At 4:17am, Friday August 6th 2004, Gabriel Francis was born in maternity room 21 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. And Jill and I (and Gabriel and many relatives) could not be any happier. There could be no better 32nd birthday present for me!
Vital Stats
Term: 39 weeks, one day.
Weight: 7 lbs. 14 oz.
Length: 21.25"
Head: 13.5" circumference
Visitors on Pins & Needles in the Waiting Room
New Grandmother Dianne
New Grandmother Judy
New Grandfather John
New Aunt Kate
New Uncle Tom
We would both like to thank everyone for their prayers, good wishes, gifts and flowers.
OFFICIAL BIRTH STORY (How it went!)
At this point, the following is how we best understand how & why everything occurred.
At 10:20pm Tuesday (August 3rd), I arrived at the Orenco Station MAX parking lot to discover that the Larrymobile (Larry Wachdorf's old '89 white Toyota Camry) had disappeared. I suspected the car had been towed because I left it overnight, unintentionally, at the seemingly safe MAX parking lot in the newer part of Hillsboro. I was also aware that Tri-Met (the local transit authority) was trying to discourage park & ride lots from becoming long-distance free parking for airport passengers via the MAX Red Line.
Jill, after I got home, fretted that the car was likely stolen and that we should report it as such. We did, Hillsboro police verified that they had not gotten a report that the car was towed by Tri-Met, and at midnight at John and Judy's, an officer took down our information for a stolen car claim and report. We have still not heard anything of it.
Needless to say, everyone was pretty rattled by the theft, particularly Jill given the importance of our back-up car with Baby on the way. But by 1am, we were able to go to bed.
"Bill...Bill...Wake up...My water broke" was what I heard Jill say before groggily glancing at the alarm clock: 2am. And indeed, it unmistakably had. Not only that, she began a series of surprisingly intense contractions thereafter for more than an hour before they began to subside. So, figuring active labor would start within 24 hours as is normal, we anticipated the arrival of Baby one week early.
But that's not exactly how it happened. Jill's contractions slowed down to be irregularly timed and lacking intensity. For the better part of Wednesday, Jill was in early labor as both of us fully anticipated active (hard) labor to start up at any time. On top of that, we were pleasantly surprised on Wednesday to find that Tom and Kate had flown up from Sacramento at a moment's notice to be here for the birth.
Early labor seemingly ended at 11:30pm Wednesday when Jill began getting more intense contractions at closer intervals.. 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes.. and every now and again, 3 minutes. Things progressed and Jill began to have a mild ache in the back of her pelvis which required pressure during each each contraction - all positive signs that we would be heading to the hospital before or at the crack of dawn.
But by 5:30am, the contractions waned back to 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 30 minutes apart with diminished intensity. Somewhat discouraged, we went to bed and Jill was able to get fair rest in between each. A noon visit to her nurse-midwife Mary Popkes helped us to understand that we were technically still in early labor - active labor does not regress - and that the hormone oxytocin that passed through Jill's cervix when her bag of waters broke was the culprit for the more intense but temporary contractions.
For the remainder of the day, we tried pretty much every trick in the book to naturally induce labor based on Jill's frequent conversations with her cousin Cecilia Wachdorf
Cecelia Wachdorf
(Credit: Les Hardison's www.hardison.info website)
and what we learned in our Bradley birth class. But ultimately, nothing really worked. So we made a series of three phone calls. We contacted the nurse-midwife on call at Jill's women's clinic and she advised that we head to the hospital ASAP to have the baby monitored given the duration of time that passed since Jill's water broke and the resulting increased risk of infection for the baby. We called Kerennsa Brougham, our Bradley instructor, and she recommended a couple of other strategies for kick-starting labor, then encouraged us by saying we were doing everything right under the circumstances and that given the odd events, a trip to the hospital was likely in order if the last strategies didn't work AND Baby was not behaving irregularly. We called Cecilia and she essentially reinforced both our own instincts and what Kerennsa said.
But nothing worked. So, by 2:30pm, we were ready to head to the hospital. But as we were leaving, we noticed that Sundaye was behaving funny, even for an older cat, and showed possible signs of a kidney infection - great timing! Jill had to make last minute arrangements for Tom & Kate to take Sundaye to the vet and have her checked out while we headed to the hospital to check in.
By 4pm, we were at St. Vincent's maternity ward. We checked in, were sent to triage, reviewed our birth plan with the nurse(s), and were assigned room 21. Shortly thereafter, we met Katie Raetz, the attending nurse-midwife. Mary Popkes, Jill's own nurse-midwife, was surprisingly not on call as she said she would be the day before. We were a bit disappointed, to say the least. Katie examined Jill and found that she was at 3cm, fully effaced and at zero station. All very good signs. Plus, she confirmed that the baby had a full head of hair!
With Katie, we then decided that Jill should try a very low dose of Pitocin to kick-start her contractions. Pitocin, as you probably know, is a manufactured hormone that mimics oxytocin, the natural hormone that induces labor, among other things. After Jill received an IV, she was put on a 6 ml/hr dosage. Along with Katie, BJ was our outstanding attendant nurse. She, we learned, is the chairperson of the St. Vincent's low intervention birth Task Force. We were encouraged and very much appreciated her presence and care.
