read september 2003
read august 2003
november 20th: recalling zuzu's birth
my beautiful daughter was born last monday morning, november 10th at 12:06 am. she was 20 inches long and weighed 8 lbs., 15oz.
as to the labor:
so sunday i went back to the hospital for another morphine shot and the pain was so constant, i knew i needed more than just a shot. it was a cavalcade of interventions at that point that i had been dreading for months - an epidural (which i knew i needed then, and which i was thrilled to get) and then pitosin, then her heart rate dropped for about 3 minutes and so they broke my bag of waters and put in an internal monitor and put me on oxygen. at that point, my temp > 39 and they realized i had an infection and started antiobiotics. within 2 hours of getting to the hospital, i had an epidural, internal monitor, 2 iv's, oxygen and a catheter. it was scary not knowing if this was the "crap intervention" i'd been reading about for so long or if it all truly was warranted.
after 8 hours on the iv's and the pitosin (and varying stages of relief from the epidural), she still hadn't dropped further and my cervix still hadn't dialated. although the nurse midwive who was the attending physician said that she was willing to wait a bit more in the hopes that i might have a vaginal birth, she recommended a c-section for the baby as her heartrate was showing signs of exhaustion, and considering how long i'd been laboring, it wasn't looking as if i were going to progress.
we conferred with our midwive who had been there all afternoon and she agreed she thought it was the best way to go, she agreed that the situation was not likely to change, though the baby was probably going to be tolerating it less and less.
as it turned out, when they did the c-section, they realized just how 'stuck' she was. it took them over 20 minutes to wrestle my uterus (which was clamping down uncontrollably) enough to get her out- it was pushing down so hard they could hardly get her un-stuck from my pelvis. they had to cut the uterus in 3 different directions, and i remember hearing the doctors saying that it would mean i'd never be a candidate for a VBAC with future pregnancies. i have an incision that's about 8 inches long. whether it was the infection which caused the uterus to overact and prolong the labor, or the prolonged labor allowed an existing infection to worsen and further stall labor, who knows. although i know that i've spent the last 9 months questioning every c-section i've heard about as to whether it was necessary or not, it's hard not to look at the details of what happened and count myself as one of the small percentage for whom the c-section was necessary.
any in the long run, it's true what everyone says about it - your healthy baby *is* most important. when faced with that choice, especially given the length of my labor, it was relatively easy to realize that the wistfulness i feel from not having delivered her naturally is MUCH easier to live with than the regret of possibly compromising her health by insisting on a vaginal birth.
sounds like i'm trying to convince myself, i guess - but this is the first time i've actually sat down and written about it. she's beautiful and the only thing i truly regret about the situation is that the moment she was born, i was too drugged up to be in the moment. though i'll never forget hearing the midwive announce "you have a daughter!" - fred and i had been convinced by all the speculation around us that we were having a boy. we were truly surprised - and delighted - to hear it.
so she's beautiful - she was 8 lbs, 15 oz at birth and now, a week later, she's creeping healthily back up to her birth weight. at the moment she's got blue-grey eyes and her daddy's cute button nose. she was 20" long. when she's not sleeping (which is most of the time) she's got a pretty sweet temperment - a little fussy but for the most part just curious. we are enjoying her company tremendously.
now, i haven't said anything about fred this whole time and that's probably because it would take me an equally long email to recount all the ways that he has helped me in this process, all the support he's given, and about how completely connected we are right now. sufficed to say we cry alot these days, about our tremendous fortune, and our fears for the future, and our common bewilderment at this new little person. after she was born, he confessed to me that through the long labor experience (he was awake and with me for 99% of the 5 days of labor) he feels he's passed through some level of devotion and committment that he didn't think was possible, and i truly feel the same. i hope through our mutual exhaustion over the next few months, and through the years ahead as we settle into our new family life, that we never lose sight of that.
well.. it's been an eventful few days to say the least. still no baby, but much progress...
