On The Day You Were Born

*I won't post many pictures of myself, but of course I have to post a few. I just ask that you don't judge me to harshly. One of the symptoms of preeclampsia is severe edema (swelling) and it especially is noticeably in my face which was about twice as big as it normally is.

I have to admit, when I imagined giving birth I didn't ever picture it being confined to a bed in a borderline hallucinate state. I always wanted a nice quite, calm birth experience. I didn't want to be the person yelling through contractions and screaming while pushing. I wanted to relax and work with my body to bring my child into the world into as clam of an environment as possible. I wanted to do it on my own. I didn't want to be induced or have an epidural. I hoped the baby would decide when she was ready and I would go into labor. I wanted to do as much of it at home as possible then go to the hospital and finish without an epidural. The biggest reason for not wanting the epidural was because I was scared of the needle. I'm a wuss. I bought the hypnobabies home study course and CDs to help promote this calm, natural, medication free birthing experience. I knew as soon as I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension that I would be induced. Once I developed preeclampsia I knew there was a serious chance of a csection. That's when my plans changed a little. I still wanted it to be as calm as possible for baby girl, anything after that I didn't care as much about since both her life and mine were at risk.

I spent the night trying to get as much sleep as I could. It wasn't easy though, I was pretty uncomfortable. I was having very mild contractions in addition to the awkwardness of the catheter. Not to mention the compression leggings they put on me to prevent blood clots. Additionally, I had to make a conscious effort to keep both arms straight. One had the BP cuff on and if my arm was bent would give an inaccurate reading. The other had the IV in it. Since I was so swollen the only place they could stick the IV was the vein in the crook of my arm and if I bent it the IV would stop working and would also sting. The magnesium also started to really set in by the morning. I was so dizzy I couldn't keep my eyes open to long and when I did open them it could only be one eye at a time because with two eyes I couldn't focus. It was rough.

 Mike was so good to me though, the perfect husband. Getting me things I needed or asked for and just keeping me company. One of the doctors from my practice came in at 8am and told me they wanted to remove the cervital early, I was suppose to have it in for 12 hours and still had 2.5 hours left`so I was surprised. He checked and said I was dilated to a 1 and was 60% effaced. They waited half an hour then put me on pitocine. I started to feel the contractions a little more but they were easy to manage. My friend Amanda stopped by to see me around 10 which was really nice. I needed something to help keep my mind off of things. The doctors came in at 11 to check my progress again and I was at a 3 so they decided to break my water. They were really anxious to speed things along. {They did not tell me this at the time because they didn't want to scare me but looking back at the way they did things and some of the comments the nurses made to me after I delivered I'm pretty confident that they were very concerned about me. I saw some of my BP reading that we 170/110 and above.} After they broke my water I started to have very strong powerful pressure waves (hypnobirthing term.) I never had time to finish all the hypnobaby classes I was taking at home so I did the best I could to apply the little I did know. Each time I had a wave I relaxed as much as possible, closed my eyes and thought happy, positive birthing thoughts. Mike found something online about breathing through the pressure waves. Inhale slowly, then exhale pushing the breath down, then releasing the breath into the air. Surprisingly this was pretty effective. I also had Mike turn on the Kenneth Cope Pandora station. It was a really spiritual experience as so many on the songs played were favorites of mine. I knew I needed the Lords help to get me safely through this situation. The song "I Need Thee Every Hour" has always been a favorite of mine, but the words brought an extra amount of comfort at that time. Mike also downloaded the song "Eden's Garden" which is a special song to us and where we got baby girls name. It was a really spiritual/special two and a half hours as I waited to be check for my progress.

