(written on day 4, 5 , 6 postpartum)
On June 26th the night before Raymond was born, we hosted supper at our house for Sean, Sarah, and Ryan, and Grandma and Grandpa as usual. It was the first time that the Toronto Denomeys came to visit our new house since we’d moved, and the kids were super excited to see each other again (they had not seen each other since Ryan’s birthday in December). We had a lovely BBQ of steak, corn on the cob, potato packets, BBQ veggie kabobs, fizzy punch, and coleslaw, with pineapple strawberry cake for dessert. So yummy!
S, S, and R left just before 10pm, and we settled down for bed. Miriam was exhausted from all the excitement. It was a great visit.
At 2 am, I was sleeping and dreamt about a public toilet overflowing with diarrhea. A bunch of people were standing around discussing it. Then I was in a room full of window blinds, and Josh was on the other side of one of the blinds and we could talk but we couldn’t see each other. I remember telling him “Joshy, I think my water broke”. I woke up then, and got up to go to the bathroom, but felt something wet on my leg. I thought it was pee! But in the bathroom, I discovered that my water had indeed broken for real, and felt a gush of it. I got excited, cleaned up, and went to tell Josh.
He was sleeping, woke right up, and we paged Carole our midwife to let her know. She said she’s coming over to assess everything. She was at our house 20 minutes later, and in the darkened living room we chatted, and she checked me (I was only 2 cm dilated) and the baby (heart rate was good). She said she’s meeting another client at Grand River Hospital at 10am that morning, so we should come by as well and do a non-stress test and see how things are progressing, or else page her prior to this if contractions start and become closer than 5 minutes apart.
She gave me a tincture, and made up some oil with clary sage to rub on my belly. It smelled so nice and felt good. She left advising us to get some sleep, and that we’d see her later, and that we’d have our baby that day! About half an hour after she left, around 3 am, contractions started. They were mild and I got to nap between them but couldn’t sleep through them. They were five to seven minutes apart, irregular, and as the night wore on, they spaced out a bit, which was very annoying as I was eager to get them closer together and stronger so the baby would come sooner.
At around 6 am I got up for the day, got dressed, left a note on the couch for Josh, grabbed the iPhone and iPod and headed out for walks around the neighbourhood. I blasted my playlist (which included fabulous music like Wavin’ Flag, Jann Arden, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, Beatles, Elton John, Andrea Bocelli, and Bob Marley) and walked to the rhythm for about an hour or two until Josh and Miriam woke up. I walked up and down the hill close to our street and forced myself to walk even through contractions, though it seemed like a marathon. I saw two rabbits frolicking in the grass. The neighbourhood was very quiet, since it was a Sunday morning, and the sun was bright but it was still very comfortably cool. It was wonderful to walk like that, knowing the baby was coming very soon and I wouldn’t be pregnant anymore! The contractions felt intense but in retrospect they were peanuts compared to what was to come soon!
When Josh got up, I think we ate breakfast, though I don’t really remember, and soon after Miriam’s grandma and grandpa woke up, Josh and I showered and headed for the hospital at 8 am, even though the contractions weren’t closer than 5 minutes apart yet, and even though our appointment wasn’t for another two hours. I just wanted to keep walking in peace, and knew I couldn’t do that at home with everyone awake and excited.
We stopped by Tim Hortons on the way to the hospital, where Josh got some food and coffee, and when we got to the hospital we walked around the block, picked some lavender from someone’s yard, and enjoyed the early morning. Soon it was getting very hot, so we decided that Josh would go back home to change into summer clothes as he was wearing dark jeans and thick shirts, and I would keep walking with the cell phone on just in case. By now, there were lots more people on the street, and I was walking around the hospital. I also walked down the street and found a cemetery, where it was shady, so I walked for an hour down the paths. I didn’t really pay attention to the graves as I would normally do, but just focused on the music and breathing and getting through contractions. It was very peaceful, with the occasional biker or jogger going by, and the city streets waking up with traffic all around the cemetery.
