Love of Labor: The Sequel

About a lifetime ago (okay, just under two years, but who's counting?), I wrote about my love of labor. While "love" may be a strong word, it certainly wasn't the worst experience in the world, and I have to say "ditto" this time around. Havin' Gavin was even easier than when I had Claire! Here's the timeline of Friday, December 25, 2009 (yes, Christmas morning):

• 4:00am: Contractions started and woke me from a light sleep. Let's face it; sleeping deeply and comfortably the last few weeks is a treat when it actually happens. This time I was pretty sure I knew they were contractions based on the irregular contractions I had the day before while James and I were at the movies ("The Blind Side" ... excellent movie even with contractions during the whole thing!). They were about 9-10 minutes apart, no too painful.
• 5:30am: 1-Minute long contractions were 5 minutes apart, so I start monitoring. An hour of these suckers, and I call the doctor.
• 6:10am: The contractions are getting stronger to where I don't really want to talk while my insides are squeezing. I'm ready to call the doctor ... just 20 more minutes. I go to take a shower, stopping to breathe through the pain.
• 6:25am: James wakes up at his normal time and sees me straining and bending over while holding on to the counter. I tell him I'm waiting until 6:30 to call the doctor. He tells me I'm silly.
• 6:30am: I'm hitting Send on my cell phone having already dialed and stared at the minute hand until it hit the 6. I talk to the answering service who says they're going to call the doctor (mine, actually, since she was on call) who will then call me back.
• 6:38am: Dr. Jaffee calls me, obviously having been roused from bed. I apologize for calling her 1) so early; 2) on Chrismas morning of all mornings; and 3) the morning after an ice storm. She tells me not to worry and to head to the hospital.
• 6:45am: James and I head to the hospital driving on roads iced over from the Texas-style blizzard the night before. I've reclined the seat and am eating graham crackers and drinking a glass of milk just in case it's awhile before I get to eat again. We pass some abandoned cars along the way -- James stopped to roll down the windows so that he could ask other drivers what was wrong (ie an iced-over bridge?) while I thought he was going to offer assistance. No one is in the cars, and the roads seem driveable. We did manage to slide past the entrance into the hospital parking lot but made the next entrance without any problems.
• 7:00am: I'm in my nice comfy labor and delivery room. This time around, James gets to see what contractions look like; it's not pretty.

This is what a Way-Way contraction looks like.
I may look like I'm smiling, but I'm not happy!

To my surprise, I discovered that Plano Presby has gone all "Earth Mother" in terms of their labor, delivery, and post-partum process. It's been less than two years since I was last admitted, and already things had changed, at least for "regular" births.

1. They room-in all babies now starting at birth. No longer do they whisk away the baby (and daddy) to the nursery to do the cleaning, measuring, and shots; everything is done bedside for the mommy to watch. Same goes for at night; you have to explicitly request them to take your baby away -- and probably have a good reason -- or else baby's in the room with you. The only time they usually take the baby is to get checked out by the pediatricians in the morning and for the circumcisions (if applicable, of course).
2. Rules about nothing touching your lips except ice chips after you are admitted are gone. You can drink pretty much anything except for orange juice while in labor, and they also provide jello and popsicles. I remember with Claire I was gulping down water at the entrance just outside the L&D wing because I knew it was my last chance, and who knew when I'd be able to drink again?!
3. No more Soothies. Yup, no free paci provided by the hospital because they are hoping to encourage more breastfeeding.
4. Everyone's a lactationist. You thought there were boob nazis before? Now everyone on staff is trained in lactation consulting! I mean, I'll be breastfeeding so it's nice that anyone can help me, but it must be intimidating for people who don't have the option to feed from their boobs.
5. There is a mandatory "nap time" during the day for mommies and babies. Well, they can't force you to sleep, but during the hours of 1pm-4pm, it's quiet time on the floor where they discourage any visitors so that mommies and babies (and daddies!) can actually get some rest.

