Birth Story

I have been advised to write down Anika's birth story before I forget the details, so here goes.

I'll pick up where I left off the other day when my water broke on the obstetrician's table at 4:00pm on Jan 5th. He told us we could go home, have dinner and get ourselves ready to go to the hospital later that evening. He called ahead to let them know to expect us.

We arrived at the hospital around 9 pm. I was having the odd cramp here and there but nothing regular. They did an intake assessment and I saw the OB on call. We were offered the choice to induce labour right away or wait until first thing in the morning. We opted to wait, thinking that perhaps we might get lucky and things would start on their own. They then gave us the choice to stay at the hospital, or go home and return in the morning. We opted to stay where they could monitor the baby if needed.

The maternity unit underwent a huge overhaul about 4 years ago, and they put a lot of thought into making it a state of the art facility. The suites are all private and designed for women to labour, deliver, and recover postpartum in. They even have a window seat daybed for the support person, bar fridges, built in sound systems, huge washrooms with soaker tubs, and wireless fetal monitoring. If it sounds more like a hotel desciption than a hospital, that is certainly how it felt much of the time. They'd even knock at the door and say "room service" jokingly when they delivered the meals.

We unpacked our things and settled into the room for the night. I tried to fall asleep, but it was hard because I was so excited/ anxious about the big day to come. I also had these irritating cramps, but because they'd assured me at intake that they were still just false labour I just tried to ignore them. I dozed a bit and at 2:30 awoke with more cramping that seemed to be getting a bit more intense and regular. A few of them even made me get sick to my stomach. I decided to wake DH to help me time them. We determined that they were about 2-3min apart and called the nurse.

She checked me and declared me officially in active labour because I was 4 cm dilated. She reminded us that most often first labours took a long time to progress, so we could expect to meet our baby by the next afternoon or evening. They might even go ahead with adding the oxytocin at 8am as planned to help move things along if it gets stalled. She reviewed all of the drug treatment options available. I told her I was not opposed to taking things if I need them, but I'd like to go along without and see how it goes first. She was wonderfully supportive and helped coach and encourage us both along. The strategies of breathing through the contractions hands and knees, standing/walking, and squatting were working well. By 5:30 am she checked me again and I was the full 10 cm dilated. She called the OB to confirm and the OB was shocked that things had gone that quickly. We carried on until about 7:30am when I started to get a strong urge to push.

There was a shift change at that point too, so new nurses came in and they were just waiting for the new OB to arrive. I got into the birthing bed, and they got everything ready to go. I worked with those pushes and the nurses. They were surprised that I had no IV, and had taken no meds. By 8:00 am the OB finally arrived as the baby's head was crowning.

I continued with the pushing with each contraction. At one point, I thought my head was going to explode with the pressure. There was an intense burning sensation as the head got to the widest part. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to keep going with it. The doctor asked if I wanted to  feel the baby's head. I reached down and there was a mop of soft baby hair! Wow, that motivated me to get the job done. At 8:36 am the baby was out, and on my bare chest looking up at me. The pediatrician came in to check things over. I overheard her say that the Apgars were 9 at 1min and 10 at 5min. She asked if we knew the gender ahead of time. We said no. We'd totally forgotten about that! DH lifted the towel and said "it's a girl!". We'd both thought she was going to to be a he, so what an amazing twist.

The placenta was delivered while we cuddled with our new little bundle. I had some "minor" tearing so they gave me some local freezing and stitched me up. DH and I had picked out a few names we liked for a girl. We both took a look at her and agreed she looked like an Anika. All of the medical staff vacated the room and left us to bond. She remained calm and alert for the next couple of hours, and even suckled on my breast all by herself.

She's a great little feeder now with a bit of help from the nurses and lactation consultant to get latched on deep enough. A little over 24 hours later we were allowed to go home. She wasn't too sure about the carseat! It still feels a bit surreal -she's really ours to keep?!?