Hannah arrived on the morning of the 17th of December, and she’s beautiful and sweet and we love her like you wouldn’t believe! Jon and I were coming home from the family dinner on Sunday night, and I had the worst cramp. It stopped the conversation for a minute, but then it went away and we drove on home thinking nothing else of it. About half an hour later there were the starts of several more cramps, and questioning the reason for them, Jon suggested that they might not be cramps but contractions. OH! After another couple of pains, we started keeping track of how long the pains lasted, how long it went between pains, and how strong they were. Jon called the hospital a couple of times during the night to discuss our progress and to see if we ought to head in. Assuming that I was a nervous first-time preggo, they gave us a loose rule of thumb…once the contractions are over a minute long and are five minutes apart, then head to the hospital. They suggested a warm shower to relax me, taking a walk, or trying to sleep if I could. However, they figured that I was going to be having contractions for a while, or that it would turn out to be false labor and the contractions would stop of their own accord before too long, so they didn’t sound all that concerned.
We did take their advice and I tried to walk around, but since the pains doubled me over effectively knocking me off my feet, that didn’t help. I took the shower too, but had to kneel down a few times to bend over the pain while the water flowed. I’m sure the nurses meant well, but their advice wasn’t doing very much good, and it was at that point that my body sort of went into shock and started to shake. I got out of the shower, dressed and had to sit down because walking was tough to do with shaky legs. After that, we never had time to sleep. We’d been keeping track of everything for several hours and we were still confused because we hadn’t met the criteria that the nurses laid out. Jon called the hospital again, and told them that we still hadn’t reached consistent pains over a minute long, but that the pains I was having were two minutes apart. They said it was time to come in.
We loaded ourselves into the car and headed into the hospital at about 3 a.m. Jon was quite excited to be headed to the hospital at that point actually because he got to speed through two red lights since the roads were completely empty. He said he almost wished that we would have been seen and pulled over by a cop so that he could use the ultimate excuse of his wife being in labor to possibly get a police escort with the lights and sirens and all. Even without the escort, Jon was satisfied with his little version of breaking the law.
We pulled up to the curb and Jon led me in with only a couple more pauses to bend over a contraction. There was a longer pause at the door to the floor we needed though because there was no nurse there to buzz us in. There’s a lot of security at the floor for babies, and the evening lockdown was in place! We stood there ringing the bell for admittance, hoping that they would look at the desperate looking man and the hunched over woman on the monitor and take some pity.
We finally heard the buzz, went through the hall to the counter, and joked with the nurses about being in a little bit of pain. They recognized our name as the Woodbury’s that had been calling in all evening and checked us in quickly and got us to a birthing room. Our only concern at that point was that we would get examined and told that it WAS false labor and then we’d be sent home after all. We answered all the questions and I changed into the gown as we waited for the verdict to come in. After a quick appraisal by our nurse, we found out that I was dilated to a 5, and there was no going home after that! We hunkered in and stared at each other in wonder as we realized that this was no drill!
We were told some time ago, and had always heard about “birthing plans.” However, what do you put into a birthing plan when you have no idea how your birth will go or what your options would be depending on your progress? Do you request a jetted tub when the rooms don’t come with jetted tubs? How can you burn incense and request a massage if your labor jumps right past matches and into the final stages of pushing? What’s the use in bringing a bunch of supplies if you’re not going to get to use them? The compromise that we made was that we would bring a couple of cd’s and movies that might entertain us if we found that we did have some time. The movies that we settled on were comedies! What better to watch than comedians talking about birth and hospitals? Bill Cosby and Brian Regan were our comedians of choice, and we thought it might be interesting to see the effects of laughter on labor. Despite the fact that we’d left our bags and disks in the car in our hurry to get into the hospital, we were quite happy to have a nurse with a sense of humor who could quote the Bill Cosby stand up act with us! She thought we were a little odd to laugh when all she’d asked was if I could rate my pain. We said things like, “four stars!” and, “two enthusiastic thumbs up!”, which helped quite a lot with the fear and nervousness.