At 10 am, I met Josh in the hospital lobby, and we went to our appointment. Carole met us in L&D triage, hooked me up to the monitor, and had me press a button each time I felt the baby move. The baby’s heart rate stayed nice and steady (140s), I had a couple of contractions during the 20 minutes I was hooked up, and he moved a few times, but overall things were calm. It seemed like my contractions weren’t progressing in intensity or frequency, which again was frustrating! I got blood work done to make sure there was no infection brewing, as sometimes a spontaneous rupture of membranes can be caused by infection. My CBC came back normal, the baby was fine, and Carole said we should go eat a very spicy lunch, take another homeopathic pellet, and even try some castor oil to get things moving along more. I was still only 3 cm dilated (that was with the stretch that Carole did). We were to come back again at 5 pm if nothing happened, and then we’d see how else we can speed things along. My water had been broken for about 10 hours at this point, and there are differing opinions on how long membranes can be not intact before the baby should be born because the longer the bag is broken with the baby inside it, the more risk of infection. The midwives and the hospital gave us a time of 5 pm. The clock was ticking, and desperate times called for desperate measures, so I opted for the castor oil.
We grabbed the castor oil from the pharmacy downstairs and went to have lunch at a Thai restaurant in Waterloo. I had some very yummy spicy red curry, and Josh had BBQ chicken with vermicelli. I drank a tablespoon of castor oil with a ginger ale, and it was vile, nasty stuff. It tasted like paper, and felt like mucus, but I was desperate to get things going. I had a few contractions at the restaurant, slightly stronger than in the morning, and lots of gushes of water every time I got up.
After lunch, we headed back home, where Miriam was painting a surprise picture with grandma, and babcia and ciocia came over to play as well. I holed up in the bedroom to pace the floor around the bed, listen to music, and make it through contractions. They still were very irregular, and I managed to doze a little between the longer-spaced ones, and Josh napped beside me.
At two-ish, we decided to go back to the hospital, as the contractions were getting even stronger, and coming every 2-3 minutes, though still irregularly. I was totally inwardly-focused, and kept my eyes closed most of the time while pacing. On the ride to the hospital, the contractions slowed again, to every 5-10 minutes apart, but still painful.
I was very disappointed that I was still only 3 cm dilated when we got there, so Carole was hesitant to get us admitted. She was surprised that after all that time, I still hadn’t dilated, but told me to keep walking and maybe things would pick up. We put our bag on a triage bed, and I spent the next two hours pacing the halls with Josh, and then by myself since I didn’t want to have anyone around me. I just listened to the music and went round and round the figure eight-shaped halls with my eyes closed, grabbing on to the walls during contractions. The contractions were getting really intense now, and everyone left me alone just as I asked, with Josh sitting in the lounge just off the hallway, and Carole attending to another client who was also in labour at the time.
Around 4:30 pm, I climbed into the triage bed to change position since I was getting really uncomfortable. I pulled up the head of the bed as high as it would go, and leaned on it backwards with my arms over the top, on my knees. I got through a few contractions that way, and moaned through a few. Carole came in shortly after and said we can get a room now, so we went to our room and she started the Jacuzzi for me, with some aromatherapy oils and very warm water. It smelled to nice, and felt really relaxing, but the contractions were still intense and awful in the water. The rooms at Grand River Hospital are fabulous, large and new-looking, each with a private bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub, and lots of room for movement.
I stayed in there for about half an hour, with Carole checking the baby’s heart rate once or twice, and doing some paperwork in the room. She and Josh came in often to check on me, but overall left me in peace, with the lights dimmed. Josh fed me cheese and crackers, and gave me water and something else to drink, maybe it was juice.
I wanted to get out of the tub and get into a new position once I got tired of lying on my side in the water. Carole got me a giant birth ball to bounce on, and I sat on it and leaned on the bed. The contractions at this point were killer, and I got Josh to ram his fingers into my lower back to provide counter-pressure. This helped, but they were still insane, and I gripped a comb into my palm to take my mind off the pain. Since pacing the hallways in the hospital, I had barely opened my eyes, and blocked out most things going on around me, so I don’t remember the time or what else was happening. With every contraction, I moaned and groaned and clawed at the sheets, but somehow got through them.
After what seemed like hours of this, but was probably only about 20-30 minutes, I wanted to climb into the bed in the same position as I had been in the triage bed: bed high up, me kneeling and leaning over the back of it. First Carole checked my dilation, and felt that I was 6 cm, which was progress, but I felt crushed to learn that there were four more cm to go, which I though would take forever. I remember asking for an epidural, and saying all kinds of things like “just kill me”, “I don’t want a baby”, and so on. Carole said the cervix is dilating rapidly, “just disappearing before my fingers”, which gave me some hope, but I still asked for the epidural. At this point, her and Josh started a gentle campaign to dissuade me from the epi, by stalling, encouraging me, and saying there’s probably no time left to get it, and things like “you’re going to have your baby very soon!”, and “you’re doing so well!”. They knew I would regret getting the epi, and I knew what they were doing at the time, and I agreed with them in my mind, but the conflict between my mind and the pain was surreal. At this time it was probably almost 6 pm, and I was deep in the throes of transition.
