The "blow by blow"

Well, we're finally back home, and have loved reading all the e-mails, messages, and comments that we've gotten since we left home on Saturday. We were allowed to stay at the hospital until about 3:00 this afternoon, but had just enough cabin fever to chase us out of that cramped, though nice recovering room closer to 9:30 this morning.

Mom is taking a nap after pulling some yeoman’s work this morning (feeding and singing to Mia from about 4:00 - 6:30 this morning, letting me sleep). Our daughter is safely swaddled in a pink Miracle Blanket in the co-sleeper that's been pulled into our living room. NPR is on for the first time this week, which feels as comforting and refreshing as a cold glass of water. I'm oddly wide-awake, so wanted to take a moment to run through the story of the last few days for the official record.

Without getting into the biology of it all, we had a sign of progress around 1:30 Friday morning (2/17). If anybody reading this is pregnant right now be careful with that eggplant, it's potent stuff. We had even further indications that things were progressing on Saturday morning, again about 2:00 in the morning, so that's two nights sleep just plain lost to excitement and anticipation.

We waited until an appropriate and polite time to call our Dr. for advice on how to interpret these signs, and were told to relax, take a shower, eat some breakfast, then make sure all our bags were packed and get to the hospital. There was the outside chance that this was another false start, but of course it turned out not to be.

Given that there's no way to tell the story without a minimum of the science, Corrie's water had broken. Once that happens, we are immediately put on a downhill track that one way or another has to end with a baby being born within a specific time frame. We had wanted to have a natural birth, but plan B was fast becoming a reality.

By the time we reached the hospital, we hadn't really started laboring in any way other than the water breaking, and there was a long way to go before this kid was coming out. In such circumstances, our Dr. suggested helping nature along with the dreaded "Pitocyn".

It also helps to know the fear this word can invoke, particularly on those that want natural births. In short, it ramps up the contractions so they come closer to 30 seconds apart, as opposed to the more common 5 minutes. We've been hearing many a tale of just how painful this could be, to the effect of "practically everybody that takes the Pitocyn ends up with an epidural." With little in the way of options, Corrie was hooked up, and started having contractions fairly soon thereafter.

7 and a half hours later, with me and the Doula doing all we can to help her relax through an unending series of contractions, she is almost halfway there. By now it's just past midnight on Saturday, and we hadn't had a decent sleep since Wednesday. Best-case scenario, she's not expecting to be able to push until 9:00 the next morning, and the really hard work had yet to begin. Given that, and after some long conversations, we decided to go with the epidural, just to get some sleep.

And it helped. Sweet lord did it help. She didn't get much sleep as nurses had to check her temperature and blood pressure every 15 minutes all night, but she could at least rest. The Doula and I managed to steal a few hours on borrowed gurneys next to Corrie's bed. Around 4:00 though I just couldn't sleep anymore. Leaving a half passed out wife with our Doula for 5 minutes, I ran downstairs to grab some strong coffee and freak out in private.

So she finally gets to a point where she's ready to push, and with just that sliver of rest, is ready to go. We help her push through each contraction for an hour before the Dr. comes to tell us that we're making no progress. Her head had turned and gotten stuck, what would we like to do? Clinging to the idea of at least a partially natural birth, we stuck with the pushing and redoubled her efforts. Her face turning purple, sweat running down her forehead, Corrie pulled off some Herculean effort, only to have the Dr. come back after the second hour to say, "no progress, what do you want to do". Still unwilling to give up, we plunge back into the fray for a third hour of pushing, and at this point I'm worried she's going to grind her teeth to nubs. Again, no progress. At this point, wiped out from lack of sleep and exhaustion, and feeling thoroughly defeated, we decide to go with the C-section.

And this would have to count as our low-point. Every decision we had made before going into labor had been taken away from us, and we were in exactly the position we wanted to avoid. Corrie and I both were somewhat afraid of not only the surgery, but the 6-week expected recovery time. In the operating room the drugs are causing her to shake like a leaf in a storm. I'm trying to affect a calm and supportive demeanor with limited success, and them we both hear our daughter cry.

And everything changed at that point. There's no way to describe the moment without resorting to cliché’s, but we all just lost it at that point. Both of us choking back tears Corrie and I were just totally unable to say anything to each other or anybody else. I don't remember there actually being anybody else there, though there must have been an army of nurses and surgeons. They bundled her up and handed me my daughter, who I brought back to Corrie. She wasn't able to hold her or nurse, but we had a daughter from that point on.

The Doula stayed with Corrie as I followed Mia up to the ICU. Corrie had developed a fever after 36 hours of labor, so they thought Mia might be at risk of an infection. For the next two days our little girl had to be hooked up to an IV to ensure she didn't suffer from any potential brain damage, but as you probably have guessed by now, she was/is fine.

So after 4 nights of learning how to swaddle, breast feed, and change diapers, we were set free today and brought our daughter home. She's been sleeping a good chunk of the afternoon away, I read to her for a bit, and Corrie fed and changed her once already. She's working on a sleep during the day, eat all night, routine, but this seems perfectly acceptable right now. We've already had a few nights that involved feedings at 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6, and have picked up what has to be the most important trick any parent can ever learn. Namely the ability to get some deep, DEEP sleep in 15-minute chunks. There's no other explanation for us not being drunk with sleep deprivation these days.

So in short that's what our week has been like. Looking forward to so many things, having a blast being parents already. Walter is with his grandparents in CT, so we get to find a rhythm before introducing him to his sister.

Thanks again to everybody that's been there with us through this seemingly endless process. We would not have the confidence and strength to do what we're doing daily now without all the advice from family and friends, all the practice babies we've borrowed, or the small library of literature we have yet to return. You all rock.