i started having contractions tuesday night. those first contractions were just like regular menstrual cramps combined with some low back pain - they were coming every 20 minutes or so for the first 12 hours and then went to about every 10 minutes after that and picked up in intensity. by late wednesday afternoon, they intensified to being about 6 minutes apart, and lasting between a minute and two minutes. i had some port at night and got a couple of hours of sleep, with contractions in between.
all day thursday the contractions continued and by midnight we decided to go to the birth center. we were checked at judy found me to be 90% effaced but barely dialated. we talked about pain relief/sleep options since at this point i'd been having contractions for 2 solid days, with no likelihood of resolution in the near future. i decided to take some benedryl and tylenol and see if that helped. again, only a small amount of sleep, and interrupted with contractions so by friday morning, i was feeling pretty taxed. we decided at about noon to try a couple of shots of whiskey and that successfully put me down, much like the port wednesday night - just for a couple of hours and still having contractions to wake me up. so basically two hours of 5-6 minutes of sleep punctuated by very strong contractions.
friday, we were feeling hopeful but i was definately getting a bit exhausted. i found that sitting brought on contractions, as did kneeling or squatting so it was standing for me for most of the day. i'd have to stand during a contraction too as that was often the least (ha! so relative!) painful. these contractions were definately the worst so far - really gutwrenching - i have found myself making the most typical gutteral primative noises, it's definately the most pain i've ever experienced.
so last night, our midwife came to the house and examined me and found there was no obvious change physically from the night before. we knew this was likely, and certainly are trusting that the body is going on like this for a reason, and that positive things are happening, even if there's no "obvious" sign, but it was clear that i have been losing strength over the past few days. i had found that sitting or squatting also brought on contractions and so standing was becoming my only option for both in and out of contractions and my legs were pooping out big time. after weighing the likelihood of another night of no break, i opted to go up to the hospital for a shot of morphine to help me sleep through the night. although i'm sure the bean was riding this all out (the contractions didn't phase his/her heartbeat at all!) both fred and i were needing some recharging. i knew even if i were to somehow catapult into active labor that night, i'd be exhausted for the most challenging part!
the hospital was uneventful except for having another exam where the resident sort of swept the membranes over the cervix (which is a common that doctors do to help induce labor in the last few weeks of pregnancy, but which our midwives would only do in a last-case scenario and which the resident just did on me without telling me first) this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it resulted in probably the most painful contractions i'd had yet, between the time she did it and the time we got the shot. however, we did get the shot, and we came home and although the contractions did continue for awhile, we slept pretty much from about 1:30 am to 11:30 am this morning, waking up only every 30 minutes (until 5) and then every 15 minutes to have contractions. this time the contractions were much different - more in the hips, and although painful - certainly not the intensity of yesterday.
so now, i've been up for over and hour and haven't had a single contraction. the morphine can result in one of three scenarios - either the labor will stop completely (sometimes for a few days even) OR it will resume more or less at the same intensity it was, OR it will bounce me into active labor. regardless of what happens, i feel infinitely more prepared for it and frankly, it's nice to have a few minutes where i'm awake and i'm *not* in pain!
i cant possibly speak enough about how great fred has been these last few days - he's only missed a contraction if i decided to just let him sleep for awhile, otherwise, every time i've hopped out of bed, or started wailing from the other room, he's there with me in a heartbeat, talking me through it, massaging my back, standing in the shower with me, everything. i'm glad we both slept last night - we make an even better team than i'd imagined we would through this. i can't believe how lucky i am to have this much support. he tells me that i'm the one doing all the work, but it still feels like we're a team. i see how awed he is at the process and it makes me even stronger.
and so as we sit here waiting for the "next stage" - i have to say one thing... certainly our whole process has been about trying to do this as naturally and without intervention as possible. i know that in my talks with mothers during my pregnancy, it has been hard to quell certain value judgements about how labor should go, or how medical intervention is crap and often is detrimental to the mom and baby. i feel now a sense of humility about this process, and feel somewhat embarrassed by my cocky assumptions about how labor should or most likely goes. i see how different it must be for everyone, and can't begrudge any woman the choices she makes as to how to deal with this
anyways - so here we are, still waiting, but now with a renewed sense of energy and purpose. we anxiously await reading the last page of this first chapter of the baby's book, and we are holding hands and plunging into it together with our (now not so sleepy) eyes open...
