Brance, Lauren & Haddie

Alright, I’ve been working on Haddie’s birth story for a little while now.  Brance is teasing me telling me that it is turning into a novel (he might be right ).  It is getting a little long, but I don’t want to omit details as I’m afraid I will forget as time passes and I want Haddie to know in the future exactly how it happened.  Because of the length, I’m going to post it in pieces over the next week or so.  Here is the first section.

Haddie’s Birth Story: Part I

I took a pink sharpee and marked through another day on the calendar posted in our kitchen where I was counting down the days to Haddie’s due date.  I had washed all of Haddie’s clothes and put them neatly away, I had arranged and rearranged her nursery to my suiting, and  I had even purchased 4 cases of toilet paper, 3 boxes of dishwasher detergent, 2 containers of laundry detergent to name a few of the things I had stocked up on.  Brance kept referring to this as the nesting instinct.  I’m not sure if a nesting instinct truly exists as a symptom of labor as all of the books like to say, or if women simply realize that the emminent is drawing near and frantically try and get everything in order.  Before Haddie’s arrival I hoped that nesting was a sign of labor, as I was ready for this little girl to get here and I was nesting like crazy.  I’m not sure what exactly I was going to do once I reached Haddie’s due date, April 24th.  Would I also mark it with a pink slash?  It is amazing how childlike one becomes when they are awaiting the unkown.  I had  done something similar as I awaited my wedding day two years previously.  Only I had made a paper chain to count down the days.  I think it helped give me something to do.  You know how weddings are… a flurry of activity of planning followed by lull until the big week where you are once again frantic right up until the moment you and your new husband exit the reception.  I think that was what was happening.  I had researched and planned, I had bought and returned, I had cleaned and organized and now I had nothing to do but wait and mark through days on my kitchen calendar with a pink sharpee.

Rodger arrived the weekend before Haddie’s due date.  I think that is when it really hit me, Brance and I were having a baby and it would happen during Rodger’s visit.  We kept a normal as possible schedule over the next few days.  Brance and Rodger would work from the studio during the day and join me in the evenings at our apartmnent.  We ate supper together at night and enjoyed visiting like in times past.  Having Rodger here with us really helped me keep myself from obsessing about the baby.  He is always enjoyable to be around.

My last doctors visit before Haddie’s arrival was actually on her due date.  I wasn’t surprised that we made that appointment and Haddie didn’t come prior.  In fact, I had decided that she would be very late if she decided to come at all.  At this point I felt like I was going to be pregnant forever.  Brance and I were both surprised at the end of my appointment when my OBGYN suggested setting an induction date for the following Monday.  I had had no complications during my pregnancy, other than the fact I was nauseous and throwing up the entire 9 months.  That certainly was not fun for me, but it really wasn’t a threat to me or the baby.  Both the baby and I had gained the appropriate weight inspite of the queasy feeling that I constantly walked around with.  My doctor seemed to think that inducing would be better than letting pregnancy continue where we would risk the chance of meconium aspiration.  Brance and I weren’t completely convinced, but we went ahead and allowed him to set the date with the understanding that we might back out.

I think my biggest problem with an induction, other than the fact that it increases one’s chances of a cesarean birth, was that I had desired my entire pregnancy to have a non-medicated natural birth.  But Brance and I liked Dr. Terry best out of the practice of OBGYNs that we were seeing (probably because we share the same faith) and the thoughts of knowing that he would deliver our little girl were very appealing.  Along with the fact that I am a worrier, and the thinking that delaying the pregnancy could harm our little girl really bothered me (though looking back that probably was an unwarranted worry, as a pregnancy truly isn’t overdue until after two weeks past the due date).  Brance and I struggled with the decision the rest of the day Thursday and Friday, swinging between induction and waiting, weighing the pros and cons of both.  I remember the two of us taking a walk around our apartment complex, like we had  done many times throughout the pregnancy, induction weighing heavily on our thoughts and conversation.  Mainly we prayed that Haddie would decide to come on her own and that we wouldn’t have to make a decision one way or the other.

That is exactly what Haddie decided to do.  My parents had so kindly invited Brance, Rodger and I over to their home for dinner Friday evening.  We accepted the invitation, glad for some cheerful diversion.  Dinner was wonderful as usual, my mom is an excellent cook.  After we had eaten and visited for a while, my mom and I spent some time visiting in the formal living room while the rest of the family were in the great room.  It was while we were sitting talking that I noticed a slight tightening feeling in my tummy.  I had felt a similar sensation once or twice earlier in the evening, but had dismissed it determined not to falsely get my hopes up about labor. As mom and I continued to talk, I felt another one.  I casually mentioned to my mother that I felt a strange tightening sensation in my lower belly.  My mom became very excited and decided that we would time them to see how close they were together.  She was sure that what I was feeling were contractions.  I wasn’t so sure.  First, they weren’t painful and second I had determined that I would be the first pregnant person to not go into labor.  My pregnancy would last forever.  But timing them sounded fun and I went along with it.  I would mention to her when the tightening sensation began and when it let up.  She was ecstatic… they were 3 and 4 minutes apart .  We timed them for 15 or 20 minutes before joining the rest of the family.  My mom excitedly informed everyone that my labor had started.  At this point, I was thrilled and elated at the thought that labor had finally come, that we were headed toward finally meeting the little girl I had been carrying for the last 9 months.

Brance and I decided that it would be best for us to head back home so that we could get a shower and be ready to leave.  Rodger had driven his truck to my parents’ house, so he dropped us off at our apartment before heading back to Brance’s studio where he was sleeping.  Labor for my mother had been a quick affair.  As a result, we weren’t sure I would have much time before we would need to head for the hospital.  Boy were we wrong. Once we got home I took a shower, one of several that I would take before actually leaving for the hospital.  Little did we realize the long and difficult road we would travel before the arrival of our little Haddie.  Thankfully we didn’t know, as God gives enough grace in the moment to continue and knowing probably would have been more than we could have handled.  Brance and I spent the first part of the night timing contractions.  Sometime after midnight they became pretty painful and came anywhere from ten minutes to two minutes and lasted a duration of 45 seconds to a minute.  After an hour or two of this Brance made a call to the Birth Center at our  hospital.  The nurse he spoke with said that my contractions would find a rythem, like all being 10 minutes (for example) and eventually get closer together.  She said that until my contractions were regular and 4 to 5 minutes apart that we need not come in.  We ceased timing contractions for a while and Brance slipped into sleep on the couch.  He was exhausted, so I let him sleep.  My contractions began spacing out over the next hour or two even though they were still pretty intense.  I decided to try to get some sleep around 3 or 4 a.m., so I went to bed.  I ended up getting some fitful rest.  By this point my contractions were coming every 30 – 45 minutes and would abruptly jerk me from sleep.  There is no sleeping through a contraction.  Several of them I had to hop out of bed and concentrate through.

To be continued…