I know there's other stuff, but that's just a sampling of what I found to be different. Back to the timeline:

• 7:30am: IV is in to pump me full of fluids, I've been admitted to the hospital, and James has already paid for what is to come with his credit card. Oh, and I'm eagerly waiting the epidural that should be ready any minute now. James uses the free wifi to search for "relaxing music" on Pandora, Enya fills the room, and I say, "are you kidding me?!" and request The Killers instead. "Mr. Brightside" is an awesome labor song, btw. :) 3-4cm dilated; 90% effaced.
• 8:00am: Anesthesiologist is there to do the epidural. She inserts the needle ... bone. Inserts ... bone ... jabs ... bone ... adjusts ... bone ... gives me more local anesthetic ... sticks some more ... bone. Repeat for another 20-25 minutes and then calls for back-up. In the meantime, I have asked the nurse how much worse she think the pain will get from the contractions I'm already having. She tells me they won't hurt much worse that what I'm enduring now, and I start considering just foregoing the epidural altogether.
• 8:30am: Backup anesthesiologist shows up just as the first says "a-ha!" and finds the right spot for that needle. I'm glad her spirits weren't ruined by an unsuccessful epidural on Christmas! She cheerfully finishes the procedure while telling me all the while that I almost missed the window and would have progressed too far if much more time had passed! James tells me later at one point when she pulled out the needle after another unsuccessful try, the needle looked like it was actually bent. Gross.
• 8:35am: Bliss. Tingly feet, warm legs, no pain bliss. We sit back to wait for the next few hours. My nurse laughs as she adjusts me again; for some reason, I kept wanting to slide to the left side of the bed, and she was scared I'd just slither to the floor at some point. With the good meds, though, I doubt I would have cared.
• 8:45am: Dr. Jaffee comes in with a smile on her face. She checks and says I'm about 7-8cm dilated, 95% effaced, and will probably deliver by noon. She prescribes some petocin to speed things up along a little more, breaks my water, and leaves to do rounds. My nurse jokes that she could probably just wave the pitocin under my nose seeing as how quickly I'm progressing and depresses the tiny amount into my IV via a syringe (rather than having to hook up an actual bag).
• 9:00am: I sit back and start texting people and surfing on my iPhone. Might as well relax during my last few hours. Talk to Corrie on the phone to say hello and tell her that I'll probably deliver by noon.
• 9:20am: Dr. Jaffee comes back and says "yup, you're ready to push". HUH?!?!?! Um, okay. She suits up while all the funny stuff happens (ie, they take off the end of the bed and turn on the "you're going to shine THOSE lights WHERE?!" fixtures).
• 9:29am: Contraction starts. Push, breathe, push, breath, push, breathe. Contraction ends, and I relax.
• 9:30am: Next contraction starts. Push, breathe, DON'T push on direction of doctor (let gravity do the work!), breathe ... GAVIN IS BORN!
  

Gavin De-Xiang Pee
Born 12/25/09 @ 9:30am
7lb 10oz; 19.3 inches

Seriously, that was it. Jen, my nurse, said it went even better than textbook, and Dr. Jaffee concurred adding that she's also amazed since I'm so not a complainer. I smiled a little guitily thinking about all those pity parties I've been throwing myself recently. :)

By 10:30, we were all scrubbed, cleaned, and settled into our post-partum room. I like to think that all the stuff I whined about the last month of pregnancy (the hips that were no longer aligned, the weird phantom aches, the jelly joints) all allowed for a blissfully easy delivery. Yay!

Gavin is an incredible baby so far. He's got my nose -- my mom kept commenting about the big nose, James' eyes, and lots of hair. He seems to be a good sleeper (crossing fingers!) and a pretty good eater. The family came up to visit on Christmas evening, and Claire immediately took to her little brother. She's going to be a great big sis.

First family picture

I was supposed to check-out on Sunday morning (the 27th) but after talking to Dr. Jaffee and Dr. Frank on Saturday morning, they said that Gavin and I were both doing great and were welcome to check-out early and go home if we wanted. After a quick discussion, James and I decided to take the plunge. If we're going to be rooming in anyways and everyone is healthy, why not just go home? So after we used up all our free meal vouchers and watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" -- which I do NOT recommend watching just hours after you've had a baby -- we headed home to face the real world which I'm sure you'll be reading about soon.

I'm going to do my best to try and keep up with the blogs (mine, Claire's, and Gavin's) but be patient with me as I have a feeling there will be an adjustment period coming up for all of us.

I'll also be posting lots of pictures in the December photo album as I go through them, so come back and visit often!