Birth - Story

Hi everyone! It is so surreal that Evelyn Joy came into the world almost two full days ago and that we are almost ready to go home from the hospital. We keep thinking that it is Tuesday. It has been such a blessing to get to know Evelyn. She is very wonderful and beautiful. I may be biased, but I think that she is the cutest baby in the world. :) We have an ever-expanding picture album up at http://picasaweb.google.com/discokristin/BabyEvelyn?authkey=dP6O1K8jYpU

Another practical thing - we are going home from the hospital tomorrow (Thursday) and so won't have any more visitors at the hospital. Give us a call, though, if you would like to swing by and see us at home. We will be needing a bit of time to figure out all the ins and outs of taking care of Evelyn there while also continuing to recover, but we would certainly love to set up a time to see you!

On to the story of how the whole thing unfolded! It started on Monday morning (Mar 31st) when we had a 'dry run' of the birth. Kristin had some symptoms and her doctor said to head in to TG's Labor & Delivery (L&D) department and get checked out. So, not knowing whether this might be it, we got the bags together, hurridly fed the cat and did some other things and then got in the car and drove to the hospital. Kristin was evaluated by Dr. Snowden at L&D, who told us that Kristin was 2cm dilated and 75% effaced and that labor could come any time - that day or a week from then. That was a little frustrating for Kristin (she had been hoping for 3cm), but I (Bard) actually realised a few things that I needed to prepare before the actual event happened, which I did that day on my lunch break. Good thing!

Later that afternoon, at 4pm, Kristin began having contractions. They were not intense or regular enough for us not to eat a big taco dinner at around 6pm (doh). But, they progressively got stronger and closer together until Bard, at around 8pm, realised that he should stop puttering around (while distractedly timing contractions) and focus on Kristin, who was getting more and more serious.

By 9:30pm, the contractions were clustering around 3-6 min apart and 60sec long. And they were intense. After a call to our doula, Sarah Farthing (who did a great job for the whole thing), Kristin called the L&D nurse line. During the call, a contraction hit. Kristin gasped and gave the phone to me - I said 'hello' to the nurse, who said 'yup, you guys should come in.' So, for the second time that day, we packed all of the bags into the car and drove to the hospital. We arrived at about 10:15pm and were brought straight to a birthing suite because the hospital was full of laboring mothers and all the triage rooms were full.

The nurse who admitted us, Patsy, said that Kristin would probably need to walk around for a bit to prove that she was progressing. She said though that, based on her 20 years of experience, she could tell that Kristin was actually in labor. The doctor came and checked Krisin out, finding that she was now 3cm dilated and 100% effaced. After the doctor left, Kristin and I (Bard) went for a walk around the birthing center. Kristin had to stop every couple of minutes to breath through contractions and they seemed to be getting tougher and tougher (based on how hard she gripped my hands as she breathed through it).

We were walking back when a contraction suddenly came on. Kristin doubled over, sank to hands and knees and threw up on the floor. Then her water broke right there. Patsy and Julie, another nurse, came to help me get Kristin back to the room. Patsy said, 'See, I told you she was in labor.' Now, it was on.

We got back to the room, where Sarah, the doula, had drawn a warm bath, put on soothing music, dimmed the lights and generally arranged things in the room to make it a nice environment for giving birth. Kristin got in the warm tub and labored there for a while in the soothing water. She got out of the tub when the doctor came to check her again, but threw up again as she was drying off. She got into bed finally and Julie, the nurse, put her on the monitors to look at her contractions and the baby's heart-beat. The contractions began coming really hard and fast, one right on top of the other. When the doctor came back to check on her, at about 11:45pm, she said that Kristin was dilated to 8cm! She had progressed 5cm in only 1 1/2 hours and was already well into the 'transition' stage of labor!

Kristin got a huge second wind from that news and attacked the contractions, seeing each of them as bringing her cervix closer and closer to delivering the baby. About 30min later, she started to get a really strong urge to push, but the doctor said that she couldn't yet because the cervix wasn't ready and pushing could actually stall the labor. So Kristin, like a champ, fought through another hour of really tough contractions. The doula really helped to suggest a number of positions and techniques to help her focus and help the cervix dilate fully.

