He didn't have a name when I went into labor. I wanted to see him first. People have been asking his name for months, starting as soon as it was so obvious that I was pregnant that people felt safe asking about it (I think this was somewhere around the 8 month mark). The absence of a name has prompted a number of nicknames. My family called him "Husker" for months - ever since the name was proposed by my brother-in-law, Steve Hatch. Meatloaf Surprise was something the Scoot and I came up with and posted on Facebook while asking for silly name suggestions. His final pre-birth nickname, Fabio, was given to him by the birth team after they caught the first glimpse of his long dark hair. Becca Gattey, our doula called his amazing tresses "Cascading locks" which ultimately led to the nickname, Fabio. I may have laughed, or tried to at least - I don't actually remember. I do remember finding it funny in a desperate, exhausted sort of way. I know, I was laughing inside, but I can't be sure it ever registered to the outside world. Really, I had a single-minded goal - to push that baby out!
It all started with a slow leak around noon on Saturday. Suspecting that my membranes had ruptured, I called Women's Health Care associates to let them know and then had Scott take me into their office to have the rupture verified. We came home and tried some brisk walking and timing of "contractions" that obviously weren't productive since I was struggling to identify them. The on duty midwife, Helen Welch and I chatted on the phone a couple of times and decided that I would try to rest at home and come to the hospital either when I was done laboring at home or the following morning if labor hadn't started. We were hoping to avoid induction and we weren't disappointed.
Around midnight I felt the sensation of a bubble popping in my low abdomen and it was immediately followed by what felt like a strong menstrual cramp. After that, cramps continued at what felt like regular intervals starting less than ten minutes apart. We never seriously timed the contractions. I let the Scoot know and left him to sleep while I walked around the family room during the contractions and rested between them. Around 3am, they were uncomfortable enough that I didn't want to wait much longer for the car ride to the hospital, so the Scoot and I headed to St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland, OR.
I didn't have them check my progress in triage, so I'm not sure where I was when I got to the hospital. The ruptured membranes gave us a free ticket to stay and it seemed safer to minimize our chances of infection by just having Helen check me when the time seemed right. We moved to a very nice and comfortable labor and delivery room and our first nurse Shaila had the jacuzzi tub ready for me about the time the contractions were becoming quite painful. I can only describe the sensation as having someone try to pry my hip bones apart - ouch!
While the jacuzzi didn't technically ease the pain, it did make it much easier to relax into it. This is the point where we asked Becca to leave her warm bed and join us at the hospital. In the mean time, Helen and Scott sat with me and helped me cope with the contractions. Helen checked my progress and said I was 5-6cm. Scott echoed my thoughts when he mentioned that I was likely hoping she would tell me I was further along. After that, I really tried to relax into the pain visualized my cervix dilating in hopes of shortening the duration of my suffering.
In less than an 45 minutes there was bloody show and I was ready to push. Helen told me not to fight the urge. She checked me again and I was already a nine. Becca got their just in time to meet us all back at the labor and delivery room for the grand finale. At that point, I thought the hard part was over - silly me.
Little did I know that I would push for THREE hours!
We tried a number of positions multiple times: on the toilet, squatting at the bar, all fours, side laying, and finally flat on my back with my knees pulled up to my shoulders. Would you believe that the last, seemingly counter-intuitive, gravity unfriendly position was the one that ended up working. It seemed to be the only position where I could fully relax my glutes, hips, and pelvic floor. I started out lifting and holding my own legs ... later I was too tired and Scott and Becca each held a leg for me each time I felt a contraction coming. Apparently, I was hugging my legs in so hard with my arms that I looked like a body builder with straining muscles and bulging veins.
The little guy (lucky for me) made his way very slowly through the birth canal. The hardest part was getting him under my public bone. It wasn't until he passed that point that I was actually able to feel progress. It hurt having his head in the birth canal and I wasn't able to fully relax in the space during contractions, but I tried. Somewhere around 7am the midwives and nurses changed shifts. Helen wanted to finish my birth, but was soooo tired after a long 24 hour shift, so Kate Pelosi picked up where she left off. Just as an interesting side note, Kate also delivered Helen and Becca's babies years ago. She's really awesome.
I wasn't watching - I was pushing for all I was worth and then falling back to the bed exhausted to rest as best I could between contractions. I can't believe I was able to push for so long. I had no idea I had that kind of strength. Kate had Scott and Becca hold my knees up by my shoulders between contractions near the end to keep the baby from taking that one step back after the two steps forward. It wasn't comfortable, but it really helped and it wasn't long before he made his way into the world. Kate eased him out over several contractions with 3-4 pushes.
Our little Torin James was finally born at 8:37am Saturday November 6th. He weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces and was 20.25 inches long.
The poor little guy had quite a cone head and a bit of a bruise on the back of his head from the long hard journey through my narrow pelvis. He emerged with the umbilical chord wrapped around his neck twice, though you never would have guessed it from his solid heart rate during the long push. I was literally too tired to look, so I never really saw it myself, but Becca said his chord was very long - one of the longest she's seen. Lucky boy! He exercised his lungs after about a minute and pinked up right away as he lay on my chest. I just clutched him close and relaxed and forgot about the labor and let the reality of my new role sink in. I know I'm biased as his mother, but I really do think he is exceptionally cute.
Despite or perhaps partly because of the long push I didn't tear at all. However, I most likely owe my in tact perineum to the skillful manipulation of Helen and Kate. They took full advantage of the time between contractions to stretch, support, and prepare me for the passage of Torin's little cone head. I had three individual stitches internally for what Kate called "skid marks." I was (gingerly) up and about immediately after Torin was born and have been fully mobile ever since. I felt like I'd been turned inside out down South, but after a little over two weeks I feel a lot more like myself and have lost over half of my baby weight - of course that's the easy half.
I should add that after hugging my knees to my shoulders for all I was worth every few minutes for nearly three hours my upper body was amazingly sore. I could barely lift my arms first thing in the morning for several days (they felt like jello) and my tailbone is still a little bruised over two weeks later. Although it felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to my pelvic floor, my abs still felt like my own and I was grateful to find that I still had full muscular control, no low back pain, no stretch marks, and a beautiful new baby boy!
Our new family - November 6, 2010
