baby velociraptors in my abdomen trying to tear apart my thighs.  My legs shook uncontrollably with every contraction and I felt too tired (and still sick from the sinus infection) to handle it.

Mark woke a sleepy Carmen up and told her Mommy was having a baby.  She rubbed her eyes, confused, and said, "Is it my birthday?"  (Mace was due on her birthday.)  Mark explained that Mace decided to be born early and it wasn't quite her birthday yet.  "Oh, okay." she said.  We called Chris and Becca (our friends who were going to watch Carmen while I was at the hospital) to tell them we were heading to the hospital, and I'm in the background going, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's so early, I'm sorry to wake you up!!!  I'M SO SORRY."

We dropped Carmen off and drove to the hospital.  I was just about crying from the pain, thinking natural childbirth people are masochists, and I repeated to Mark over and over again, "I'm not kidding, I'm not doing this, I want an epidural if I'm not very dilated and I don't care."

My favorite midwife (Dr. Kubesh) was on call at the hospital until 8 and I don't remember if I had brought my birth plan to my last appointment (on Wednesday) or if I had left it at home ... anyway.  She looked over my birth plan and said everything looked great.  I stopped her informed her, "The only thing I'm changing is I WANT AN EPIDURAL.  I'm sorry.  I thought I wanted to do this naturally, but ... I'm sorry ..."  She was so sweet and reminded me there's more to my birth plan than avoiding medication. ;)

Around 7 am, Dr. Kubesh checked me and told me I was about 80% effaced, 3 cm dilated (sad, sad days!!), and at -1 station (Basically, you get to 100% effacement, you dilate to a 10, and when you get to a positive station the baby is basically coming out.)  She told me that since my water had already broken, they wouldn't do any more vaginal exams because that increases the risk of infection and they would pretty much leave me alone until I felt I was ready to push.

I was in lots of pain, but I tried to stay cheerful about it.  Nobody likes a whiner, right?  I had a nurse and a student come in and take my vitals every so often and they were both really cute and sweet.  They teased me about being too cheerful for being in labor, and they wouldn't know whether or not the epidural was working because I was so peaceful and happy-seeming.  Honestly, every time a contraction started I just tried to relax through it like I'd tried to learn in my Bradley class.  BUT DANG IT HURT SO BAD.  BURNING BABY VELOCIRAPTORS.

Finally, I got an epidural.  Soon afterwards, I could tell that my left side was way more numb than my right side.  In fact, my right side hardly felt numb at all.  They tried having me roll over onto my other side so gravity would pull some of the medication down to my right side, but it never really seemed to work ... This epidural was not as amazing as Carmen's was.  But since my legs were mostly numb, I was stuck in bed with half a happy body and half a body being eaten by velociraptors.  Oh, well, let me tell you - half an epidural is still probably a million times better than no epidural at all. ;)

And the contractions continued to be as close together as they had been.  I was kind of miserable and I had no idea how long I had left.  Occasionally I'd press the button to get more epidural drugs, but I couldn't get my right side to stop hurting.  After an hour or two, I called the nurses back in to see if there was anything they could do for me.  They brought the anesthesiologist back in at some point and she pulled on the epidural IV they put in my back, and it seemed to straighten things out and help my right side get a little more numb.

At about the same time, they decided to check me and see how far along I was, because if I was in so much pain I might just be in transition.  Man, that would be awesome!  It was only, like, 11 am!!  Sure enough, I was dilated to a 9.  Really?  After only a few hours?  Awesome!  They told me to call them back in when I started feeling the urge to push (you feel pressure down there like you need to poop.)

The doctor was actually delivering another baby when I started feeling the urge to push, so I had to relax and resist the urge to push until the doctor came in.  Dr. Sebestyen set everything up and put Mark in position so he could help catch the baby when he was born (that was something Mark wanted to do, so we put it in our birth plan if the doctors would be okay with it.)  She told me to start pushing when I felt ready, and suddenly I had stage fright.  I couldn't remember how to push or how to breathe or ... anything.  My mind was blank.  Dr. Sebestyen was so nice and told me when to push and inhale and exhale and remember to breathe.  (me = dork.)

I pushed for the first time and everyone told me they saw the baby's head.  I didn't believe them.  I pushed a second time, a third time, and his head started coming out.  (I'd asked for a mirror so I could see it.  It's so gross, but so cool!)  I didn't watch much of it, actually, because I clamped my eyes shut while I pushed to block out some of the pain from my half-epidural.  A few times she asked me to push a little bit and hold him somewhere ... and ... I don't know.  Then he was out.  It took like 20 minutes.  I am a stud.

