Adam, the birth story and mini-novel

The week preceding the birth of Adam was a very busy and rather stressful one. Troy had been very eager and excited as the due date neared, and every time I groaned or complained of common pregnancy side effects like back ache or anything, he would get excited and say, “Maybe you’re in labor!?” no, no dear… not yet… lol. I had had a discussion with the little guy and told him he couldn’t come out until we had taken care of everything we needed to because it simply wasn't good timing otherwise. We had moved into our house on the first of February and there was so much to do. We had a lot of cleaning necessary to ready the house for our furniture shipment and just to live in. We also procured two dogs… that’s a long and complicated story, but in short, it was a bad mistake and they had to go. On Friday February 8^th we had finally found a home for one and a temporary home for the other one. That same day FMO came and picked up the temporary furniture they’d loaned us, and then our Household Goods shipment arrived and the moving men were putting boxes of our things all over the house.

Just a few of the forms needed after his birth,
 and each slip cover has packets of info in it

A side note on the household goods, all of our stuff made it! There were some minor casualties but in all it turned out quite well. Oh, and the only bin that broke happened to be the one that had all my lingerie… -_- of course…

The day before that, I’d also been able to sit down for an afternoon and organize some of our vast amounts of paperwork. The amount of processes and things we must do after the birth are ridiculous, so I organized everything into slip covers in a binder, with notes saying the order things must be conducted, what offices to turn things into, deadlines, necessary attached forms and documents etc. This would hopefully make things smoother after his arrival.

I remember snuggling with my DH that Friday night February 8th, watching our weekly episode of Modern Family. During the commercial breaks we discussed our weekend plans. We had planned to spend the weekend in Milan and as a back up we’d go to the Carnevale festivities in Venice. (If you want to know more about that, here’s an article: Carnevale)We decided it would be our last big hoo-rah before we had kids for the rest of our lives. “Although,” I said thoughtfully while munching my bowl of pineapple and strawberries, “We’ve taken care of all the immediate things that needed taking care of. He’s good to come out any time now”. My DH grinned and rubbed my round tummy. “You hear that, you can come out any time now,” he told the tummy and gave it a kiss. We resumed our tv watching, but our kid must have taken us quite literally, and being given the green light he decided to make his entrance.

At four am my water broke. For how excited and eager my hubby has been, he sure was difficult to wake up. After several shakes, mumbled conversations, and finally the addition of a little lighting, he was up and back to his excited self. Today was the day we’d been waiting for. I was slightly confused though and asked my hubby, “So, am I in labor?” “Um… maybe? Yes?” he replied, unsure. “Aren’t I supposed to be in pain or something?” I asked. “Mmmm… not sure.” I shrugged. I was in no rush. I figured they’d come when they came, and during the many childbirth classes we’ve attended, we’ve been told that labor lasts on average from 12-18 hours, and usually longer for first time moms. I figured it might be a long while before things kicked in.

So Troy and I each took nice long showers; I had no way of knowing when I’d get another one and I wanted to be sure to shave my legs for the nurses. Then we packed our hospital bags, for both us and for the little one. (Luckily all of our household goods had arrived the day before!) They were pretty easy to pack as all of our bins were well labeled and I had my inventory listing what was packed in each bin. We simply looked up the item and then found the coordinating bin. Troy actually did all of the packing for the baby. He also enthusiastically packed up and modeled his “dude diaper bag”. (Big thank you to my sister Hannah for getting that for him! He wears it with pride)

Around 5 am, about an hour after my water had broke, I began to feel some small contractions. They weren’t very bad and I simply went to my bookmarked “contraction counter” supplied by “The Bump” and let it count them out. It acts as a stopwatch so you simply press stop and go in coordination with your contractions and it takes that information and makes you a nice chart detailing the length of each contraction and their frequency.