We were also told that my doctor, Dr. Macy, was not only on call, but that she’s spent the night in the hospital for her duty and was at that moment sleeping right down the hall. They assured me that after I’d checked in and was progressing well, they’d wake her up and let her know that we were there. Isn’t that convenient?!
Our nurse’s final question was if we wanted an epidural. I told her that I wanted to try it natural for as long as I was able, and she just rolled her eyes. Then she laughed and asked if she could ask why? She said that EVERY woman that came in for their first child wanted to try things without pain killers, but that they all also asked to have the epidural waiting just in case. If we all knew that we may give in and go for the pain killers in the end, why didn’t we just get the pain killers from the beginning and save ourselves the hassle? Jon had agreed with that thought weeks before as we had discussed our birth options. He felt that it would just be smarter to get the pain killers, at least the first time, while my body was figuring the whole labor process out. If I wanted to try it natural on the second child, he could understand that, but for the first one when I would need every bit of assistance on that learning curve that I could get since my body had never done this before, he thought I should go with the pain killers. I told the nurse that we were in a state of Pioneer daughters; that we all wanted to test ourselves to see if we COULD handle labor without assistance. We all knew that we weren’t great Aunt Millie out on the plains, and we like knowing that we have that safety net, but we just had to push ourselves to see how long we could stand it. The nurse rolled her eyes again, but supposed it was our birth, so we could handle the pain however we wanted to.
No disrespect to Aunt Millie, but before the i.v. was in place and my blood had been finally drawn, I was ready to admit that I was no Pioneer and the pain was just too much. I could see that Jon wasn’t handling it well either. He had been so supportive of my desire to test myself, but he was relieved to see me take an opportunity to make the pain stop. He doesn’t like it when I cry anyway, but crying because it hurt that much, well that was a crying he really couldn’t stand for long. Only a few minutes after I called Uncle (or Aunt Millie as the case may be) the anesthesiologist was there. He went through all the requirements for relieving the pain, had me sign the release forms, and then he went to get his equipment. Next, I found myself sitting on the side of the bed, bent over exposing my spine to the doctor trying not to shake while the needles went in and the medicine got started. Jon was amazing to keep me steady. He held my hands down, kept my eye on him for focus, and kept me calm by just talking in my ear or kissing my head. I have never been in so much searing pain, and honestly have never been so afraid in my life, but it would have been SO much worse, and I would have been freaking out without my sweet husband there to calm me and love me. He’ll tell you that he didn’t do anything, but don’t believe him, he was awesome!
The anesthesiologist was quick and to the point, and when he said that I would feel a shock of fireworks in my knee, he wasn’t kidding. About two seconds after he made the statement, I felt the explosion in my left knee, and then all of a sudden the pain subsided and I was just fine. Whew! The really strange thing that they explained to me was that the drugs were on a constant drip, hitting my spine and traveling down my legs, so gravity was a factor in which leg was most numb! It’s so odd! If one leg lost the numbness for a minute, I just had to roll over so that the leg with pain/sensation was on the bottom, and the drugs would run more strongly to that leg than the one on top, and the numbness would return. It sounds crazy, but it works! Thank Heaven for modern medicine. I’m sure Aunt Millie would have used it too if she were given the option!
Once the pain was gone, the doctor told us to settle in since we had a ways to go and it was in the middle of the night so she suggested we grab some z’s. She snapped off the overhead light on her way out. Jon pulled up a chair, held my hand and snoozed against my hip. We both got about half an hour of sleep before the doctor came back to check on us again. They were monitoring me from the nurse’s station, but came in the room every half an hour, so our sleep wasn’t very deep. Every little bit helped though.
