Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Zoe's Birth Story - Part 1


I know this is a year late but you know what? Even with everything that has happened in the last year I remember it as if it was yesterday.

At my old work maternity leave started 2 weeks prior to your due date, so I went off work on Feb 18th. It was a relief, as for the last year my workload had just exploded and even with an easy pregnancy it still isn’t easy to work 12+ hours per day when pregnant (or not pregnant for that matter)! So, that Friday I left work breathing a sigh of relief.

I was thrilled when a week passed and Zoe will still safe and snug and with no apparent desire to arrive yet. It gave my time to clean, organize and, most importantly, spend time with Lucy. I was so excited for Zoe but a part of my heart was breaking knowing that things would never be the same again. It would never be three of us with our little world revolving around miss Lucy and I'd be lying if I told you the loss of that little version of our world was a little sad to me. So we spent every minute of those final weeks of pregnancy together and loved every minute of it.

On the night of Wednesday, March 2nd, I work up in the middle of the night with contractions. Nothing too out of the ordinary but enough to wake me up. I remember lying there, with Lucy on one side of me in the bed and Rob on the other thinking,"hmmmm, this may be it." I ignored the contractions and cuddled up to Luce knowing, deep down, that everything was going to change very soon.

Very soon wasn’t very long after that. Ever 7 minutes the contractions came. An hour later, at about 4 am, I poked Rob and said, “hey, so…um…they’re like every 5 minutes now.” He, being the deep sleeper that he is, grunted something and rolled over.

So I got up and got in the shower.

Still every 5 minutes, though not unbearable. So I came in and poked him again.

“Hey you, I think we should call my mom to come over.”

That got him up! My mom arrived at 5:30 am, just in time for my contractions to….end. Sorry mom! She fell asleep on our couch and we went back to bed.

When we all woke up that morning there were no sign of contractions. So we went about our business as usual. We had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon so I mentioned to Rob that we should probably pack the hospital bag, just in case.

So, we dropped off Luce at my mom’s house, with the promise that we would be back soon and went off to our 3:30 pm check up.

Of course, as usual when I’m due with a baby, my lovely doctor is on vacation. So I get checked by another doctor in her practice.

“Oh, wow… you’re like 4.5 cm, almost 5…”

Wait, WHAT?

In my last pregnancy,as you may remember, I went in to the hospital with RAGING BACK LABOR at like 2.5 cm… horrendous. And now this time I’m 5 cm without feeling a thing?  The doctor said, by the looks of it, you’re probably going to have a baby soon. I wouldn’t bother going home, maybe walk around for a but.

Shocked and excited Rob and I walked back to the car. Where I subsequently started crying because we TOLD Lucy that we were going to come home. Oh the GUILT. Honestly, I felt terrible. We called me mom and she assured us that Luce was fine so, we set about our new task at hand…walking.

We walked the hospital floor and the outside grounds (in the rain, and yes, I totally jumped over puddles…while in active labor, wheee!) for about an hour and a half. The contractions started coming regularly then. Again, absolutely nothing like the last time around. These were totally manageable. The excitement was beginning to set in. I think part of my anticipation of labor, aside from my sadness about Lucy not being an only child anymore, was my fear over my last experience with labor. Back labor is no joke, but this time, this was easy.

Once they were coming at regular intervals, at about 6 pm, we headed up to L&D. I went to check in with the nurse who promptly said to me:

“Ooooooooh! I know you! I read your blog!”

Which was both flattering, as in “Wow, people do read the stuff I write” and awkward because girlfriend is about to become up close and personal with my business.

And in we went….

Stay tuned for the really exciting part, Zoe's arrival! 

"Of the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."
-Lin Yutang



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you're back!

Amanda

Solar Powered said...

36 weeks pregnant today, had back labor last time as well ending in c-section after 24 hours and almost started crying last night at the thought of feeling that again.

Hoping for a Zoe experience this time around!!!

Kristen said...

Can't wait for part 2 :)

FSD said...

I can totally relate to the trepidation of growing from a family of 3 to a family of 4. And, like you, I didn't get the "good-bye," if you will, that I wanted with my Zoe before heading to L&D to have my son, Zachary. I can't wait to read part 2! :)

Anonymous said...

so glad you are back.....dont' wait to long for part 2

JP said...

Well, I missed you and I am so glad you are back to posting. I am all caught up and excited to read what comes next.

Welcome back!

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