cat named pig

[Since we didn’t have catnamedpig.com when Elliot was born, his birth story was recorded in a list of short notes Matt made in my baby journal at the hospital, and some stuff I jotted on another piece of paper. It’s taken me a year to get the whole story written down in one place, with actual sentences and everything, but here it is. Don’t worry, I left out the really gory labor and delivery details.]

Elliot was born on March 21^st, 2007, a week before his due date.  At my thirty-eight week check-up, my doctor mentioned that, since I was induced with Siena and everything had gone well, and since this baby was clearly bigger than Siena had been, I could have the option of an “elective induction” at thirty-nine weeks.  Offering a fixed endpoint to a woman who is thirty-eight weeks pregnant is like offering water to a person crawling across the desert; I did not hesitate to have her put me on the list. 

I had been having contractions for weeks already, often at consistent five-minute intervals and going on for hours before fading away. I went to bed every single night wondering if I was experiencing the start of labor and expecting to wake up when my water broke or the contractions intensified, but every morning I was still pregnant. My doctor assured me that she thought the baby would come in less than a week and the whole induction would be unnecessary, but I was pretty sure my body would continue to mess with me for at least another seven days, if not forever. Elective induction? Sign me up.

So the morning of the 21^st rolled around, also known as thirty-nine weeks. My doctor had explained that the hospital would call me if they had room for me, so Matt and I spent the morning waiting for the phone to ring. After a couple hours, I called the Labor & Delivery ward. The nurse I spoke to said they didn’t have any beds, and that they usually they don’t call unless it is really slow. I was crushed. Actually, I was filled with rage (being thirty-nine weeks pregnant alone was enough to fill me with rage on a regular basis; being told I wasn’t actually going to meet my son that day made it a billion times worse). I wanted my baby already.

After saying a bunch of swear words and crying some hot, angry tears about the unfairness of it all, I decided to head in to work. I had nothing better to do at that point, and I figured it would be one more day of maternity leave to spend with the baby, should he ever arrive. I had barely gotten to my desk after explaining to a few dozen co-workers why I was still there when my phone rang. It was my doctor (not my regular doctor, who was out of town that week, but the doctor who would’ve been delivering my baby if I had gotten in to the hospital that morning). He had just heard from the hospital and they could take me, after all, and could I head over right now? Ummm, YES. On my way.

Matt and I grabbed our bags from the house and headed over to be induced.

We checked in and the nurse got me hooked up to an IV with Pitocin (the drug that jump-starts labor). I remembered things getting going pretty fast once I got the IV with Siena; I knew my body reacted quickly to the Pitocin, so I was happy when I felt the contractions grow noticeable almost immediately. But I kept waiting for them to get really strong, like the kind where you can’t talk, and that wasn’t happening. The nurse even said at one point, “You look way too comfortable” as I chatted with her and with Matt, barely noticing the labor.

After a few hours and a few centimeters of dilation, the doctor came in to break my water in the hopes of speeding things along. And Holy Mother of Pain (is that an expression?), did things ever speed up after that.

How to describe that first contraction after my water broke, in comparison to the contractions leading up to that point? Well, it was like the difference between something benign, let’s say tadpoles, and that thing that rose up out of the depths and killed Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring. (Anyone else get that reference? And since I just admitted that I’m kind of a dork for LOTR, I’ll go ahead and stop pretending like I don’t know it’s called a Balrog. And it didn’t exactly kill Gandalf – he came back later, stronger than ever. But it sounded like he went through hell, which brings me back to my comparison. Contractions after water is broken: pretty much a fiery hell of pain.) And the next contraction started as soon as that one ended. And the one after that started as soon as that one ended, and so on. I looked at Matt, unable to form sentences, and tried to communicate with my eyes the fact that this was unlike anything, ever.

He didn’t seem to be reading my desperation, so I finally got out the words “Call the nurse,” figuring that at least she would be able to tell I was ready for some drugs. Since the moment she hooked me up to the IV, I had been mentioning my plan to have an epidural as soon as was reasonably possible, so I figured there shouldn’t be any confusion about that strategy.

But Matt didn’t call the nurse. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Hon, you knew it would be intense, being induced. Remember, this was a choice.”

He really said that, word for word. And I’m still married to him. But I am writing about it on the internet, for anyone in the world to read. Because when you say something like that, you deserve to have the internet know about it.

And to his point, well, yes. I knew being induced meant no gradual build-up of contractions, and I knew having the baby was going to hurt. I had done it before, with a faulty trick epidural that didn’t really work (more about that story on Siena’s birthday) so it’s not like I expected a pain-free experience, although I certainly wouldn’t have turned that down.

The nurse finally came in and checked to see if I had dilated any more. I had gone from three to six centimeters in fifteen minutes. No wonder it had hurt.

She called the doctor in, and then the anesthesiologist. They recommended an interthecal instead of an epidural (both involve a needle to the spine; basically, I went for the interthecal because they assured me it would take effect faster and the shorter duration wouldn’t be an issue given how fast I was progressing). It was fantastic. I loved it. It started working almost immediately, which was key, considering that almost as soon as the anesthesiologist left the room, it was time to start pushing

The whole time I was pushing (all fourteen minutes) we were all watching the clock. Siena has been born at 5:26 p.m. and we thought Elliot might end up with the exact same birth time, but apparently he wanted his own. So at 5:27 p.m., I held my son for the first time. Matt cut the umbilical cord, and we both said “Hi, Baby Boy. Hi, Elliot Jacob.”

He had blond hair (there was a great moment during the pushing when the nurse exclaimed, “He’s a blondie!” and my dark-haired husband and I looked at each other in surprise, leading the nurse to joke “Uh oh – this is gonna be awkward!”) and blue eyes, and I was crazy about him. Still am.

Happy Birthday, Bugabee.