Procedure dictated that they hook my tummy up to two different bands with monitors at the point of the strongest data. One of those boxes monitored the baby’s heartbeat, and the other monitored my contractions. As the night progressed though, anytime I rolled over, or if the baby shifted position, the monitor would lose her heartbeat and scare the nurse. A couple of the times that they came into the room all they wanted to do was shift the monitor and make sure that we were both still fine. They finally decided to insert another monitor, this one on Hannah’s head, which means they needed to break my water. Dr. Macy pulled out the crochet hook and popped the bag. Apparently there wasn’t much water though, and she looked a little concerned that my water may have broken earlier and I hadn’t known it. Sorry. There was nothing for me to have done if I didn’t recognize it. They put that monitor on the babies head and left us to sleep again.
After another half an hour they decided that things weren’t progressing fast enough, so they gave me some petosin to speed up the process. At that point they realized that Hannah was face up instead of face down, so the doctor did a little twist to twirl her up the right way. She wasn’t breach or anything but the doctor was happy that she’s turned over so easily with just a little help. We were only dilated to a 7 though, so they left us for another half an hour to see how the drugs and the baby moved things along.
That half an hour led them to think that the baby was struggling a little bit and I needed some oxygen. Sleeping with that mask is tough. Another half an hour with the oxygen they decided to put another monitor in to track my contractions better because they needed to find out why my body wasn’t using the drugs to push things faster. Funnily enough, as they went to put that monitor in place, the doctor checked my progress and was surprised to see that I was dilated to a 10 all of a sudden! They were ready for me to push. OH! I guess that turning Hannah in the right direction had sped my body from a 7 to a 10 in a snap and we were ready to bring her out.
Once they heard the call to action, several nurses appeared out of nowhere, readied the bed, brought in a mirror, and flipped on all the lights. Time to go! The doctor threw on the gloves and gave me good directions about the whole process while Jon held one hand and one knee. It was very odd to try and push when my lower half was numb, but the doctor was right that watching what moved in the mirror when I pushed really did help. Pushing from memory instead of as an active sensation was quite odd…but much less effort or stress than a woman in active labor would have to worry about.
After half an hour of strong pushing that I couldn’t feel there was finally some progress and her head was there. It is the WEIRDEST thing to see that poking out of yourself and then to see the doctor pause on it. You’d think that they’d keep pulling or something to get the baby further out, but no. The head was pasty white, eyes closed, and unresponsive…and that was all that we could see as the doctor suctioned out her nose and mouth for a minute before finally asking me to push again! It was really so odd. It took so little, only a few more pushes, and there she was! Jon and I were in shock! It’s honestly like a pink elephant in the room all of a sudden. Hi there!
There was meconium in Hannah’s mouth that frightened the doctor for a minute. What’s meconium, you ask? Well…I didn’t realize it, but at the very end of the pregnancy babies bodies start to process food the same way that we do and they relieve themselves in the womb. Gross, eh? Even more gross is that they can get that feces into their mouths and ears since it’s just floating in there with them. It’s a special problem, not uncommon, but special. They called in a special nurse to care for the baby and take her into the other room if resuscitation or more stringent methods were needed because of the meconium. There were so many people in the room at that point, and they were all working. Some of them were cleaning, others were readying the baby carrier, and everyone took up space. They laid the baby on my chest while Jon took the scissors and cut the cord and the special nurse started rubbing her down while we all cried. The nurse was looking around for space to keep working and to check out the baby. Dr. Macy suggested taking her into the other room, and the nurse looked around while she rubbed. The idea of the baby leaving frightened me, but as the nurse was rubbing we worked some circulation into the baby, and she said that my chest seemed to be working just as well as going into another room. She double checked all of the points that they look for on newborns to give Hannah a score, as well as the issues surrounding the meconium, and she couldn’t find any reason to take her away from me. The baby got a score 9 out of 10, and with as well as she was screaming, they figured that all the meconium had been suctioned out already and the baby was fine. Whew! Hannah got to stay. YAY! At birth, she was 19 ½ inches long and 6 pounds 8 ounces and her official time of delivery was 7:09 a.m.