At around 6 am I decided it was about time to call and inform the nurses we were coming. Originally my hubby and I were both hoping for a home birth, but since we arrived just barely over a month before his arrival, it was very difficult to squeeze everything in. We were unsure if we'd have a home by the time he arrived, and we didn't have time to interview and meet midwives. The language barrier was also a problem, and the fact that we were strapped for cash and the military medical won't pay for a midwife, only a hospital stay. As such, we needed to have the birth at the hospital. We had warmed up to the idea after touring the birthing center, it was nice and spacious, they seemed accommodating and would even let you plug in your speakers, use the exercise balls, and all sorts of other things they had on hand. (But they didn't offer water birth. Darn again. Ah well, there will be other children...) The Aviano Airbase hospital is rather small, so it doesn’t have an emergency room and is not open on weekends. Their OB section is open on weekends though, so you just have to call ahead and let them know you’re coming in and then they buzz you in once you arrive.

The nurse on duty answered and I informed her I was in labor and that we’d be going in to see them soon. “Alright, if I could just get some information…” she said. Oh great, I love it when people ask that. I proceeded to respond to her mind-numbing questionnaire after having to spell out my name for her three times each. “And is this your first pregnancy?” I responded yes, and wondered why, after the weeks I’d spent filling out tons of forms for the hospital, why she wasn’t able to get this information from my profile after getting my name? Shouldn’t she have pulled up my file and medical history there? Finally she decided to get the point. “And you think you’re in labor?” “Well my water broke two hours ago and my contractions are currently 3 mins apart lasting 30 seconds each.” “Oh my gosh, you need to get in here now!” Oh really? Now wouldn’t it have been nice if we could have jumped straight here and skipped the questionnaire?

I glanced over to my husband who was singing and flipping bacon on the stove. “We’re in the middle of making breakfast right now, but we’ll try to get in by 7 am.” I told her. She seemed to want us in at that moment, but we were in no rush. She said they’d be waiting for us. Before hanging up I asked her who the OB was on duty and she informed me. The base hospital has four OBs. They each are given a week of the month that they are on delivery duty, so I don’t have a certain OB that gets called in, I get whomever is on duty. I hadn’t been in the country but barely a month, so I’d only gotten to meet three of the four OBs. One was a guy, the other two were female. I had originally wanted the one female who was also a midwife. My midwife in Arizona had been fantastic and I had hoped this one would be similar. Unfortunately she didn’t fulfill my hopes as a midwife. She hadn’t seemed as hands off as my hubby and I wanted. She was trying to make plans for induction and when I told her I wanted to do a standing or other such birthing position she refused saying that it was “easier for her when the patients were lying in the bed”. Easier for HER? That’s great and all… but I’M the one giving birth so… I don’t really care about anyone else at that time. Sorry. I’d also done a fair amount of reading and for numerous reasons I concluded that such a position was not ideal, and studies had shown that it increases the tearing one could get. (Here is an example of one such study:  http://www.jaoa.org/content/106/4/199.full)

The other female doctor had her own things that we didn’t agree with, and she wanted every test possible given and didn’t like the idea that we were going to refuse shots on our newborn. We’d researched that as well. This Vitamin K shot is to assist with blood clotting, however the number of babies that die from bleeding to death is very very small. The numbers on studies varied, but the largest chance a kid might have a blood clotting issue I found was one in 10,000, but the chances of possible harmful side effects were much greater. Kids who received this shot were at higher risk for all sorts of things that to us seemed far worse than foregoing the shot.

When I met with the male doctor I found we fit so much better. He was attentive and made sure my hubby and I were able to get what we desired and was against induction unless absolutely necessary. He was fine with whatever position we wanted to give birth in and many other details concerning labor were just easier with him. So although the male doctor wasn’t the one I had originally wanted, after meeting with the others he was the one I was hoping for. And guess who was on duty? He was!!! I was quite excited about that.

So we proceeded to eat breakfast. Although I knew that the hospital would refuse to feed me, I decided against eating breakfast myself, as I’d heard some women release their bowels during labor as well. I had already decided this would not be me, and so instead of giving my bowels ammo I had a glass of chocolate milk instead.

