Happy Birthday Lydia!

Part 2:

Well, none of the “home remedies” were able to start my labor, so off we went to Athens Regional at 6 a.m. that Monday morning. Without getting into the gory details, my water was broken at 7:30 a.m., the pitocin was started by IV and thus my labor began. Pat, who I thought would be my coach through a natural labor, stayed with us the entire time and kept the mood light. One interesting thing she pointed out was the difference that pitocin makes in your contractions (duh, right?) - shown visually, on the monitor. Instead of showing a gradual rise to a peak and then down, my contractions rocketed straight up to the peak and then down! Initially nothing was too painful – but later on those sky-rocketing contractions were really hard to handle!

Because of the IV, my physical movement was limited. I wasn’t able to walk and of course the bathtub was out. I spent several hours in the rocking chair and then moved to the bed. One amazing thing I learned about contractions is that the break in between the end of one and the beginning of the next is totally painless! I was able to utilize this time to relax and rest. My focus was completely inward and I don’t recall much of what went on in the room when the labor started to get really intense. During every difficult contraction, Pat dug her fist into the small of my back to create some counter-pressure, which helped. (The next day I saw her hand and she had rubbed the skin off of a couple of her knuckles – yikes!) She and Ben were by my side for hours and helped me breathe through the contractions and try to stay relaxed!

Although my doc ordered increases in the Pitocin every half-hour or hour, Pat and my nurse, whose name was also Jen, had mercy and stopped increasing my dosage when hard labor had been thoroughly established. I guess he was tired of waiting on me (in the private doctor waiting room) and wanted to move things along as quickly as possible.

Suddenly during one contraction I had the intense urge to push. After the nurse checked me, she said I could go ahead and push during the next one. At this point, the doc was informed and he came into the room to catch Lydia. I think I pushed for about 1.5 hours and our little baby girl was born at 5:23 that evening.

She was so alert from the moment she was born – all the nurses commented on that. I remember asking at least three times “How much does she weigh?” When they finally weighed her I couldn’t believe she was 7 lbs 11 oz. After they cleaned her up a bit, we were finally alone. I tried nursing and we just spent some time admiring our little girl. It was so amazing to look at her and pick out features that resembled the Baileys or the Johnsons. The nurses came to take her for her tests (Ben went along – already as protective as ever!) and move me to a private room. I remember asking Pat and my mom, “When can I eat? “!!!!

The experience of Lydia’s birth was incredible. Although things didn’t start off like I’d hoped, I was still able to achieve the labor and delivery that I wanted. I was so glad that I didn’t buckle and do everything according to my doctor’s typical routine. I’m sure he thought I was crazy and that I would be begging for the epidural when things got tough. When he saw me a day or two later he obligingly said, “Well, you did it like you wanted.”

P.S. We just discovered that Lydia has her 5th tooth coming in. That probably explains her excessive drooling the past few days.