As they put Hannah under a warming lamp for some final cleaning and to measure and weigh her they asked if Jon wanted to take her picture. The room had emptied of extra people, so she’d stopped crying and was laying there in the plexi-glass box just looking out at the world. Everyone was very impressed, and we were all much calmer about her status. Jon walked over to pull out his camera, complete with attachments, flash, and more, and all the nurses gasped at his accessories. He he he. That’s what you get with a photographer as a father. A moment later, my doctor mentioned the placenta and that I needed to give her one more push. Just at that moment, Jon cracked a joke, I laughed, and out popped the placenta. The doctor was very impressed. He he he. Once that was done, we realized that I had torn a little bit so the doctor had to put in a couple of stitches in a very interesting spot, but I’m already healed and all is well.
Hannah was there. It was done! We’d made it! It was time to head to a regular room. I was feeling great at that point, but with the numb legs, they said that I wasn’t going to be able to be transferred via wheelchair for the ride down the hall. They got a gurney and two nurses helped me roll over on to that since I couldn’t move my legs on my own. Jon walked beside the baby carrier, but they rolled us girls on down the hall to our final room. A fun little touch to the trip was that they played Braham’s Lullaby over the intercom as we were being transferred. The nurse said that it was ‘our song’. I heard the music several more times during our stay, and three more babies showed up in the nursery. I guess it wasn’t just OUR song.
Once we were in our room and I was transferred to another bed, Jon was able to take Hannah to the nursery and give her a bath, at which time her peach-fuzz of bright red hair stood strait up. Hannah’s hair is exactly like her daddy’s! All the nurses apparently cooed and Jon just grinned. We had known we’d get red, but it was such a treat to see the fact of her red hair and not just the supposition. Still, she’s so beautiful and sweet that the red hair is just a bonus.
While Jon was in the nursery I had a chance to get myself cleaned up a bit and to change into another gown before settling into bed. Then daddy and baby came back to be with me and we had a little time together as just us. The nurses told us to attempt breast feeding right away, so that’s when we tried it. Hannah latched right on and she’s been a little pig ever since, so the doctors have been so happy with her progress. It was so surreal to be there as the three of us, but it was such a quiet magical time too.
We spent very little time with our new family before the rest of our families began the parade to meet Hannah. Parents, sisters, brothers, friends. Everyone came throughout the day, and everyone was so pleased to see our girl and share their love. When the parade finally ended, the nurses were good enough to bring a cot into the room for Jon to be able to sleep, and the three of us got some rest.
There were visits during the night from nurses checking in, but Jon slept strait through. He certainly deserved it! We’d been awake for so long, and Hannah needed to get used to her daddy’s snoring right from the start, so sleeping was what we all needed and what we got.
The doctors worried that Hannah was a bit on the small size for being within a week of her due date, so they had to do glucose tests for the first 24 hours, but we were both so good by lunch the day after her birth that they signed us out and we packed up to head home. No need to incur more hospital fees than necessary we figured, so as long as we were all well and good, we decided to take our little family home.
I’d brought a little pink sleeper to put Hannah in for her trip home, but it turns out that she is so tiny that all her 0-3 month clothes drown her…and most of what we have is 0-3. There is a fascinating side-story to Hannah’s birth though that involves that very thing. As our due date got closer and closer, and my concerns about everything came to a head, we had our final shower with all our friends on Saturday the 15th. The biggest concern I had was because we still had never found the time to go tour the hospital.
