Valerie's pregnancy and delivery of Meredith

I was already 8 days overdue for Meredith to arrive. I was waiting for her to arrive, simply because I wanted to try to deliver her VBAC. That's Vaginal Birth after Cesarean. I had a Cesarean delivery with my first daughter, Samantha. Meredith was due on August 25th or so we thought. After August 25th came and went, the midwife checked the date again against my last period. It came back as August 29th. Well that sucks. I had already had a somewhat unusual time because for the first 7 months of my pregnancy, I was living in Atlanta, trying to sell our house, working full time, and taking care of my 2 year old daughter. My pregnancy was pretty textbook, no real issues. I did get a Urinary Tract Infection about half way through that scared my mom and I because of the incredible back spasms I was having. Of course, we didn't realize what it was until she got me to the hospital and I peed in a cup. But, other than that scare, it was really no big deal. Although, at 32 weeks, Samantha and I moved to central Georgia, where Ray was living, trying to get his real estate business off the ground. This meant finding a new doctor. Well, we went to a doctor that my sister-in-law had used, but unfortunately, the hospital this doctor was affiliated with didn't allow VBAC's. Thankfully, she referred us to a hospital nearby that had a midwife that had done some VBAC deliveries in the past. So, now at 34 weeks, we were changing doctors again.

It was the wee hours of the morning of Sunday, September 2, 2007, probably around 3:00am, I was asleep in my bed and Ray had fallen asleep on the sofa. I was freezing. So much so that I was shaking and my teeth were chattering. Now keep in mind, it's September... that's summertime. I checked my fever and oddly enough, I didn't have one. So, I attempted to call Ray in the living room without waking my 2 1/2 year old, Samantha. Of course, Ray sleeps through everything and he couldn't hear me. I was not in a position to walk. My legs were shaking too bad. So, I covered myself up with the sheet and comforter, then got the body pillow and snuggled with that, hoping it would help keep me warm. Somehow, after over half an hour or so, I managed to go back to sleep. Around 6:00am, I woke up, just generally feeling odd. I couldn't describe the feeling, but it was definitely an unusual feeling. I managed to get out of bed and go into the living room and wake up Ray. I explained to him what had happened earlier that morning. We waited a couple of hours before calling our midwife, because it was Sunday morning and I didn't want to disturb her unless it was absolutely necessary. Plus, we wanted to see if the sensations I was having were going to stick around. During the time we were waiting to make the phone call, I went to the bathroom and discovered that low and behold, I was bleeding. Now, being at the end of my pregnancy, this was good news. Shortly after that, around 9:00am, we called our midwife, but she didn't answer. We had to leave a voicemail for her... great, we would have to wait to see if I was actually in labor or not. No, based on what was going on at the time, I couldn't really tell, but I was definitely hopeful. As we waited, the strange sensations I was feeling slowly turned into a different kind of sensation, one that seemed to be a bit more definable. I felt fairly confident that I was in labor. Once they decided to identify themselves as such, I knew I was in labor. I took a shower and advised Ray to do the same. We had already started working toward getting Samantha, our dog, Chip, and ourselves ready to go. We were just waiting on the return phone call. After my shower, Syndey and I waited on the couch. She was sitting and I was lying down. We called Ray's parents and told them what was going on and that we would be over within a couple of hours with Samantha. We called the kennel to tell them the same thing.

Finally, our midwife called. We explained to her what was going on. By this time, I knew I was in labor. We told her we would be leaving the house soon and heading to the hospital, which was over half an hour away. So, Ray began packing the car while I breathed through the contractions. Finally, we were ready to go and off we went. First stop was the in-law's house to drop off Samantha. By the time we got there, the contractions were about 3 minutes apart. We were always told to just hang out at home until the contractions were 5 minutes apart for about an hour. Well, we skipped that whole 5 minutes apart thing and went straight to 3 minutes. I was a slight bit concerned, as you can imagine. We decided that we may not have time to take Chip to the kennel, after all. So, around 11:45am, we left Samantha and Chip at the in-law's house and headed north to the hospital.