After breakfast, Troy packed all of our bags into the car. As we left the driveway he turned left instead of right. “Uh, hun? Shouldn’t we maybe go right?” “Oh. Yea.” (Did I mention someone was super excited? And thus, slightly distracted… lol) So we played our tunes and drove to the hospital.    

Upon reaching the hospital we went to the entrance doors, where there was a white box with a button we were supposed to push after hours. They would see us on the monitor, confirm we were the people who called, and buzz us in. Well we stood there in the cold with all our bags and pushed the button. It glowed, so it had gone through. We waited… and waited… we pushed the button again. And waited… then pushed the button several more times. Okay, someone fell asleep on the job. Time to find a way in. We ventured around the building and after going down an alleyway we found a back door had been left partly open. We went through it and weaved our way through back halls until we reached the front part of the hospital we were supposed to have entered into.

When I finally arrived at the OB part of the hospital, somewhere near 7:30 am, I was at 4 cm. After changing into a hideous hospital robe, they placed monitors on me. The monitors are about the same size and weight as cans of tuna. One was for me and strapped around me with a pink band, and the other was to measure the baby’s heart rate and was strapped around me with a blue band. I knew these were going to be a problem as soon as they strapped them on, particularly the baby’s. They were having difficulty picking up his heartbeat, so they strapped the monitor down quite tight in an attempt to pick it up. Besides the great discomfort this caused me, I could also feel the kid getting quite upset. He had always been very particular about his space. I had once procured a bellyband for myself during pregnancy, hearing that it can help ease back pain. The band isn’t very tight, but the elastic supports run across and under the belly. As soon as I put it on, I felt him adjust inside the womb to get the right angle, and then proceed to kick directly at the band, over and over and over. He was displeased and wouldn’t let me rest till I removed it, which didn’t take me long to do. He would also often kick me if my hubby hugged me too long, or when the midwife used the gel stick to check his heart beat when he was in utero, or anything else that applied pressure and made him feel restrained. As soon as the monitor was cinched on, I could feel his displeasure growing, followed by mine own. I did my best to let it go, I knew this was necessary for the nurses and hopefully this discomfort would be brief.

“We need to get you hooked up to an IV.” Came the bored voice of a very unfriendly nurse next to me.

“I’m going to pass on the IV,” I informed her with equal enthusiasm. 

“You can’t pass on the IV.” She stated flatly.

“Yes I can, there’s a waiver.” I replied, miraculously managing a smile through my pain.

“Well, you still need a lock, and we need to draw your blood.” Placing a hand on her hip as if to say I was defeated.

A lock eh? And wait, draw my blood? Um, what??

“Because…?”

“We need to know your blood type.”

“It’s O+.”

“We need it to say that in our system.” She said, pointing to the computer next to her. I was in pain and felt like snapping back, “So frickin type it in there and your system will say it”, but I knew we were going to have to be there together for a few more hours and I did my best to work with her.

“It already should, the doc ordered labs and they drew my blood downstairs two weeks ago and they already got the results. It was O+. My blood type hasn’t changed in the last two weeks.” (Never mind the fact that the last base we were at drew my blood several times as well… why has someone not yet “put it in the system”?? Or simply made me an official card to carry so these vampires will stop drawing off me to reach the same answers as everyone before them?)

“Well your platelet count could change and should you need a blood transfusion we need to know it.”

As I was doubled over in pain she began pulling everything out for the lock. I knew we were going to be enemies from then on.

It may not sound like a big deal, and you’re probably saying to yourself, just put in the IV and be done with it. I had many minor reasons against the IV. I had hoped to be able to move and walk around during labor; an IV ties you down to the bed or right next to it. I was also hoping to do labor naturally and having an IV would give them easy access to sneak drugs into me as they desired. But these are all minor to the main issue of needles. No, I don’t have a fear of needles; at least, I don’t think so. But I have grown a disdain for them due to my experiences with them, and for my short life I’ve had a lot of experience with them. Only once ever have I had a good needle sticking experience. A phlebotomist in Phoenix Arizona drew 11 viles of blood from me without a problem. I was amazed and complimented his talent. He thanked me and informed me that ever since he was a child it had been his dream to be a phlebotomist. What a bizarre childhood career desire, but it truly was his calling. Sorry, coming back from my tangent.