The shower was downtown at the Peery Hotel, so it was pretty convenient to go from the shower up to the hospital and have a look around. The first nurse was boring enough. She showed us a birthing room and said that there were several we could choose from if there weren’t too many other births going on. She then passed us off to a cute young nurse over at the regular stations who showed us the more permanent rooms and walked us through the whole process of having a baby at LDS Hospital. This nurse was an absolute doll and we bonded with her on the spot! Pamela was her name, and she apparently felt the same way about us that we felt about her because we all spent half an hour in the room on our tour and talked about family, babies, and becoming friends. She was a much-needed comfort in our last minute preparations, and we thanked her so much for everything. She told us that she hoped we went into labor soon because she was just an intern at that point, was hoping to be hired on permanently, but her rotation was finished in another couple of days and if we didn’t have our baby before her rotation ended, she wasn’t sure she’d see us again. If she got the job she would, but if not, there were no guarantees.
When Pamela came in for her shift on Monday morning and saw the name Woodbury up on the board, she was so excited. She only stopped in to our room for a moment during that day, but Jon saw her in the halls and at the nursery and got to catch up with her there. She has three sons, but granted that our daughter was the cutest baby girl ever. Her boys held the title for cutest boys, but she allowed us to have the ranking of most beautiful girl. The next day, as we were getting ready to leave, Pamela came into our room with a little something for the baby. She stood there to explain things for a moment, and by the time she was done, we were all in tears.
What she said is that it had been an extremely difficult couple of weeks for her. Saturday, the day we’d met her, had been the worst day of her life because not only was she going through a divorce, but she’d found out that morning that her husband had been sleeping with someone else for six months and she was devastated. She said it was one of those days when you know you can’t sit home in the dark even though that’s all you want to do…so you plaster on the biggest fake smile that you can and you wade through the days duties until you can go back home and fall apart. She’d received a blessing that week though, which had told her that she would meet people that would restore her faith and that they would see her through the difficulties. She was sure that we were an answer to that blessing and she was so grateful for our friendship…short-lived as it was so far…and for our acceptance of her regardless of her situation. We had made her feel better, and she wanted to thank us for that. She handed us the sweetest little white outfit for Hannah, gave us hugs, and said goodbye.
It continually amazes me that everyone around us is experiencing things like that, but we may never know it. We may help or hurt and be none the wiser. I’m so grateful that we were a help to her in some way during her trial and that she said something to us about it.
The great thing about our friendship with Pamela though is that we got to meet her husband and sons that very day! They had come to have lunch with her and were in the hall as we went to pick up Hannah from the nursery. We were in the middle of getting checked out though, so we went back to our room and dressed Hannah in the little white outfit that Pamela had given us (even though her mother cautioned her that we would think she was a kook) and we got to show Pamela and all the rest of the nurses how sweet she looked in the clothes that fit her perfectly! The entire nurses staff cooed over her and asked Pamela where she found such an adorable outfit. The even stranger thing is that we ran into Pamela and her mother at the Target a few days later when we went to buy last-minute things we hadn’t known we’d need. As we were leaving, Pamela was just walking in, and we got to show her how much cuter our girl was after two days, and Pamela got to introduce us to her mother who didn’t think she was such a kook anymore. What happenstances?! Of course, we got her email address and phone number and we’re keeping in touch with her. What amazing things happen to us and what wonderful people we meet when the Lord needs us to meet them!
One of the sweet nurses helped us carry flowers and gifts down to our car, and made sure that Hannah’s car seat was correct and secure. That car seat was another blessing for us. My friend Chellie had come to the shower on Saturday without a gift. She has been through a few trials lately herself. I assured her that I didn’t need anything from her, but she asked me what was still needed. I told her honestly that the ONLY thing we needed was a car seat and that we would return a few toys and use a gift certificate we’d been given to be able to afford the expensive piece of baby equipment, that she didn’t have to bother with anything. Chellie stared at me for a minute and just laughed. It turns out that her kids had just finally grown out of car seats and at that moment she had on her to-do list for Monday to clean the last car seat they’d outgrown and take it to Kid-to-kid. If we needed a car seat, she had one to give us! How blessed we all are! She had exactly what we needed and it wouldn’t cost her anything to give it to us. She told me later too that the next day after the shower she had been having an awful and painful Sunday, but that she had felt pressed to finish cleaning that seat. Her husband told her to take things easy and said that we weren’t in labor and weren’t even due for another week. He promised that she didn’t have to worry about the seat right then, that she could rest and take care of herself. She couldn’t explain it to him, but she just had to get it taken care of, and once it was all clean and dry, she made him put it in the car for her…just in case. The fact that I called her Monday morning with the announcement that Hannah was here completely validated her feelings, and she told her husband not to question her again. Ha!
