Saturday, October 16 (4 days past due date)
I feel much more calm today about being overdue, and nest all day long methodically. I get all the laundry done, I write thank you cards. I clean our bedroom and bring the Moses basket down and place it next to our bed. After dinner I drag the whole family on a walk to deliver two baby gifts to friends. Three miles later we get home in the dark, and I can barely walk! We all go to bed (except Rich), calm and well-exercised.
Sunday, October 17 (5 days past due date)
12:30 a.m.
Rich goes to bed after finishing writing his high council talk he's assigned to give in our ward and the Leander Ward.
2:48 a.m.
Russell and Graham have both come to our room with bad dreams and camp out on either side of our bed with their blankets and pillows. When Graham joins us, I stumble to the bathroom to find that my mucus plug has started coming out. "This is good news," I say, trying not to be too excited. When I get back into bed, I start feeling contractions! After a while, we start timing them. They seem consistently 6 minutes apart. Is it time?
5:00 a.m.
We call Grandpa Ross and Nana Gurney in Dallas and tell them to get here quick, because we think the babe might be coming soon. Rich starts changing up his talk to be word-for-word in case he needs to have our home teacher read it for him. Contractions are still coming, but not quite so regular.
8:00 a.m.
Rich starts calling people to line up his substitutes. I call my visiting teacher to have her pick up the kids to take them to church. I get in the shower and the contractions stop completely! After a while we decide to cancel our backups and just go to church and see what happens.
9:00 a.m.
We go to sacrament meeting and Rich gives a great talk on prioritizing your life, despite his exhaustion from talk preparation, frightened kids and contraction-timing all night. One of the great parts of his talk is about how we can walk long distances like the pioneers if we can but focus our steps in one direction, instead of walking in circles all the time (my labor apparently wasn't listening!). I feel four or five wimpy contractions during the meeting and text the high councilman Rich lined up to substitute for him in the Leander Ward, telling him that labor has stalled and Rich will be there after all.
10:30 a.m.
Mom and Ross show up at church. Ross stays with Rich, and Mom and I go home and start walking. I feel some really sporadic contractions and decide to take a nap after a while.
12:30 p.m.
Everyone comes home from church and Ross leaves to go to Bentonville to visit Amy. We call Katie in Katy and ask her to come help with the kids so that Mom can come to the birth. I say to her, "I'm pretty sure this baby will come tonight."
6:00 p.m.
Katie shows up with Ellie. We play card games and hang out with the kids. I remember thinking that within an hour or so we will start heading to the hospital. But the contractions won't get regular enough.
8:30 p.m.
Rich and I retreat to our room and start getting more serious about this, with relaxing music and him rubbing my back while we time the contractions. At 11:15, I call and talk to the midwife Lianne. I tell her that my contractions are 4-8 minutes apart, but I hear my voice sounding far too cheerful and excited. She hears it too, and encourages me to take some Tylenol and try to get some sleep until things pick up. Skeptical, I take the Tylenol and go to bed. Sure enough, after a few hours the contractions get to the point that they cease to be worth timing, and I get a few hours of sleep.
Monday, October 18th (6 days past due date)
7:15 a.m.
Send the kids off to school (with Katie's help), telling them that the next time we see them we will probably have a baby. Rich gives me a blessing before they go, blessing me that all will go well. I do some prenatal yoga and cross off more things from my before-birth to-do list.
12:30 p.m.
I finally start feeling contractions worth timing again, just after I finish up working through the stack of papers on my desk. They are 5-8 minutes apart again mostly. Rich and I take another walk. I start packing up the birthing bag again for what seems like the hundredth time.
1:30 p.m.
We leave (with Mom) a little early to go to the doctor's appointment, hoping to just go straight to the hospital. We stop at the Brushy Creek Lake Park for another walk.
2:45 p.m.
We hang out at the doctor's office for a couple of hours for a non-stress test, ultrasound, and appointment with Kathy. I tell the receptionist and Kathy that I am in labor, but nobody seems to really believe me. Thankfully, the non-stress test of 30 minutes confirms what I say, showing 6 good contractions and a baby with a strong heartbeat. Kathy tells me that sometimes dehydration and lack of sleep can stall labor, so I should go home and rest. She examines me and finds that I'm still only dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced, just where I was two weeks ago when they examined me first. How can that be after 36 hours of so many contractions?!?
5:10 p.m.
We start driving home and my contractions finally start becoming longer and stronger and closer together. We decide to stop at Chipotle for dinner. At first we are just going to send Mom in for the burritos while I nap, but I have to go to the bathroom, so we all go in and sit down to eat. By the time we're done eating our burritos and I've been to the bathroom again, we decide it's time to go to hospital. I am getting serious now, the contractions require much more concentration. Rich calls Kathy, and she says to come on in.
5:40 p.m.
We get back to the hospital and get all checked in. I put on the breezy gown and the nurse with lots of makeup (Heather?) stabs me a few times for the hep-lock in case I need an IV later. We turn down the lights and turn on the iPod music.
After this, things get a little foggy, I guess because I'm finally in active labor and I can focus on little else. This part was really really hard! The baby is turned posterior, so I have horrible back labor. I have to have Rich rubbing my lower back HARD during every contraction, or I get panicky. In fact, when everything is said and done, the most noticeable pain is the pain in my lower back where Rich had been rubbing, trying to take the pain away. Mom was also very helpful during the time at the hospital, lifting up the birthing ball, giving me sips of water and ice chips, and gently rubbing my arm and telling me I was doing great. I felt lots and lots of love and support from everyone, and that helped me get through it.
I remember I changed positions a lot. The nurse brought a bar that attached to the bed, and I spent a lot of time squatting on the bed holding the bar during contractions, and falling back onto the bed in between contractions to rest. I also spent some time on my hands and knees with my arms and head on the birthing ball on the bed. When Kathy (the midwife) came into the room in the later stages, she gave me a foot massage with lotion and then suggested that I lay on my side during the contractions so I could get some rest. I think it was at this point that I started moaning during the contractions and feeling like maybe I couldn't stay in control.
Tuesday, October 19th (1 week past due date)
When I looked up at the clock to see that it was past midnight and we had entered into Tuesday, I asked if we could do the epidural now (mostly joking, but not completely). Kathy said it was probably too late now. Then she broke my water all the way and saw that there was meconium in it, so they called in the troops for that (two nurse practitioners). Around 12:30 I was ready to start pushing, and I pushed through 5-6 contractions. Miraculously, a beautiful baby boy popped out just when /i was ready to give up!
1:07 a.m.
Baby born after over 46 hours of labor!
9 lbs. 2 oz.
22 inches long
Yes, I've done this three times before, but I had a hard time believing it was real and that it was over. I sobbed. And sobbed. They whisked this mysterious child to the warmer to clean off the meconium and clear his nasal passages. He cried right away, but you could tell from the raspy sound that his passages were clouded with something. They brought him to me all wrapped up for a few minutes before they whisked him off again to the nursery (with Rich) for more tests. So there I sat (this is always my least favorite part, but at least Mom was there with me) while Kathy helped me push the placenta out (took me about 30 minutes!) and then sewed me up with one stitch where I had torn.
5:30 a.m.
After they poke and prod him in the nursery, give him a bath, then make him sit under the warmer for two hours to recover from the bath, they finally bring him to me to nurse. At first I can't get him to latch on, and I start worrying that I won't ever be able to. But a skilled nurse from Kerala named Manju helped me get him alert enough so that he finally latched on.
Hooray for new baby!