At 1:47am, the doctor said that Kristin could start pushing. With Julie, the nurse, there to monitor her, she started pushing from a lying down position and really was moving the baby down the birth canal. The nurse called for doctors to come in to be there for the birth after about an hour. They came, but the baby got stuck in the canal and just wouldn't come any farther. It was very discouraging to Kristin when the doctors left to go attend other births.

Kristin continued to push lying down, then in the squatting and all fours position. Nothing worked to get the baby moving. Finally, exhausted, Kristin began pushing again in the lying down position. By now, it was after 4am. Kristin had been pushing for over 2 hours. At some point, Dr. Gill and his resident, Dr. Chin, had come into the room to help Julie help Kristin get the baby out. They tried a lot of different things, but the baby still wouldn't come.

In truth, Kristin had succeeded in moving the baby farther down the canal - the nurse brought a mirror so that she could see the baby's head beginning to crown. It was so frustrating, though, because - whatever position we tried - her head would advance...and then retreat. Every time she pushed, it seemed like the first push brought the baby farther but the second and third pushes brought her back. To combat this, we held Kristin's legs up as she pushed and then continued to hold them up as she rested to try to keep the baby from retreating. But her head was turned slightly and she just couldn't come around a bit of bone and tissue.

Kristin's original doctors - Drs. Snowden and Abbi - came back into at around 4:15am to 'tag in' for Drs. Gill and Chin. Kristin pushed for 45 min more with Sarah, the doula, trying different encouragement techniques, the doctors trying different things and my (Bard's) voice getting hoarse counting off the pushes (one, two, three - Go for it, honey! - five, six, seven...Again!). At one point during this time, the doctors and nurse looked up at me and told me to sit down. "I'm fine!" I said. But the minute I stepped away, I got really light headed and had to sit down and get some water. A nurse stepped in to hold Kristin's leg for me and I began cheering 'from the sidelines' and praying hard that God would bring the baby out safe.

At 5am, the baby's heart-beat, which had been going at about 140-160 beats per minute, dropped to 105 bpm - a sign that she was not getting enough oxygen. The doctors said that we needed to get the baby out immediately. They had been increasingly concerned over the last hour and we had even been trying the vacuum extractor to try to get Evelyn around 'the corner.' It hadn't worked. They told Kristin that she had one more push and then they would need to take her immediately to surgery for a C-section. Kristin had nothing left, but she gave it everything she had. And she did it! On that last push, with everyone in the room cheering for her and me jumping up and down and yelling 'Push, push, you can do it!' Evelyn Joy came out, beautiful in how normal she looked bawling and flailing around!

Kristin looked overjoyed and stunned. 'She came out!' she said. 'I had the baby.' She was amazing. Just did an incredible job. She did all of that without any pain medication. The nurses and doctors and doula kept saying what a wonderful job she had done.

That was the most intense moment of my life...and I hadn't even just pushed a baby out. I started crying from love and joy and relief as all the tension and emotion just flooded out. 'You did it, honey! You did it!" I kept saying through the tears. Thank you, God. Thank you. I had to get it together to cut the cord, which I did. Then, the doctors and nurses took the baby to a warming table and began doing a lot of tests and other things on her to make sure that she did not go into shock after the trauma of the birth. This was hard for Kristin, who kept saying, 'where's my baby? I want my baby.' She was okay, though, and actually started cracking jokes with the nurses and doctors who were helping her through stage 3 of labor and then working to repair her.

When the nurses were finished doing their tests, they brought Evelyn Joy to Kristin's breast, where she immediately started nursing. The site was so beautiful. I just stood and stared and Kristin and Evelyn Joy as she nursed and rubbed Evelyn Joy's little hand. She actually nursed so much that her blood sugar went up to normal levels and she didn't need supplemental feeding right then. Good girl!

After that, Kristin's parents, brother and close friend, Sara, came into the room and held Evelyn Joy. There was so much joy there as everyone held her. We snapped a lot of pictures (some of which are actually on the Picasa album linked above...others were not decent :).

Evelyn now is beautiful and healthy. I could give you all the details of her nursing and excellent poopy diapers...but I won't. Mom is recovering well, but the birth was hard and she can still not walk very well and is in a lot of pain. She will have a longer recovery that we had anticipated, so please pray that she recovers quickly and fully and that I and other friends and family can support her with a lot of love and thoughtfulness.

Thank you for your prayers!