Once everything was loaded and Hannah was comfy in her back seat spot, we said a quick prayer of gratitude and for safety driving home and then started the car. Happily, the first song we heard on the radio was “I’ll be home for Christmas” sung by Josh Groban. Oh. What a fantastic message that was! Jon and I both started tearing up and couldn’t believe all the love and emotion we were feeling to be taking our daughter home…that we were a family…that it was all real. Eek!
Sometimes I look at Jon holding Hannah and I can’t explain all the love and joy that wells up inside my chest. It’s too much to hold sometimes and I cry with the happiness. Jon has said that he feels like a 4-year-old that loves his hamster so much that he squeezes it till the neck pops because he doesn’t know how to control so much emotion. Fortunately, Jon has more control than a 4-year-old, and Hannah’s neck has never been popped, but he’s right about trying to contain all of that love for someone. Hannah gets more loves, kisses, hugs, and adoration because we just can’t contain how much we are smitten with her.
Sadly, Hannah caught my cold at birth…the one person she couldn’t avoid, eh?…and it was so stressful listening to her wheeze in her sleep as well as try to breath around feeding when her nose was stuffed up. Knowing that I’d made her sick nearly broke my heart, even if it wasn’t a fully rational thought. Jon was so good to hold me while I cried because I was a bad mother already. Yes, I laugh at that now, and Jon counts himself lucky yet again that my hormonal reactions were short-lived.
Apart from the cold, Hannah’s progress (and ours) has been amazing. She is SO alert all the time, and is always staring at you or around the room or at the light when she is awake. She’s a squirmer too and gets herself into the most amusing contortions. She really only cries when she gets a gas bubble, and will calm immediately after a burp or a fart. At first, the burp or fart itself, not just the discomfort of the air, would actually make her cry for a few minutes, and Jon and I had to wonder how odd and uncomfortable such things must be when you’re experiencing them for the first time. To be only a day or two in your body and to have it do such things of its own accord must be confusing and strange and even painful! Poor Hannah! She’s getting more used to those kinds of things though and only cries about it when it gets bad and starts to really hurt her tummy. Sweet thing! She eats regularly…almost more than regularly…so that I start to feel as though feeding her is all that I really do…or at least that the other activities I fit into the day are only as her feeding schedule will allow. Still, at her first doctor’s appointment we were told that she has gained half a pound which is excellent because most babies lose weight in their first few weeks and the doctor likes it best when they are at least back to their birth weight by the time he sees them. To not only be at her birth weight, but to have gained half a pound on top of that was awesome.
Her sleeping has been erratic, and even though Jon and I already have late-night sort of schedules, she is late even for us. Sometimes she eats and snoozes till ten and then doesn’t eat and sleep again until 2 or 3 a.m. Still, we’re attempting to get used to schedules as well as to alter them too. It’s worth it. Even the lack of sleep is something we can deal with if it means our sweet girl is here. She’s here. It’s so strange! She’s really here.
Jon has already started a collection of photos, obviously, and I’m sure that more will be added constantly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/swinginjonny/MyBaby
http://picasaweb.google.com/swinginjonny/HannahSFirstPhotoShoot
I’m also sure that more stories will follow and that our girl will continue to fill our hearts as she continues to grow. We’re constantly amazed at how beautiful and sweet she is, and I know that she will inspire us to keep everyone informed of her progress.
And, we love her so much that it easily spills over to all of you!
