how miles came into this world : by jean

the following post my not be suitable for all.  please read at your own discretion

it's amazing how every woman experiences labor differently.  we all go through giving birth, but the process of getting there and actually laboring is so different.  my due date was january 20, 2012. it was a friday.  i remember going into work like any other day and leaving work not knowing if i was going to be back on monday or not.

saturday:  i started to feel some contractions.  it felt like mild cramps like my stomach was getting squeezed tightly and then releasing.  it wasn't too bad, at least not yet.  i knew i was about 70% effaced and everyone said to walk around a lot to help go into labor.  we are in brooklyn, and there aren't big malls close by.  it was too cold to walk around outside and Ikea was right by our place so we decided to go for a walk, look at pretty furniture, and eat some swedish meatballs.  saturday came and went.

sunday: again, irregular contractions.  they were starting to feel a bit more intense where i would have to pause what i was doing for a second until the pain went away.  amy was hoping i would have miles over the weekend so she could come see me at the hospital.  since miles still didn't come out yet, she came over with some miyuk gook (seaweed soup or Korean "birthday soup." Koreans say this is the best food for moms.  something about the seaweed helps your milk production, replaces iron from all the blood loss, and promotes healing) and her awesome chocolate walnut cookies.  we decided to skip church since my contractions were getting a bit more intense each time.  we stayed home, watched a lot of tv, ate dinner, and went to bed.  in the middle of the night, my contractions became regular.  i had one almost every 5 minutes for about an hour so i decided to call the doctor at around 4am on...  

monday: i told the doctor my symptoms and she said to go to the hospital.  when i arrived at the hospital, they checked me and said i was just about 2 cms-- barely dilated.  they told me to go home and try to relax.  i was a bit disappointed but we went back.  my contractions were back to being irregular so i tried to sleep or walk around whenever i didn't have contractions.  pain was pretty bad at this point but somewhat bearable.  i tried to breathe through the contractions, but it was hard.  i would clench and tense up each time i had a contraction.  my contractions were regular again by around 4pm.  i called my doctor and she told me that i could come into the office to get checked or i could go back to the hospital.  i decided to go to the hospital hoping that i might get admitted.  when i arrived at the hospital, my contractions all of a sudden became irregular again AND i was still only at 2 cms.  they told me to go home (again!?), take a bath, drink some wine, walk around and sleep.  i was really disappointed and a bit annoyed at this point, but i went home and followed the doctor's orders.  it seemed like the contractions died down at this point or maybe the bath and/or the wine helped-- not sure, but i was able to relax.  of course we went to sleep and then my pain suddenly became unbearable.  i couldn't sit, lie down, walk, or even go to the bathroom.  PAIN.

tuesday:  i tried to hold off on calling my doc right away because i was tired of going in and having to come back home again, but this time the pain was so much worse.  with each contraction i couldn't help but let out what i call my "labor roar."  we finally called the doctor at 9am and she said once again to go to the hospital.  the ride to the hospital felt like hours.  the other times it was painful everytime we hit a bump or did a sharp turn, but this time EVERYTHING made it worse.  i got to the hospital and could barely walk.  the security guard saw me crying and hobbling over and got a wheelchair for me right away.  i even had a hard time getting in the wheelchair.  when i got to the delivery floor, i tried to get undressed and into the gown so i could get checked again but every movement made my contractions worse.  my doctor finally checked me-- i was at a whopping 3 cms.  ONLY 3 CMS?!   i pleaded with her to not send me back home because the pain was so much worse.  i was admitted at 11am (hooray!).  she suggested that that they give me some drugs since my pain was clearly getting worse, but i wasn't dilating much faster.  she put me on pitocin which helped me have more contractions and ultimately help me dilate faster.  when asked if i wanted an epidural, i said "YES PLEASE!"  once i got the epidural, i was totally fine.  i was able to relax-- no more labor roars.  now was the waiting game to dilate.  i was about 5 cms at 6pm.  my doctor decided to break my water to help speed up the process.  thanks to the epidural, i felt nothing (apparently, when the doctor broke amy's water before administering the epidural, she claimed it to be worst part of giving birth).  i enjoyed chicken broth, jello, and ginger ale for my last supper before the baby while the roomie went out and enjoyed a cheesesteak sandwich.  at 2am, my nurse came to check me and i was finally at 10cms.  HALLELUJAH!

i started pushing at 2:30am.  i pushed for about 15 minutes and then my nurse told me that i wasn't pushing correctly.  i couldn't feel my bottom because of the epidural, so even though i thought i was pushing down there, i wasn't.  the doctor decided to cut my epidural dose in half-- ahhh!  we waited a little bit for the epidural to wear off and started pushing again at 3:30am.  i was in PAIN.  it hurt so much that it almost felt better to push than to wait in between pushes.  i started pushing in the normal legs-up-in-the-air-while-sitting position, but my lower back hurt too much, so my nurse suggested i try the squatting method.  they lowered my chair so my feet dangle down.  i squatted down holding onto a bar each time i pushed.  this helped the pain in my lower back.  after pushing this way for about 20 minutes (felt like eternity), they put me back in the regular position.  after some more pushing i heard them say the head was out-- oh, the pain!  i felt like there was a watermelon stuck down there!  it hurt soo much that on my next push, i completely pushed the rest of his body out in one shot!  the roomie said he remembered seeing the head come out, and then the rest of the body fly out!  while pushing i remembered telling myself, "i have to push as hard as i can to make this pain to go away."  my doctor didn't think i would push the rest of his body out so quickly so i ended up tearing a lot-- 3rd degree.  ouch! 