The baby was born at 11:53 am and they sat him on my stomach as soon as he came out.  Mark caught him.  They covered him with a blanket and I just wanted to hold him and hold him and hold him and hold him. Eventually, Mark cut the cord, the placenta came out, and Dr. Sebesteyen showed it to us and described everything. It looks like a giant red and gray unskinned chicken breast. (Yuck, cool?)

They told the student that I had done really awesome and it was something like a perfect delivery.  They asked me how much I thought my baby weighed, and I said, "Well, at my last appointment they didn't seem to think he was very big, and he's two and a half weeks early, so I'm thinking he can't possibly weigh more than 7 pounds?"  He was 7 pounds 7 ounces.  SWEET!  And he was 19 3/4" long.

And I didn't tear.  I couldn't believe it when they told me I didn't tear - I felt AMAZING.

For those of you who are going to have a baby some day - DO SQUATS.  I think that's what made it so I didn't tear.

The epidural wore off quickly and I wasn't in very much pain at all (I think I took 2 or 3 ibuprofen total, and stopped taking them early the next morning?) and I wanted to walk.  They have you go to the bathroom before they take you to your new suite and the nurse kept teasing me because I wanted to walk to the bathroom myself (with a half-numb left leg).  I'm sure I looked a bit like a drunk Jack Sparrow, or Inigo from The Princess Bride.  "This is where I am, and this is where I'm gonna stay!  I will no' be moved!"


And oh man.  I didn't tear.  I could walk!  I felt awesome!  I wanted to go home!  I had the one of the biggest hospital rooms (because it was in the corner!)  Mace roomed in with me the WHOLE TIME and they only took him away twice (at midnight, to be weighed) (okay, and to be circumcised) and he nursed really well (even with a really bad tongue-tie) and I love my pediatrician (Dr. Juan Guerrero) and Mace was SUCH A QUIET HAPPY PEACEFUL CHILLED OUT BABY.

I was just in love on cloud 9.  I have never felt so amazing in my life.

My hat's off to you women who do natural childbirth.  That day, I learned if I had a choice, there is no way I would do a natural birth or a home birth.  As much as I hate the nurses coming in and harassing you all the time, I hate labor pain even more. ;)


Man, I love these cute people!  Carmen cried when she came to the hospital and I told her Mace couldn't come home with her yet.  "The doctors want to keep checking on him." I said.  "Oh no!" she cried. "Are they going to give him SHOTS?!" and started crying for all the pain the doctors would inflict on her poor baby brother.  She told me that if anyone says anything mean about him, she would hiss ("fiss!!") at them and chase them away.  You go, girl!

Mace's birth story, part 1

Carmen was born two weeks early, on the due date predicted by my LMP (40 weeks after the first day of your last period).  My second pregnancy was basically identical to my first, so I was more or less expecting to have a baby around my LMP-determined due date.

For the record, my LMP due date was May 4.  My ultrasound-adjusted due date was May 11 (Carmen's birthday.)  Mace's real birthday was Monday, April 23.  He psyched us all out!!!

the week before Mace was born:
Facebook updates in italics:

April 16 - Did massive quantities of nesting activities today. Even washed some baby clothes! I feel much better now.

April 17 - Filled out the hospital's online preregistration form and had my first Braxton Hicks contractions today. Exciting? Still got 3 weeks left!

In the middle of April, I started feeling sick like I had eaten too much junk food.  I also started having some Braxton-Hicks contractions, so I got the feeling the time was coming soon.  Of course, I had a hard time telling anybody because they would just think, "Oh, you silly girl, there's no way you can predict when your baby comes based on how you feel.  Just wait until it happens." but I wanted to scream, "No, wait!  It's silly, but I seriously feel like I'm probably going to have a baby this weekend!  I'm willing to wait until my due date and beyond, but I've just got this feeling!"

So, darn it, I told the Jehovah's Witnesses.  "I'm feeling the same way I felt the week before Carmen was born.  We'll see if it means anything!"

April 19 - Started my "medical hold" at the gym today. Carmen has so much fun at the day care - I almost feel bad picking her up! Today she was having a tea party with another little girl, and it was sooooo cute!

April 21 - Funny how sinus infections sneak up on you, then suddenly hit you in the head like a baseball bat.

comments under this post:

Dana- No not funny. :( I hope you feel better.
Robin- get better!
Rebecca- Ugh, just what you needed!
LuAnn- whenever I was pregnant I would always get horrible sinus infections. I saw my ENT more than my OB-Gyn.
Kamis- Irony, Murphy's Law, or God's Cruel Sense of Humor dictates I'm probably going to go into labor while sick. (Oh, man, I hope not!!!) For the record, Rhinocort is amazing. Apparently it's the only pregnancy-approved drug of its kind, and for once I don't feel like my sinuses are going to explode! Yay, steroids! Yay, allergy doctor who preemptively gave me this prescription 5 months ago!
April 22 at 7:16am
Check out the date on that comment.  I am so psychic.