But the pitocin didn't quite do the trick, so the dosage was doubled to 12 ml/hr after a couple of hours. That DID do the trick and at 8pm, Jill began what most would consider active labor. Contractions began to occur every five minutes with growing frequency and greater intensity as the night went on. Nothing overly intense, but certainly active labor that we had expected Wednesday morning. So Jill labored through it with my coaching - encouragement and massage.
By 11pm, an examination revealed that Jill was at 4 cm. BJ and Katie were encouraged that the Pitocin had done it's job, so they took Jill off of the IV and let her use the birthing ball in the shower. Jill gladly did so. So, she and I went into the shower and I sprayed her lower back with warm water as she went through contrations. But as time passed, her contractions reduced in frequence and duration again. By midnight, BJ let us know it was a good idea to go back on the Pitocin given that labor was slowing down as fast as it was. Jill was examined and she measured 5cm dilated.
Jill was discouraged. She was exhausted, she was uncomfortable with being on the IV again, and she wasn't as dilated as she thought she would be... not only that, but the contractions returned with greater intensity. And between midnight and 1am, she became very distraught, feared the yet-to-be-reached transition period, and was very tempted to get medication to reduce the pain. We got some alone time to discuss what to do. We talked and decided that her fatigue was not so bad that she was losing control and no matter how much she hated being on the fetal monitor and the IV, she did not want drugs that would make her groggy and the baby drugged. So, I strongly coached her to look at each contraction individually and to take them as they come. At 1:30, her exam revealed she was at 6cm dilated - on the verge of transition. This scared her but clearly also encouraged Jill to keep going without the pain medication. By 2:30pm, she was at 7 cm dilated.. clearly on the doorstep of transition.
Contractions then became very rapid and very intense - as they should. Jill's controled her breathing like a pro through wave after wave of increasingly intense labor. Jill didn't see it, but the fetal monitor revealed that she was definitely in transition. She was getting so close that for the last hour of first stage labor, she spent most of her effort controling exhales in short breaths to stave off a strong impulse to bear down and push. I pretty much bear-hugged and held her, sitting on the bed, and guided her through deep inhales and short rapid-fire exhales, all while encouraging her.
By 2:30am, I noticed that the new attending nurse paged the attending nurse-midwife Katie and had fired up the baby warmer table for delivery. I consciously pointed both out to Jill to make sure she knew.. they expected Jill to be pushing VERY shortly. By 2:45am, she was 9.5cm dilated; Jill couldn't have been more encouraged nor more fatigued.. well yes she could as she would find out. Five short but overwhelming contractions later she was at 10 cm and given the greenlight to begin pushing.
And as fatigued as she was, she did so.. reclined at roughly 45-50 degrees. She was way too tired, in my opinion, to squat to deliver and I was way to tired to support her in a squat. We had slept very little Tuesday night, had only a slight nap Wednesday, very little sleep Wednesday night due to the "false" labor and didn't get to sleep Thursday as we tried all sorts of things to get her labor going again. We were both completely exhausted and now Jill had to push the baby out.
But she did it and afterwards stated that pushing was the hardest part of it all. After an hour of pushing, the Baby was fully crowned but couldn't move forward anymore. Jill pushed and pushed, but was exhausted. With the fetal monitor showing Baby's heart rate beginning to drop, Katie performed an episiotomy to help delivery. 17 minutes later, our BOY was born and immediately placed on Jill's chest. We looked at him and easily decided that he was indeed a Gabriel.
After a couple of hours, the nurse returned and I got to help bathe Gabriel. Shortly after that, we learned that the whole family had lost patience and were standing outside (apparently another family in the waiting room learned that their relative in maternity had a tragic emergency - she delivered a part of her uterus for some strange reason). The nurse asked if they could come in and we said yes. I greeted them at the door, but I was so tired I don't know how much of a greeting they got.
But it was the hardest and most rewarding twelve hours we've either experienced (except for maybe my birth.. maybe I'll write about that later). Jill's whole body, from forehead to feet and my back and arms from pushing on Jill's lower pelvis with every contraction, were sore and fatigued. Except for the Pitocin, which we both view as having been a necessary evil under the circumstances, the birth was natural and most importantly, avoided an epidural and the resulting introduction of strong narcotics to our baby. Gabriel responded by being very alert, active and immediatley latched on for an hour-long feeding. Jill and I had to work hard, diligently and constantly the whole 8+ hours... anything short and the outcome may have been very different.
Friday morning, we were congratulated by attendant nurses like heroes for going drug-free through, effectively, 50 hours of on-and-off-and-on labor. They were particularly congratulatory that we managed to do it given the use of Pitocin during labor, which most people know can make contractions much more intense than naturally. I was very proud, and still am of Jill and her strength and resolve to avoid Baby from feeling the effects of strong pain medication.
If he doesn't yet know it, he has a very strong and very loving mother.
Well, that's our birth story. I'll do my best tomorrow to post what happened after that. Until then, here's another photo of our Angel Gabriel (or Saint Francis as I like to call him when I'm trying to pacify him).
No comments:
Post a Comment