the feeling like there was a watermelon stuck down there was gone but i didn't hear him cry right away, so i was so confused and didn't know if he was out or not.  after the nurses cleared his nose and mouth, i heard the cry.  he was FINALLY out!  and then the placenta came out.  i've heard that sometimes it's painful when the placenta comes out.  for me, i just remember some cold slimy thing passing through my body and it sort of felt good.  maybe because i was so swollen and torn up, it was soothing in a way?  once the placenta was out everything was a blur.  getting sewn up, seeing miles, nurses checking on him, still getting sewn up, nurses trying to get miles to latch on, talking to my mom on the phone, and still getting sewn up.

that is my labor story.  people say as soon as you have the baby and hold him in your arms, you forget all the pain you just went through.  i sure haven't forgotten it!  i was still getting sewn up when i first held miles and for a while, i was so sore down there.  it hurt to sit down and go to the bathroom.  even after a month after i gave birth,  it would get sore down there if i walked around too much.  even now, i definitely still have not forgotten it.  have you forgotten the labor pains?  what was your labor like?

the things they don't talk about : by amy

warning: parts of this entry may be TMI for some readers.  read at your own risk.

There are a lot of things about pregnancy and birth that people just don't seem to talk about.  You only find out that these things are quite common after you start going through them yourself.  For example, I think at least 50% of women at my church have had at least one miscarriage.  Not just one, but AT LEAST one.  Turns out, trying to have a baby can be harder than it sounds from health class.  Yes, you can mechanically get the job done up front (or...wherever), but there is a timing element and then so many stages to go through before you're actually clinically pregnant.  

 
My OBGYN's office didn't even let me book an appointment until I was at least 4 weeks along b/c many times, the case can be a "chemical pregnancy," which is when you have a very early miscarriage.  You could have a positive pregnancy test b/c the test was able to detect the hormone levels that occurred when you conceived, but in reality, you've already miscarried.  I'm thankful that conception and delivering went pretty much according to plan for me.   

Another thing no one told me about was the recovery process.

The day I came home from the hospital, I put frozen dumplings on my swollen feet

I knew it took an extra few weeks to recover from a C-section which seemed obvious.  I had a vaginal birth and figured it would take maybe 2-3 weeks to heal since there was no major surgery involved.  I also walked out of the hospital gaining more than I did when I first walked in to give birth (and I gained nearly 40 pounds throughout my pregnancy)!  Due to the epidural/IVs, I had a LOT of fluid to lose, which meant lots of bathroom breaks (btw, do your kegels!!  Or you'll be hitting the head every hour!), but the act of sitting down was oh-so-painful!  I didn't know I was going to have to wear an ice pack down THERE with a super-thick-diaper-like-pad held in place with stretchy, mesh panties everyday.  I don't think I wore regular underwear for the first month.  I didn't know going to the bathroom would require a 4-step process: rinse, dab, spray antiseptic, replace hazel witch pads.  What the hell were hazel witch pads??  They sounded evil (but they're not.  They actually feel quite nice :)).  I didn't know that I'd probably have to sit on a donut most of the time (I had a 1st degree tear) and be sitting in a warm sitz bath over the toilet every night.  Why didn't anyone tell me these things??  Well, now YOU know.  This is what happens when something the size of a watermelon comes out of something the size of a lemon.

Lastly, the baby blues, aka post-partum depression (PPD): 

I thought I'd be the last person on earth to get PPD.  I'm usually a pretty upbeat and happy person-- Jean almost didn't want to be my friend b/c I supposedly smiled too much (yes, she really thought that!).  But after a day or two of being home from the hospital, I started to feel...depressed.  Burdened.  Sad.  I would cry for no real reason at all.  Sometimes the mere fleeting thought of my husband having to go to work the next day instantaneously brought tears to my eyes, leading to uncontrollable sobbing.  Nursing was excruciatingly painful the first couple of weeks while Logan learned to latch.  When my milk supply didn't seem to satisfy Logan, I felt like I wasn't meant to be a mother.  Everything just felt like it was too much for me to deal with.  I didn't want to see friends-- only my husband.  I didn't want him to return to work and leave me home alone for 10 hours with this "thing" that I was now responsible for.  Even my favorite foods and hobbies didn't interest me anymore.  All I wanted to do was sleep and veg, neither of which I had time to do.  It didn't make things better when my husband would say things like, "Don't tell me YOU have post-partum depression..."  So then, I didn't want to talk about it because he would look at me with that "oh my God, you're not DEPRESSED, are you??" look on his face.  I would tell myself, "I sort of miss my pre-baby life.  Gosh, I must be really that selfish.  I'm a horrible mother for feeling this way.  I should be overjoyed and experiencing an amazing, loving bond with my baby like everyone else.  What's wrong with me?"

So in order to get me out of my rut, I started tagging along with my husband when he went to class in NYC.  We ate at the Wholefoods and I walked around the neighborhood, got cupcakes at Billy's, or hung out at the Starbucks until my husband finished.  Nursing in public was a bit of a struggle but I eventually got the hang of it.  I looked forward to these days every week because we were (mostly) together as a family.   I felt a bit like my old self again wandering the streets, window shopping and munching on treats while wearing the baby in the carrier.

After about 2 months, the clouds finally broke for good.  My confidence as a mother grew and I started to experience that loving bond that people talked about.  Our 6am nursing session became one of my favorite times of the day.  I think my case of the baby blues was generally mild-- I never felt a desire to hurt my baby or myself.  When I shared my feelings with other veteran moms, I had realized that lots of moms experienced some type of baby blues, but no one seemed to talk much about it.  Meanwhile, here I am thinking, "Well no one else is talking about it, so I guess I'm the odd ball."

Well, I admit I still am generally a bit odd, but who isn't??  :-)