Anyway, I finally gave consent for the lock and blood drawing, seeing no way out of this mess. And thus began the painful needle process… One nurse stuck me, and surprise surprise, could not find the vein. I tried my best to help, based on the advice other phlebotomists had told me in the past. For instance, they often use “child needles” on me, since they are smaller and my veins are smaller. This idea was rejected. So I was stabbed again, and again… and upon each time they would fish around underneath the initial puncture, hoping to hit the right spot, making what felt like Swiss cheese out of my arm. Nurses were passing the needle off in frustration to other nurses saying they simply couldn’t find the vein. After exhausting my right arm they attempted the left arm. More stickings, more prodding around. Keep in mind I was simultaneously having intense and frequent contractions, and they required me to sit on the bed for the needle stickings, which was a very painful position to be in. They were attempting to stick me in between contractions, but no one could find a vein in time before the next one occurred. They’d apply the tight blue tourniquet in an attempt to make the vein stick out, sanitize the area, and then squeeze/knead my arm around for the vein before finally blasting the needle in. I can’t tell you how many times a contraction started and they would take off the tourniquet and wait to restart. I told them to just leave it on so they wouldn’t have to start completely over each time, but obviously they were the experts and I could offer no valid advice. So they would retie the tourniquet (or re-pinch my skin again…) and re-sanitize the area they had just sanitized 6 times previous, and again poke around for a vein they couldn’t find.

            I was doing my best not to look, as I’m not fond of watching as well as feeling myself get repeatedly stabbed, and it looks disturbing to see a needle inside of you and moving around to various other locations unsuccessfully. Then my entire left arm began experiencing a “pins and needles” tingling pain, so I looked down to see it’s condition and found my hand was bright purple with yellow splotches, due to the super tight tourniquet. “Um, my hand…” I managed to get out through the pain of contractions and the pain of the stabbings. “We’re almost there.” said the rude nurse, one of three who was currently studying and poking my left arm. The monitor beeped to alert them another contraction was coming and they sighed, undoing the tourniquet. One nurse ran out to find another nurse, hoping that perhaps a fourth person would be able to find my vein. They came back and decided to give my right arm another go. Really? When were they going to give up? The baby was rapidly progressing and they were ignoring him and me because they were stuck. Stuck in rules and regulations. They have to-do lists and charts they must fulfill, and step x is “put in the IV”. In their minds they can’t move on until this happens and they can check that box, and until this was achieved they seemed to be ignoring the baby and how rapidly things were progressing. So they were back on the right arm, I don’t recall if there were three or four nurses on my arm at once, because I was starting to see spots. Shoot. This had also happened to me before, I blacked out at a lab in Arizona after I had been poked too many times unsuccessfully by a newbie tech. I glanced down to see little pools of blood smattered around both my left and right arms. Shoot, they’d poked me too many times. Funny how they can’t find a vein, yet each stab point was bleeding… “Uh, I see sparkles…” I said as my body wavered and the speckles began to outnumber normal sight. They felt me falling and began pulling out of my arm. “I think she could use a break.” My husband offered, in a compromising yet firm voice. (Thank you babe!) The nurses nodded, knowing they also needed a break and to discuss what to do.