By the time they came to check me the pressure waves were so strong it was getting harder and harder to breath through them. I had made the mental decision that if I was past a 5 I would keep going without medicine. Anytime less and I would get the epidural. When I was 3.5 cm and 100% effaced I asked for the epidural. I thought if I had only progressed .5 in 2.5 hours I would keep going like this for 10 hours. They checked my progress before putting the epidural in and I was at a 5. I was pretty pleased that I had progressed 1.5 cm in 45 min. After they put the epidural in I told them I didn't know if it was working 100%, my right side felt fine but there was a lot of pressure on my left side. They had the anesthesiologist come back down to check it out, and possibly redo it. At 2:45 he arrived and I tried to describe the discomfort I was having. He looked  a little confused as I was talking to him, then he said "is the pain in your abdominal area or somewhere else? Because you just had a contraction and it seemed not to bother you. At that point I said, "Well I guess if I think about it, it is more behind me than in front of me. I feel like I need to use the restroom, maybe I need to have a bowel movement?" {BTW: I hate talking about stuff like this, but I swear you really do loose all your inhibitions during child birth.

They decided to check my progress and I was at an 8, so they called the doctor to come in. Mike called my mom and she was about to cross the tapan zee bridge. She was now worried she was going to miss the baby's birth. Dr. Bodnar, who I hoped would be the one to deliver the baby, came in a little after three. She was so calm and chill and talked about what would happen next. She had me do one round of practice pushes to show me what it would be like. By 3:20 I was at a 10 and ready to start the real pushing. My mom made it into the room at 3:30, she was really wired/stressed from her long journey and I told her to take a deep breath and calm down. I was still really calm and collected and I needed everyone else in the room to be the same. I gave her our nice camera and some instructions on how to take the pictures. Now that my mom was here and the cameras were ready to go it was time to get down to business. I did 4 more rounds of pushing before baby girl appeared. I never knew how far encouragement from my mom,the nurses and doctors would get me. It was them telling me how well I was doing and encouraging me to keep going that made the biggest difference to me. Mike was close by, although I had asked that he stand back a little, I didn't want him to pass out. Without me asking her actually recorded some really precious moments during her birth and the first time I held her which I will be forever grateful for.

When they tossed her onto my belly I was to worried about if she was breathing well enough to fully take in the moment. I knew she was a premie and would need extra medical attention and was anxious to hear that she was breathing well and seemed to look healthy at first glance. They took her over to clean her up and my mom and Mike followed close behind. Since there was a NICU team as well as the people who helped deliver the baby in the room it was pretty crowded and I frantically looked around for Mike. I was anxious to see what his reaction to the birth of our little girl was. Sadly, I couldn't see him. Once they determined that she was breathing well enough they wrapped her up and put her in my arms. I knew it was the last time I'd be able to hold her for 24 hours and I had a really hard time letting go of her. I knew she would be in good hands in the NICU and that her dad and grandma would love on her enough for me, but I would be lying if I said it didn't break my heart a little.

With preeclampsia the 24 hours after giving birth are just as dangerous as giving birth. For this reason I had to stay on the magnesium confined to my bed for the next 24 hours. The doctor stitched me up and delivered my placenta and even showed it to me. I was actually curious to know what it looked like after it had caused me so many problems. After 30 min the NICU called and told us Eden weight 4 lbs 15 oz and was 18 inches long.

Shortly after the NICU called Mike and my mom went upstairs to see her. I was so happy that they were able to facetime me in on all the action so that I felt like I was there with them. I was happy to see that she didn't need any oxygen and was looking really good. I just smiled as I watched her. I was captivated with every little movement. She was perfect.

That night my mom and Mike went upstairs to say goodnight to her. They facetimed me and I sang her a few lullabyes before bed. Mike told my mom that he was going to take a minute to day goodnight to her alone. He didn't come back down for 45 min. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. He had fallen in love with his little girl faster than I think he ever imagine. He told me later that when she was born her got pretty emotional. It made my heart melt. I never imagine how much my love for him would grow as I watched him fall in love with our daughter. There is nothing sweeter in all the world.

My mom stayed with me that night so that Mike could get a good night sleep after being at the hospital the night before. I was sooo grateful to have my mom there. She took such good care of me and loved on me and helped make me feel better. I think they increased the level of magnesium I was on because I was so dizzy and week. I could barely feed myself. Although I wasn't even allowed to eat anything but clear foods, so it was really just lemon Italian ice I could barley feed myself. The catheter didn't even bother me anymore because I was to weak to notice it. It was a really rough 24 hours post birth. Thankfully, between the nurses, my mom and Mike I felt very well taken care of. I was anxious to get off the meds and go upstairs and hold my little girl.