Three Weeks Ago: A Re-Told Story

Okay, so we don't forget later (and just in case anyone was curious), I thought I would relate the events surrounding The Birth (which was already 3 weeks ago yesterday). And yes, I know, my tensing of my verbs below is not very consistent (I was trying to hold E while typing a lot of this, which was a little distracting - hmmm... was I writing in the present or past tense?...ermm...).

Thursday, Oct. 26

Early in the morning: We got up early for a doctor's appt. for Gilda (and were pretty tired - we had gotten to bed late the previous night and gotten up fairly early that previous morning). The dr. couldn't tell how dilated Gilda was since, as had been the case for a while, her cervix could not be reached - E 's head was in the way still. The doc thought, though, that the baby was probably coming any day now (tomorrow would put us at 1 wk overdue), but just in case scheduled us for an inducement on Sunday if the baby hadn't come by then. She suggested that, because of her lateness, we go ti our hospital in Sac after the appt. and get the baby momitored to make sure she was okay. She thought it was altogether possible that we might get checked out an actually end up staying.

Late morning/early afternoon: Just in case, we went home before heading out to Sac and got all of our labor and delivery stuff together and put it in the car. At Sac, we were tested and the baby was fine but again they couldn't tell how dilated Gilda was. We were sent home, where we have some lunch and Gilda takes a nap.

Late afternoon: Gilda woke up from her nap and thought her water might have broken. So we promptly take walks and make plans for dinner.

Early evening: We ended up eating at a Middle Eastern/Meditterranean food place called "Cafe Mediteranee" (a new place for us) where we had some kabab and shawerma goodness with hummus and red pepper/pomegranite sauce (mmm...Ireally like that pomegranite stuff). After that, we walked over to Borders across the street and browsed for a while.

About 8pm: We finally call the hospital. They have doubts about whether Gilda's water actually broke, but have us come in just in case anyway.

Around 8:30: We get to the hospital and get checked out again.

A little later: The doctor on duty says Gilda's amniotic sac actually hasn't ruptured yet but that he can feel the cervix and that it is dilated 3 cm. Usually they only admit a mother once she's at 4 cm but since we were already almost a week overdue, the doctor decided to admit us anyway. So we were finally in business!! Anyway, we were shown to one of the tiny labor rooms and Gilda got an uber-ouchy catheter/iv thingie stuck into her hand near her thumb. She got some walking done in the hallways, though. All the while, contractions were getting more noticeable.

Friday, Oct. 27

Around midnight: One of the docs (the one that delivered E the next day, I believe) manually ruptured the amniotic sac to get the labor jump started a bit. The fluid had a slight green tinge to it - the baby had passed some meconium into the amniotic fluid, so she would need to be looked at when she was born to make sure she wouldn't get pneumonia if any of that stuff got into her lungs. Sadly, Gilda has to stay in her room from now on (no more walking oot and aboot).

Later on: Contractions get more intense, cervix continues to dilate at a steady, albeit slow, rate. The contractions start to get pretty painful. Gilda ends up finding that sitting on the room's toilet is the least painful position - no pressure on the tailbone, for instance (due to the hole in the middle of the seat). She can also take the pain better when she knows it's coming, so Iwatched the monitor for her to tell her when a contraction was coming or staring to let off. Unfortunately, the best position for her involved not only simply sitting on the toilet but also having me, legs straight, leaning slightly forward in a very straining manner, with her head leaning forward into my chest. All the while, I had to crane my neck around to look at the monitor to see what was up with the contractions. That was really wearing me out - legs, back, and neck. But, of course, that wasn't as bad as what Gilda was going through.

Around 4am: Gilda had had enough. Despite the increasing pain of contractions, she could handle them. What she couldn't handle was the thought of doing this for hours and hours more, especially so early in the morning (and us really tired already from not much sleep). So she called for an epidural so she could actually get some rest.

Around 4:30ish: Gilda got the epidural. Her left leg went totally limp, though she could move here right one still a little.

Later, early morning: We finally got a little sleep. The one chair in the room folded out like a bed so I sprawled out and got an hour nap. Gilda got a two hour-or-so nap herself. Soon, though, she wasn't feeling so well and her Mediterranean food from earlier the previous night came back to greet her. On two separate occassions. Also, at some point, she had a fever and was given antibiotics.

Around 9 or 10am: I call our families and let them know what's going on.

Around 11am or so: My mom arrives. A little while later, my Grandma (LaVeda) does too. Around noon, they buy me lunch - I was starving (all I had eaten since arriving at the hospital was some dried apricots and trail mix we had brought as snacks).

Afternoon: Gilda starts the process of actively pushing. Nurses think she is an incredibly strong pusher. Soon Gilda delivers a lock of hair (the first part of little E to be seen). My mom holds one of Gilda's legs close to Gilda and I hold the other (thus acting as human stirrups). This goes on for a while.

Around 4pm: We finally go to the delivery room for - can you guess? - yes, that's right - delivery. There were quite a lot of people there - nurses, midwife, doctor, nursing students observing, etc. Gilda was pushing really hard - which meant she was also pushing really hard with her legs, several times almost knocking my mom or me over (we were still holding her legs throughout the whole thing). Unfortunately, there was not enough room for the baby to come out and Gilda, with her skin of steel, was not stretching. So they ended up giving a lidocaine shot in that area and took some heavy duty shears and cut to make the baby's exit wider (Gilda's skin was so tough, though, that even with the cut there it didn't tear and is now, at the time of this writing, about fully healed).

4:33pm: The baby's head finally pops out, with body soon to follow.

Afterwards: Baby is cleaned off and tested and a tube is put down her throat to suck out meconium-tinged fluid. E is quite alert, which doesn't always happen if you have pain meds during labor and delivery. She gets a whopping Apgar score of 8 (very, very good). She's very healthy. I decide she looks more like an E than a Kaelyn. Gilda finally gets to see her and agrees, so we name her E . Gilda, in the meantime, gets stitches. I get to see the placenta - it's so weird and gross! It looks kinda like a weird plant.
We get to go to the recovery room for a bit and then Gilda gets taken to Postpartum. In the meantime, the rest of my nearby family shows up and gets to see E . At 9pm, I have to leave since visiting hours are now over - my brother Drew spends the night at our place. Later that evening, Gilda's mom and sister Gigi show up and get to see the baby too.


So that about wraps it up. Hopefully, I'm not forgetting anything important.