In the car, I told Ray that I had to eat something. I was not going to be in labor for who knows how many hours and not have something on my stomach... I don't work that way. So, we stopped at a convenient store, because it was the only thing along the way and got chips. Yeah, that will help me make it through 24 hours of labor. On our commute to the hospital, the contractions were getting more intense and some were even 2 minutes apart. That was the longest 30 minute ride of my life. It's a little after 12 noon now and we finally make it to the hospital. But, get this, we have to park on the 3rd floor of the parking deck, then manage to get to the walkway that goes across the road to the hospital, then of course, cross the road, and finally walk down the corridor about a half of a football field long to get to the check in station. All this while Ray is pulling the luggage, holding my hand and I'm carrying my pillow and trying to keep walking through the contractions. Don't they know I'm in labor? The lady at check in was quick in getting us into the triage area, which was nice. Once in triage, I was put into a room, where I sat on the teeniest bed I've even seen. I'm freezing because I'm dressed for summer and the temperature in this room seemed to be about 50 degrees. The nurse was in and out for about half an hour. Just about every other time she came in, I mentioned the fact that whenever they were ready, I would take that epidural. Finally, after almost half an hour of just sitting there the nurse finally checked my cervix to see how far along I was. I just knew I was somewhere between 6 and 8 centimeters dilated, because I was really hurting and by now my contractions were consistently two minutes apart. This baby was coming and coming quickly. The nurse gave me the news... I was 2 centimeters... "WHAT!? Two centimeters? Are you crazy? There is no way that I am only 2 centimeters dilated." Needless to say, I was hugely disappointed, and still hurting. These contractions made me draw up, so much so that I was pushing all the cushions off of the teeny bed I was on. I just couldn't be still when they would hit. I was connected to all kinds of monitors to monitor my heartbeat and Meredith's so I couldn't get up and walk around or anything like that. I bet I stayed in that room for about an hour before they finally moved me to an actual Labor and Delivery room. Well, thank you very much... finally, comfort... yeah, not so much.

At this time, it was around 1:00 pm. This bed was a bit bigger, but it still had the moving cushions and made it difficult to keep them on whenever a contraction hit. We were still waiting on my midwife to show, as the hospital said they had been trying to reach her since we arrived, but hadn't heard anything back, yet. So, I just kept waiting and waiting. Finally about 1:30 pm, my midwife showed up. That made me feel much better, knowing she was going to be there for this miraculous event that we call childbirth. If you recall, we had changed to this midwife when I was 34 weeks along, so the thought of having a doctor, that I had not met before, deliver my daughter was not an appealing thought to me. Although, I know it happens all the time to other mommys.

Once the midwife arrived, she checked my cervix and again, between 2 and three centimeters. Are you kidding me? How can this be? I've been here for two hours. Something has to be opening down there, doesn't it? My midwife made an executive decision to break my water to speed up the process. Yeah, that's fun. She stuck a hook up in my va-jay-jay and pricked the uterine sack to where the water leaked out. All the while, I'm laying in the bed, hooked up to monitors and while this gush of water empties out of me, they change out multiple pads under my butt. Every so often, like every minute, they will ask me to lift my butt so they can remove one and put another down. Well, one thing is for sure, I got my butt and ab exercises in while I was in labor. Although, it didn't help much with the end result of getting my tummy back to pre-baby size.

So, now the water is broken. Time for the epidural I've been requesting since I arrived. I wasn't in so much pain, as I was just uncomfortable. But, I was sure afraid of the pain I may experience and I wanted to nip it in the bud before I got to that point. So, in came the anesthesiologist to administer my drugs... I love a drug dealer with a license to deal drugs. This experience was much better than my previous epidural experience, because with Samantha, the doctor wasn't able to get the needle in between my vertebrae, so he had to move it up my back until he found an opening large enough for the needle. Now, I hate needles, so getting stuck twice in the back, was definitely not my idea of a good time. But, having been pregnant twice now, I realize how important the needle is in the tests required during pregnancy. So, needless to say, I've learned to live with the fact that needles are a necessary evil when you are pregnant... not so much any other time.

Now I've got my epidural and life is good. Now, we just wait. Thank goodness there was an Atlanta Braves baseball game on TV to keep my husband occupied and for me to watch in between dozing. Oh, yeah, now that the contractions were at bay, I let myself get a little lazy and doze in and out of sleepyville. Of course, my naps, if you want to call them that, didn't last long, because someone was always in checking my vitals... blood pressure, temperature, and heart beats of myself and Meredith. There was an issue with my temperature. It kept going up and at one time, got up to around 102. This apparently was cause for concern of infection, so they immediately started me on antibiotics and Tylenol to try to get the fever down. My fever went up and down for the rest of the afternoon. Because of that, there was a concern that Meredith would get whatever infection my body was trying to fight off. So, they had the NICU nurses on standby, just in case.By now, it's approaching 6:00 pm or so and my epidural is wearing off. I mentioned this to my midwife and she said that I would be able to push more effectively if I wasn't completely numb "down there". Call me crazy, but isn't that the point of the epidural? To be numb "down there"? So, I didn't get anymore drugs and as it turned out, it wasn't too bad. I just felt like I had to poop. The pressure was unbelievable. I'm told that is how I know it's time to push. So, around 7:00pm the pushing began. I'm not sure how many times I actually pushed, but little Meredith popped out at 7:52pm. After a quick picture with her and a kiss on her cheek, a nurse took her to the NICU, as predicted, to check her out because of the temperature I had during labor. As expected, she checked out OK and I got to spend my first quality minutes with her beginning around 1:00am.By this time, I was exhausted from the long day and waiting for them to bring her to the room. Ray was sleeping on the pull out couch. So, after a quick attempt at breastfeeding, she fell asleep in my arms and I followed closely behind her, but only after watching her sleep for a little while first. I love being a mommy.