            After regaining my sight and was no longer light headed, I informed them I was off to the bathroom. I asked my hubby to come with me and he readily agreed, knowing I was only using the restroom as an excuse for a hideout. Once inside I collapsed onto the counter and stared at my battered arms. “If they keep stabbing me at this rate I AM going to need a blood transfusion” I thought bitterly. If I’d been able to have a home birth they wouldn’t be freaking out about a thing like this, we’d all be concentrated on the actual labor part going on. My DH was doing his best to console me. I glanced at the door. Troy followed my gaze. “There’s a lock on the door…” I thought aloud with a grin. He looked back at me amused, knowing precisely my line of thought. “No, we can’t lock ourselves in here.” He said. “Aw come on, it’d be just you and me!” I said with a pout. I had no objection to having the babe then and there on the bathroom floor. If the virgin Mary can do it in a stable, I can do it on the bathroom floor. Sometimes I think it would have made it more interesting if we had locked ourselves in… haha, but maybe next time I’ll give them that nightmare. Sadly, my voice of reason, otherwise known as my husband, convinced me we’d continue break for a few more minutes before heading back out to battle the nurses.

            Minutes later we were back out there and they were again trying to get the needle in my arm. Until this point they’d been attempting to stick it in my forearms. I once again suggested a location just above the crook of my elbow, as that’s where most phlebotomists had had the most success. They had previously been against this, saying it was an inconvenient location for a lock, but knowing they were out of options they attempted it. It was very painful and it still wasn’t in quite right, but good enough. I write this to you three days later and the crook of my arm is still deep shades of purple and blue with some pretty green tints. *sigh. But enough about that torment…

They finally got it in -_-

            So labor was progressing quickly and the doctor had been called in. The pain had gotten very intense and having studied many birth/labor related things, I knew the average labor lasted between 12-18 hours, and generally longer for first time moms. Shoot, I could understand now why some women caved for the epidural. This day was going to be dreadful if I had hours of contractions like these as well as dealing with that one dreadful nurse. (Let it be known, there were other nurses there and the other 3 were quite lovely and helpful. That one other rude nurse, however, also seemed to be the head nurse which didn’t help my situation) I felt about ready to chop her head off and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make the day with her.

            As we were waiting for the doctor I was walking, er, waddling around the room. The pain was sooo much less intense when I was standing or squatting. However Rude Nurse kept demanding that I lie in the bed. (I think I made her nervous) Every time I lay down the pain level intensified and even the “breaks” between contractions were painful. She then said she needed some information. More information for that darn computer? Really? I felt like I’d done nothing but fill out forms the past month, and could recall days spent solely at the hospital filling out forms for the babe and this occasion alone.

            So I was lying there attempting to breathe through my pain and she begins her questionnaire…

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

OH. MY. GOSH. They asked me this just over an hour ago via the phone, and on every other ridiculous form I’d filled out. Who was the person not putting this info “in the system”!? I felt the need to seek them out and choke them. I grit my teeth and nodded. She proceeded with ridiculous mind numbing questions, and I was compliant, until…

“And what is your education level? High school? College?”

That right there hit a cord. I am a college graduate, it was a long and expensive process and I put hard work into it and am proud I graduated. But remind me what that had to do with the fact that I was in labor NOW!? I’m sure they could get some fascinating statistics analyzing and comparing education levels with number of pregnancies or the age of pregnancy or length of labor or whatever have you, and they could make some elaborate graphs and perhaps some cute colored pie charts out of their findings. But now was truly not the time to be taking statistics. I had placed this information on numerous forms previously, and if I were alive after this awful experience I could participate in their statistics studies then, but I refused to waste my breath and concentration on that despicable nurse any longer. I looked to my husband and he accurately interpreted my death glare toward the nurse and knew that I had made up my mind to not continue to speak to her. I knew if I didn’t keep my mouth shut it would go quite badly. He knew he was in charge of the fun questionnaires from there on out. This was great, I was able to breathe and focus on what I had come there to do, (which was to have a baby!) and I even got some humor out of it as Troy made up answers to questions he didn’t know.

“And at what age did she have her wisdom teeth pulled?”