Some of Mark's friends asked if our family wanted to go to Lion King on ice (I think?) at the end of April.  I would have loved to go, but I didn't want to commit to anything just in case the baby came.  Instead, we decided to get together at a park on Saturday.  I ended up developing a nasty sinus infection that day, so Mark took Carmen to play with their daughter at the park and I spent the day in bed.  Several months ago, an allergy doctor gave me a prescription for Rhinocort aqua, the only pregnancy-approved nasal spray ... so I used it and felt amazing.  Oh man.  I didn't realize how much the inflammation affected how miserable sinus infections are.

Beefed up by Rhinocort, I went to church on Sunday.  Some people asked me how much longer I had left, and I told them it was about 3 weeks to my due date.  How am I feeling?  Fine, who knows when this baby will come.  They needed a substitute pianist in Primary.  I play the piano for Relief Society, but I volunteered to fill in for the first hour.  A good friend of mine is the Primary Chorister, so it was nice being able to spend some time around her.

By the time Sunday ended, I was exhausted.  I was looking forward to planting Carmen in front of the TV for a little while in the morning so I could catch some extra sleep.  Darn that sinus infection.

I woke up in the middle of the night, as usual, because I wanted to roll over or something.  I lay there quietly for a few moments and tried to go back to sleep, then felt ... a pop.  And my water broke at 3:46 am.

Oh, crap.  I thought.  So much for sleeping in today.  My second thought was, Hurry, get to the bathroom!  You didn't get the sheets wet!  GET UP GET UP GET UP.

Random update

Every time I think about blogging again, life gets crazy.  You know, like your 3-week-old has an underarm temperature of 101F and your pediatrician sends you to the ER, where you stay for 2 days.  Turns out it was just a virus, but you need to go to the ER because sometimes a fever is the only symptom of some really serious, nasty bacterial infections (such as meningitis, which has little side effects like brain damage and death.)  Glad it was only a virus, and it was kind of nice having a few days away from Carmen.  When Mark came to visit us, he told us allllllll about a funny "love poison" episode of My Little Pony he and Carmen watched.  Yes, he watched My Little Pony, and yes, he seemed to enjoy it.  It's a clever show, loved by young and old (and males and females) alike! (Pick a link, any link.)  One of my best friends regularly watches the show with her 3-year-old daughter.  Another friend doesn't even have kids, but watches the show and lets Carmen play with the ponies she owns.

What else?  A few of my friends got married, the kids have been consistently sick since the ER trip, and I am generally exhausted and miserable and looking forward to June.  But there is so much I want to write about!

Then I think, "Oh, I can't write about these things, because I need to catch up first."  Go ahead and file that under "lame excuses."  Excuses are like poop: they generally stink.  Or something like that.  So I will forget my need to blog about things in a certain order (who cares anyway?) and just write about whatever I feel like when I get the chance, chronology be darned!!

Events of the month:
Went to two weddings.
Found out one of my best friends has leukemia.
Interesting dichotomy - something beautiful and happy and something really, incredibly sucky.  No one should have to receive such news at 26.

Moving to Austin

Honestly, I haven't written much in this blog lately because ... I love Texas!  This has been the most amazing move and the easiest adjustment I've ever had to a move ... with the possible exception of Colorado Springs.  It's easier to adjust when you go to school every day and get to hang out with people.  Then suddenly you're a grown-up and you have to (gasp!) coordinate your own social outings to make friends!!

So I guess I will start out with a quick summary of our moving experience:

We moved out shortly after the Fourth of July.  Mark's new company hired a moving company to move us, so we didn't have to do any of the packing or heavy lifting.  Woohoo!  The bad thing is that you never know who the moving company is going to hire, so we got a whole bunch of whiny guys in their mid-30's who moped and complained about *everything* the whole time they packed up our house, and I believe one of the guys was drunk.  He puked on our front lawn.  Lovely.

We made sure to be in Austin by the first day they said they "might" be here with our stuff, but of course they had contracting issues with the person who was supposed to drive our stuff out here and we ended up staying at a hotel for an extra week.  Luckily, it was a really nice extended stay hotel with a little kitchen, fridge, and dishwasher, (and free sketchy slow internet!) so it wasn't *too* bad!  Carmen and I spent most of the time playing down at the pool, where she tried telling all of the other kids she was 4.  (She had just turned 2 in May.  HAHA.)