welp - 3 days now past our due date. juuuuuuuuust a-waitin'. i'm feeling good, though the ailment of the week is now a furious bout of pregnancy-related carpal tunnel, making it a bit difficult to sleep. i think it's time for another massage (oh, what a world!) :)
this past weekend was pretty fun. we went to our friend james's annual halloween party at his warehouse space. fred went as the conservative candidate for mayor, gavin newsome, along with a slightly altered campaign message. i had thought way back when that if i were still pregnant on halloween and still had a sense of humor, i would make myself an outfit of jiffy-pop popcorn with my belly being the tin-foil covered mound bursting with popcorn, and so i did. it was funny - there were so many people i didn't know there, and they couldnt tell i was pregnant - hah!
seeing as how we found ourselves with a completely free weekend -what a bonus of going over your due date... you simmply don't make plans and therefore find yourself with a completely free schedule. so we woke up saturday morning and did a marathon cleaning spree for about 4 hours. it *could* have been nesting, though it's 2 days later and still no sign of the bean's delivery so... it was probably more that we just didn't want to spend an entire free weekend in a dirty house.
then we went for a typical walk and dinner out. this time the walk was pretty hard, my lower back kept hurting alot, but all in all it was a perfect day. we rented some movies and i went to sleep early!
however, the aforementioned arm problems woke me up promptly in the middle of the night and i had a hard time sleeping through them. luckily yesterday was sunday and i got to go back to sleep and sleep in until about 10:30. fred and i went to muir woods for a long walk, it was perfect. such a sense of wonder there. we were surprised to find that since the last time we were there, the tallest tree in the grove fell and we stood for awhile at it's base and marvelled about how that tree will be there for years, and we can come back with the bean and tell him/her that the tree fell when the bean was actually bean-sized (march 2003). pretty cool.
we came back to the city in time to meet our new pregnant friends for tea and chat about politics and babies. we're all in the same boat as their due date was the day before ours, so it's nice to commiserate.
so today i feel like i've got a 'free pass' - i mean, i'm on borrowed time here, and honestly every day feels no closer to the birth-day than the day before. i can see why women often get to this point and think they're just going to be pregnant forever, but it's still okay. i'm sort of happy as i'm going through the obstacle course of ex-boyfriend and girlfriend's birthdays on the calendar (i have good reason to rue the scorpio!!) but yes whatever day the bean decides to arrive will be the perfect day, no matter what it was before. i hope for my brother chris's sake that the baby lets him have *his* birthday to himself (on the 11th) but chris seems more than willing to share if need be.
well, it's 11:30 and i'd better make a foray out of the house. thanks to everyone for all their good thoughts- we'll definately put the word out when things are happening, but i'm resigned that it may be another week or so, so please be patient!
we named her zuzu evangeline gehrman-mccord. evangeline is a combination of her great-grandmothers' names: evelyn amos and angeline beauchesne.
when last i wrote, it was saturday, and labor had been dragging on for almost 4 days, with varying levels of intensity. though we had a brief respite on saturday, by saturday night at midnight, the contractions were worse than ever, and kept up all night - about 4-5 minutes apart, and sometimes lasting 3 minutes long. when the contractions subsided, there was a constant pain in my pelvis which wouldn't go away. once again, i couldnt sit, lie down, squat or kneel and was left standing all night, and mostly hanging off fred's shoulders. we called the midwives several times during the night and were told that our labor was still not progressing into "active" status due to the contractions not being consistent in length. my midwives described it after the fact as equivalent to hard labor, despite it never being categorized as such. by noon on sunday i was worn down, i could hardly stand up anymore and i still thought that i was in "early labor"- i couldnt imagine what lay ahead for me.
november 8th
november 3rd