My husband came off confidently as he threw out random dates, ages, and other such information to the nurse. It was one of those moments when I remember how much I love him and how thankful I was that he wasn’t deployed and able to be present with me. It also gave me much pleasure knowing their statistics wouldn’t be accurate. (Then again, based on the fact that they have to ask me the same questions so many times and they still never make it into an official system, I doubt their numbers will ever actually make it to a complete study. How unfortunate…)

The doctor had finally arrived and he assessed me at 8 cm. Thank the heavens. Progress had been made. I knew I wasn’t far now. Everyone else seemed to realize how quickly things were moving and the motion in the room increased as tools were laid out and various other birth related things were set up.

In the meantime I was struggling with contractions, and of course, Rude Nurse. Another difficulty I faced were those darn stomach monitors. Contractions were building and every time I had one, the fetal monitor would have difficulty picking up the baby’s heart rate. Perhaps because I was doubled over in pain? Perhaps because he was already difficult to pick up normally, who knows… But every time this happened, Rude Nurse would attempt to straighten me out (cuz I was doubled over in pain) and would press the already tight monitor down even harder on my stomach, in an attempt to get a better reading on his heartbeat. I groaned.

“Are you pushing!?? You shouldn’t be pushing, it’s not time yet.” She said in her edgy “I’m freaking-out” voice.

Oh I had had it with her. First, I was already past 8 cm, the time was coming soon and who was she to tell me it wasn’t time? Who was the one in labor? Yes that’s right, me. I’m going to know better than anyone else.

Secondly, imagine you are squeezing a tube of toothpaste and then get angry at the toothpaste for coming out. Well what else did you expect would happen? It was like that. If she was pushing down on my stomach/uterus area, where do you suppose the contents wanted to go? Yes, out.

I grabbed her hands and forcefully removed them. “If you push in, I’m pushing out. His heartbeat is fine.”

“You can’t know that” she responded adamantly in her “know-it-all/I’m-the-expert-here” voice. Scientifically speaking, she may be right. But I knew I was right and I was completely unconcerned what the monitor was telling her.

“Don’t touch me again.” I said, giving my best death glare for the amount of pain I was in, which is unfortunate because I know I could have done a much better job if I wasn’t preoccupied with other pains.

Despite it not being my best death glare, she got the point and that was the end of our relationship. I don’t miss her. She flounced over to the doctor as soon as he entered the room and in her usual edgy “I’m freaking-out” voice, complained how the heart beat was faint and they were losing the reading during contractions. Somehow, he also seemed unconcerned. (I got quite lucky, my OB turned out to be awesome!) He prepared himself for the birth and gave me the green light. I hadn’t really been waiting on his go, but it was nice to have it anyway.

Apparently there were more forms for me to fill out. Rude Nurse handed the clipboard to my OB as she knew our relationship had ended. He asked me if I’d be okay with a blood transfusion if necessary and went on to give some history about how the blood was from Italians and was that okay? I wasn’t truly listening, only asking for him to just show me where to sign. I signed a signature worse than my third grade “I’m-learning-cursive” signature but that's okay, it did the job. 

The nurses then set up the squat bar on the bed. (That thing was awesome! I have no idea how women give birth lying down…) Not long after, our son was born. Proud father got to cut the cord and then left me to follow the child and make sure the nurses followed through with our birth plan and didn’t administer any antibiotics or shots to our brand new baby.

The kinder nurse who was filling out birth information asked the head nurse (yea that’s right, Rude Nurse) what the time was of his birth. She shrugged. Kinder nurse raised her eyebrows and Rude Nurse made up a time. Ugh, no one had bothered to look at the clock. But that’s okay, I had looked as soon as I got the chance and it was a minor detail either way. It was within minutes of 10 o’clock in either direction, so I simply say 10 am. Labor had lasted all of five hours, and we’d only had to be at the hospital for about 2.5 hours before he arrived. Not bad at all.

They cleaned him up a bit, performed their basic tests, and then I got to hold him.

 and then my hubby got to hold him :)

Still super excited ;)

Baby Coe <3

Alright, there's my mini-novel on the birth story. I'm working on the one for his first few days of life. It may be a few days before that gets up though... We're hoping that next time we'll be able to try a home birth. That seems far more relaxing than our morning at the hospital.