Then we moved into our apartment, and the managers forgot (?) we had asked for a garage with a parking spot in front of it.  They also miscalculated our rent, so we had to bring in the papers from when we visited in May to show them what rent we had agreed to. -_-  We had a big pile of stuff in the middle of our dining room for another 2 weeks before someone moved out of their garage and we moved in.  It's actually a really sweet set-up ... our garage is in our building next to the stairs!  Getting everything together in this apartment involved a lot of waiting.  We scheduled Time-Warner Cable to set up our Internet, then the *day* before we were scheduled, they were like, "Just kidding, we overscheduled ourselves, we'll come give you Internet in two weeks!!"  (so we kind of got the garage and the Internet at the same time ... and by this point we had been in Austin for about 4 weeks.)

I think I have the best, friendliest ward in the UNIVERSE.  The first time we visited, we felt welcome.  The second time we visited (right after we moved in) so many people seemed to remember us.  It really meant a lot to me.  I love our Relief Society president and think she's really concerned about all the women in the ward.  Everyone is really friendly.  As soon as we moved in, someone got in touch with us and said, "Hey, a bunch of people get together with this guy named Donny on Tuesday nights at this pizza place called Double Dave's."  So we went there on our first Tuesday in Austin and made half a dozen insta-friends.  Then a bunch of people said, "Hey, we have a book club, we have a play group, we have this, we have that, want to get involved?"  And I was like HECK YES.  So I felt like I was immediately immersed in this active group of friends.  I just gave a few people my email list and suddenly I was in on all the stuff people were doing together. <3

So I joined a play group and a book club, which is pretty much all you need if you want to be able to get out and see people, right?  Play group is great because then I can get to know all the people who have kids Carmen's age and thereabouts, and book club is great because ... dude ... I LOVE BOOK CLUBS.  It's fun to read new books and get together and discuss them with people and get ideas for the next half-dozen books I need to check out from the library and read at the gym.

Speaking of gyms, I tried transferring my Gold's Gym membership to Austin.  Dear universe: Avoid Gold's Gym at all costs if you can.  I was with them for 5 years and I hate the company with a passion.  Every time I tried to do something a little different (put my gym membership on hold because we didn't have a car and I didn't want to walk 2 miles to the gym, or put an extension on my personal trainer sessions because I was pregnant and had a baby, or transfer my membership because WE MOVED TO AUSTIN ...) they would run me around and throw all sorts of "policies" at me that CLEARLY weren't in my contract.  In fact, one of my friends told me that Gold's Gym pretty much loses every time they get sued because their paperwork is so bad.

Anyway.  So I tried transferring my membership to Austin and I had 5 months or so left on my contract.  Gold's Gym Utah sent the new gym a check to pay for my membership and it was, like, $50 and they told me it was enough for a month and a half.  Then I would have to sign some new contract for an expensive crappy membership if I wanted to stay, but I could get a discount (oh joy!) if I only wanted to sign up for the one location.  Where the air conditioning doesn't work.  Right.  So I sat in the manager's office and cried because Utah was treating me so terribly ("we only gave you that much because we don't pay for hold time.  It's our policy."  WTF.)  Gold's Gym advertises that you can go to or transfer to *any* of their locations, but good luck going some place out of state.  They lie.  They're actually owned by different companies in each state, so you tell them you're a member and they say, "Actually, you're just a visitor, but we'll let you skate this first time.  Next time, you'll pay a visitor/day care/whatever fee." and then you just decide you're not going to work out at all during this vacation.  Anyway, the manager felt sorry for me and offered me a free membership until my Utah membership would've expired.

Then I started a quest to find a NEW gym.  One that wouldn't suck and one where I could just go to the gym, drop Carmen off at the day care, and read on the elliptical.  Instead of finding a cheap no-frills gym, though, we ended up finding one called Lifetime Fitness.  It has, like, three or four pools; a huge day care with a baby section, a toddler section, a computer lab, something that looks like a McDonald's playland, a basketball court, and an outdoor play area (and you get TWO HOURS of day care!!); several places where you can take fitness classes and yoga; a health spa; a cafe; gorgeous locker rooms ... It's like a gym, but gold-plated.  I want to go.  Carmen loves it.  After I work out, I sit on the couch and read, cross-stitch, or watch TV until my 2 hours is up.  IT IS AMAZING.  It is so worth what we pay for it.  It is better than preschool.  Except maybe for the fact that I have to be at the gym while Carmen is in the day care.

I also became a member at the Austin children's museum.  They have a train, a cow, pigs on parachutes (so they can FLY, DUH!), stuff to build, golf balls to drop down ramps, story time, bubbles, fish ... The membership pays for itself (with just 2 people going on a "4-person" membership) after about 6 visits.  And I can bring friends for free- they don't have to be family!  So I get to bribe my friends to come on Children's Museum dates with me. ;)

So yeah.  I pretty much love everything about my life here.  I love my friends and what I have the opportunity to do and I haven't blogged because I've been too busy having fun and being pregnant and having a newborn.  I've already written too much; I'll start another entry for later.  Some time I'll even get around to pictures. =p