The messy insanity was about to begin!
I was on my knees again, with my arms over the top of the bed, and Carole said I should try pushing a bit if I had the urge. I had the urge, but the pain was so absolutely maddening that I just wanted to kill everyone and be dead. Profanities were uttered (not directed at anyone, just in general…Josh said I had a potty-mouth, and I remember using the word mother-f*er quite a few times!), and there may or may not have been some screeching, with lots of trashing going on. I was sweating profusely, and I remember somewhat aggressively dropping the comb on the floor. Carole paged Ann (the backup midwife, to take care of the baby while Carole took care of me) who must have already been at the hospital, because she came pretty quickly. This gave me some hope that the hellish pain was getting close to the end! Carole was kept busy down below, and encouraging me lots and lots, with Josh. I remember warm fluids, hearing some running around, and lots of towels. I kept my eyes closed the whole time.
Soon, I started to push a bit with each contraction, and once I got my mind to cooperate and go along with the pain, I was able to push through it. At this point, I just gave up trying to fight against the body-crushing pain, and found that pushing made me feel more in control. I pushed with all my might a few times, and then Carole suggested I turn around and sit and pull my legs back to give the baby more room to pass through. I did that, and found pushing was easier this way. It also turns out that the “ring of fire” sensation that people talk about really does exist, and boy, is it ever intense! Ouch.
After a few pushes, Carole said the baby’s head is crowing and that I could touch and feel it, but I didn’t want to at this point. I just wanted that baby out ASAP. I pushed a few more times, felt his head being born, and then a quick easy slip out of his body at the next push. That’s when I finally opened my eyes. Then I felt lots of warm fluid, and I pulled him up on top of my belly with Carole’s help, I remember her turning her head to look at the clock, and then she covered him with a blanket. We didn’t know the sex, and Carole had to remind us to pull the blanket back and find out if he was a girl or boy, as she wasn’t announcing it (we had asked her not to, as we wanted to find out for ourselves). He was lying on his side on top of me, with his legs on my right, and Josh on my left side. I said “it’s a boy!”, and the next few moments passed in a wonderful blur of marveling at him, kissing him, covering him up as he lay on my chest, putting him to the breast, and talking to him. The midwives were very hands off and gave us time to bond.
They waited until the cord stopped pulsating, then clamped it and offered it for Josh to cut, but he didn’t want to, so they cut it, and waited for the placenta to be born. It came out in the next few minutes (we had asked them not to give me an injection of Pitocin to speed this up, and it came out on it’s own). I had a second-degree tear, and Carole gave me some local freezing while she stitched me up. The freezing injection stung a bit, but then I didn’t feel the stitches, though there was some mild cramping continuing as the uterus started shrinking. While Carole was stitching, Ann was doing paperwork, and Josh and I were snuggling little Raymond (who we thought would be named Gilbert, but we decided the name didn’t suit him after all). Soon, Ann came over and helped me get repositioned (once Carole had finished her stitching) and we tried to get Raymond to latch on, but he wasn’t very interested.
After about an hour of cuddling, and then some nursing, I decided I wanted a shower. My BP was fine (in fact, it was the highest it’s ever been, 126 systolic!), but I did feel a bit woozy, so I waited a few more minutes, ate half an egg-salad sandwich from Tim Hortons that Josh had brought, asked for Raymond to be weighed (I guessed 7lbs 5, Carole guessed 8lbs, Josh guessed 7lbs 2) and then I got up and showered and dressed. While I was showering, Josh watched Ann do the newborn assessment. Raymond was deemed perfect in terms of health.
We packed up, Carole and Ann did some paperwork and tidied up (Carole had to change into scrubs because she got blood and goo on her clothes), Josh went to get the carseat from the car, and we left just after 8 pm. We got home, Miriam met Raymond, and grandma and grandpa did too, and we all settled in for the night. The rest is another story!
Here's the only picture we have that doesn't include any nipples, vaginas, or other such parts. Taken a few moments after Raymond's birth:
And of course, the requisite placenta picture. Ann is assessing it, while Carole looks on (brandishing a giant local anesthetic needle and getting ready to stitch my tear).
