Calvin's Labor and Delivery...a summary

Just as I did with Ellie I'm going to document my labor and delivery with Calvin. It'll be a summary just for the record.

We knew Calvin was going to be a big baby. At my 35 week appointment the doctor did an ultrasound and Numero Due/Chaos was measuring pretty big. His head and torso were the size of an average 40 week baby (while his legs were at 36 week gestational average age). His weight was estimated at over 7 pounds, at 35 weeks! My uterus was also measuring large which was a combination of a large baby and a lot of fluid. The pregnancy was smooth, no complications short of some back pain. But with a baby that was on the larger side of average my doctor didn't want me to go too far past 39 weeks pregnant.

I was ready to go at 38 weeks. I was done being pregnant. I had an appointment at 38 weeks and my doctor said I was 2.5 cm dilated. So I figured I would have the baby before I reached 39 weeks. My mom came down that week as there were signs that the baby was coming soon. We ate spicy food, we walked, we tried some special salad dressing from a restaurant in the Valley that supposedly for decades has been encouraging very pregnant women to go into labor...but nothing worked. Chaos was comfortable and didn't want to come out. I had another appointment during my 38th week and it was decided that if I didn't have the baby by the start of my 39th week, I would be induced. My doctor and I discussed that due to his size, inducing labor at 39 weeks would reduce the odds of complications which may require a C-Section. Of course, the start of the 39th week was March 10, also known as Grandma Pam's 64th birthday (which we celebrated early with her). We were all rooting for the baby to come so I wouldn't have to be induced. But no, Chaos was too comfortable and so induction it was.

At 6:00am on March 10, 2014 Nick and I went to the hospital. Before leaving for the hospital I wrote a note to Ellie to put in her lunchbox saying that her brother was going to be born soon and letting her know that we loved her. It took a while for us to get registered into the hospital and set up in a room on the Labor and Delivery area of the hospital. But by 8:30 we were set up in a hospital room, the IV was started, I was hooked up to monitors, and they started the Pitocin to begin labor. At around 10:00am my doctor stopped by and saw that things were moving. I hadn't felt a contraction that was painful yet, but based on the outputs from the monitors things were going. Nick and I basically sat around watching morning news shows waiting for things to get started.

At 11:30am my doctor came by again. Things were moving and I was dilating more but I hadn't had a painful contraction yet. So the doctor broke my water. The nurse (being very prudent) set up the room for the birth getting everything ready and setting up.

As I had with Ellie my intention was to have a natural childbirth. I have a well known strong phobia of needles and the thought of an epidural was more stressful to me than the pains of labor and delivery would be...having been through it once before. I had been very fortunate with Ellie that the labor and delivery was very short, especially for a larger first baby. So I knew that with this second child, even though he was big, I could do the labor and delivery without any pain medicine. My nurse said that less than 10% of women at the hospital, probably closer to 5% actually do labor and delivery without pain medicine. That made me a little nervous, because it meant that the nurses weren't used to helping women labor without pain medicine whereas in Boston I had a midwife and nurses who were experienced. However, Nick and I had been through this before and I figured it would all be well.

Around 12:45pm my doctor came back to check on me. He said I was at 6 cm. It was at this point that I started to feel the contractions and they were getting a little painful. Nothing too bad, but definitely noticeable. At 12:55pm I texted Grandma Pam to tell her that things were moving.

Within about 15 minutes the contractions were very painful and I knew we were getting really close to pushing. I told the nurse that I was ready to push and she and Nick both kinda looked at me like I was crazy. But she indulged me and checked and within a nanosecond she told me that yes I was ready, she would call the doctor and I needed to breath through the contractions. I asked when the doctor would be there because I was ready, and she said he was still in the hospital so it would be very soon.

And it was. My doctor came running in with some additional nurses. I was focusing on breathing and getting through the contractions but I overheard the doctor ask the nurse, "do I have time for..." but before he could finish the sentence my nurse sternly said, "no, she's ready". And yes, yes I was ready.

It felt like I didn't push for very long at all. And true to what I remembered, pushing during the contractions was a relief to just enduring the contractions. Everything happened really fast and my memory is pretty fuzzy of what happened. Although I do remember at one point a nurse told Nick to sit down because he was feeling faint and she held my knee for a while. In my mind it felt like I pushed through 2 or 3 contractions before I was told the head was out.

So I felt my first real painful contraction at 12:45pm and Calvin was born at 1:41pm. Yeah, things happened really fast. And I didn't need any pain medicine. As fast as it was the birth was pretty smooth (besides Nick almost passing out) and Calvin was given an Apgar score of 8-9 (which means he looked really good and was healthy at birth). They asked Nick if he wanted to cut the cord and he initially said no. However, I reminded him that he had cut Ellie's cord and what he does for one child he has to do for the other and so he cut Calvin's cord as well.

All things considered both of my pregnancies and labor and delivery of both Ellie and Calvin were relatively easy and not that painful (recovery on the other hand is a different story, you don't birth a 8lb 12oz kid and a 9lb 12oz kid and not have to deal with some recovery). I know I am in a very small club where labor and delivery is rapid and not that bad and I am very fortunate for that. I'm most happy to have two healthy children.