A year ago today...
A year ago today I went into labor with Katie. Considering she was due on April 3rd and I had been having contractions and dialated since mid-March, a year ago today I was really surprised that she had not been born yet. Of course at that point we didn't know Katie was a "she," unborn Katie's name was the gender-neutral Pat. Now if you think about it, I went into labor a year ago today - April 6th and Katie wasn't born until April 8th, that will give you an idea of how bad the labor experience was.
To keep the story short - Katie was posterior, meaning instead of her soft face pressing on my spine, the very hard back of her head was pressed on my spine so all the contractions were in my back. Exceeding painful - not as if any labor is fun, but this is supposed to be the worst. I had contractions every 10 minutes for 10 hours before we called the doctor who told us to come in. Understand that I was (and still am) very pro natural childbirth. But having been up all night and not "progressing" anywhere, I was practically begging for an epidural. They only admitted me because the amniotic fluid was low and I was in so much pain (discomfort he so quaintly put it). So I did end up putting in 14 hours of natural childbirth. Then somehow I got an infection of the placental lining (happens in 1-2% of births) and the labor stalled at 7 centimeters or so. At this point it was 1:30 the next morning. [Don't ask what we did all day and night in the L&D room - I have no idea. My clearest memories are watching the fetal monitor display continually, Peter ordering food while I couldn't eat anything, and my parents calling at 9:30 to ask if we wanted company (you guess correctly that the answer was no)]. At 2:30 am I was wheeled into the operating room and it occured to me that the only man in the room was Peter (that should have been my clue what Pat was). At 3:02 am Pat was delivered by c-section by an OB whom we went to Brown with (also married to a fellow Brown grad who was in one of my first semester classes).
Our friend Marcia had suggested that the doctor not announce what the baby was, but ask to have the baby placed on me and we could see for ourselves. I thought this was a great idea. However, this doesn't work for a c-section - you can't have a baby placed on you and with the other medical issues, they were quick have "Pat" checked out. Peter went over to Pat to see her while the pediatrician was looking at her. It took quite a lot of convincing to have a nurse show her to me - that is walk her over to me without a diaper. I saw her and said "it's a Katie!"
To keep the story short - Katie was posterior, meaning instead of her soft face pressing on my spine, the very hard back of her head was pressed on my spine so all the contractions were in my back. Exceeding painful - not as if any labor is fun, but this is supposed to be the worst. I had contractions every 10 minutes for 10 hours before we called the doctor who told us to come in. Understand that I was (and still am) very pro natural childbirth. But having been up all night and not "progressing" anywhere, I was practically begging for an epidural. They only admitted me because the amniotic fluid was low and I was in so much pain (discomfort he so quaintly put it). So I did end up putting in 14 hours of natural childbirth. Then somehow I got an infection of the placental lining (happens in 1-2% of births) and the labor stalled at 7 centimeters or so. At this point it was 1:30 the next morning. [Don't ask what we did all day and night in the L&D room - I have no idea. My clearest memories are watching the fetal monitor display continually, Peter ordering food while I couldn't eat anything, and my parents calling at 9:30 to ask if we wanted company (you guess correctly that the answer was no)]. At 2:30 am I was wheeled into the operating room and it occured to me that the only man in the room was Peter (that should have been my clue what Pat was). At 3:02 am Pat was delivered by c-section by an OB whom we went to Brown with (also married to a fellow Brown grad who was in one of my first semester classes).
Our friend Marcia had suggested that the doctor not announce what the baby was, but ask to have the baby placed on me and we could see for ourselves. I thought this was a great idea. However, this doesn't work for a c-section - you can't have a baby placed on you and with the other medical issues, they were quick have "Pat" checked out. Peter went over to Pat to see her while the pediatrician was looking at her. It took quite a lot of convincing to have a nurse show her to me - that is walk her over to me without a diaper. I saw her and said "it's a Katie!"
Holding Katie for the first time - and yes, the picture was taken in this direction
posted by Sarah at 9:59 AM
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