Mom's first entry

Four weeks later.......actually make that 5 weeks later......

It all started on Saturday October 28 after 9pm. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at around 11pm and decided to take a late hot shower. We attempted to go to bed around midnight and I felt another braxton hicks contraction (or so I thought). I told Dave that every time I felt these contractions, I should wake him up. This only lasted through one contraction. Needless to say, he fell asleep after the first go around.

In the mean time, I tried to sleep but ended up going to the washroom every 15 minutes. At 2am, I had diarrhea......I thought it was from the pizza that we had that night. Nope.....it turned out it was my body telling me that I was starting my labour!

I went back to bed and sat on the edge thinking "Holy smokes....how long can this continue! At this rate I'll never get any sleep!". Every time a contraction came I would cope with the "menstral cramp" feeling by shaking/moving my legs. The contractions starting coming every 10 minutes and the more painful it was, the harder I would shake/move my legs. This is when Dave bolted out of bed asking me if there was an earthquake!

We started to time the contractions and like clockwork, it came every 3-5 minutes. We started to time the contractions at 2:54am until 3am. On a scale of one to ten, I would say they were about a 3/4 At 3am, Dave decided that we should call the hospital. We called and the nurse asked a lot of questions to gauge how far along we were. She tried to get me to talk through a contraction and told us that we were probably in early labour and if we were comfortable, we should probably stay at home for a while. I asked her how much longer and she said about an hour.

After we hung up the phone, we both thought "wow....this is it....we are now in labour! Kurt was right! This baby will be born on Oct. 29!"
Over the next hour, between every contraction, we went up and down the elevator, packing the car with the hospital bag, car seat, throwing out garbage, cleaning out the fridge, and checked who could potentially win the baby pool (Congratulations Sam!).

I told Dave that I could probably drive and just pull over every time a contraction came on. He looked at me and thought I was nuts! I was serious at that time......until the next contraction came. On a scale of one-to-ten, I would say it was about a 4/5 now. I didn't drive :(

We leave for the hospital at 4am and checked in by 4:30am. That was the last time I was aware of what the time was. The car ride was only about 13 minutes but in that time span, there were about 5 contractions. They made the car ride seem like 45 minutes! AND it felt like we hit every pothole possible!

The porter took us over to the birthing suite. We were in the suite that was shown on the hospital tours that we took. Nice room, no windows though. It didn't really matter though. I think through most of the the labour I had my eyes closed!

We attempted to settle in and the perinatal nurses were extremely nice. Up until this point I dealt with the contractions by moving my legs or doing a "stationary walking motion". The nurse told me I had to sit in bed to take a baseline reading of the baby's heart rate. I was strapped to a fetal heart monitor and charting device for about 20 minutes. Not fun. Every time a contraction came, I would grip the edge of the bed and think.......hurry hurry hurry. I was only 4-5 cm dilated.

Just as they had taught us in the pre-natal class, Dave offered me water after every contraction. I didn't realize how dry my mouth would get because of all the breathing.

The nurse came back and looks at the chart. She said the baby was asleep so the reading wasn't quite accurate. I had to try to wake the baby and the nurse would check again later.

We decided to leave the room and walk about in the hall ways. I had an orange fruit popsicle.......not a good idea. I felt like throwing up afterwards! :(

There were empty emergency beds and hand rails in the hallway and all of them quickly became props for me to lean over during my contractions. Dave was at my side. Scale of 1-10, about a 5/6 at this time. How would I describe these pains.......very very bad menstrual cramps times 10!

We SLOWLY made our way back to the suite. We walked past the nurses' station and back to our room. The nurse stopped by and essentially scolded us (in a nice way) and told us not to walk so far b/c they may need to look for us.

For the remainder of the labour we were in the our suite. My new prop was the tv dinner table at the end of the bed, and Dave at my side. Even the nurse said she had never seen a patient deal with a contraction in the manner I had. She also asked me if I felt like I wanted to poop. At that time I thought "why would she asked my why I wanted to poop"......now I know. The sensation is not like peeing out a watermelon......it's more like pooping out a large watermelon! Nobody told me that!

By now, on a scale of 1-10, contractions were about a 7/8. With each contraction it got harder and harder to stand. I started feeling very tired. Dave was trying his best to calm me down and walk me through the contractions. He had told me twice that it was okay to take something for the pain. I swore if he had told me that one more time, I would have given him a black eye!

The nurse stopped by and asked me if I wanted laughing gas.......I said yes right away.

It wasn't easy to time the gas with the contractions. By the time I started sucking the gas, I was at the peak of my contraction and I would throw aside the mask. What we didn't realize was that my asthma would start up during labour! At the height of each contraction I was taking short breaths and gasping for air. It became difficult to take long deep breaths.........until the "mean nurse" came in. As Dave would put it, "she was exactly what Gev needed". She would TELL me to take long deep breaths.

Scale of 1-10, definitely a 8/9. I thought if it got any harder I wouldn't know how much longer. I was almost in tears!

By now, I didn't have the strength to stand. Instead I sat on the edge of the bed. Dave was no longer at my side. He was now sitting behind me and through each contraction, I could push off on him through every contraction. I think he made the mistake of offering his hand to me during a contraction. Every time a contraction came I would grip his hand/arm but made a conscious effort to NOT squeeze with all my might :)

Our keys words were now "tension"...when I wanted to sit up straight, or "slack"....when I wanted to recline. That wasn't planned. It was the closest thing I could think of at that time to communicate to him what I wanted with the least number of words :) In hindsight, it was pretty funny :) Dave was great!

Now I had the sensation to poop! I guess it was time. I was told to lie on the bed, which I hated, and every time a contraction came, I was supposed to bring my knees to my chest, which I couldn't do on my own. I had Dave on my left side and the nurse on my right side. Through each contraction they would push my knees to my chest and I would bring my chin to my chest.

By the time the OBG came (Dr. Yee?), I was "almost there". They could see the head but the baby was "still fairly high".

The rest was a bit of a blur. All I can remember are the following words:
"Try to poop"...." I can't poop....who will clean it up".
"Push again"....."push harder"
"Swollen perineum".... "very swollen"
"Did her water break?"....."Is that the water".... "Nope....THAT is the water breaking"
"Still high up"......
"How much longer do we have?"..."we still have about 20 minutes"..."we don't have 20 minutes"
"We have to use a vacuum"...."How long can we wait?".... "we can't wait"....."ok"

The last set of contractions I had I remember the nurse telling me to push again. I pushed and was told to push one more time. During that last push, I could feel something come out with the aid of the vacuum. I thought to myself "that's it, that's the head....and then the shoulders"....and a big sigh of relief.

They placed the baby girl in my arms and starting rubbing her with a white towel. I remember I could hardly open my eyes. When I did open them, I couldn't believe she had been in me for 9 months!

Dave had his camera and started taking pics. I remember thinking when is the next contraction to expel the placenta....will it be as bad?

It wasn't that bad at all. Out came the placenta, Daddy cut the cord, nurse took Sydney to clean her and bundle her up, I kept inhaling the gas b/c Dr. Yee had half an hour of stitching to do on me! Sydney "almost" tore me from end to end.

The umbilical cord was thinner than usual and had 2 large clots in it. Not good if the pushing had continued.

All in all it was quite the experience. Can't say I've ever gone through that type of pain before. Kudos to Daddy Dave for holding out just as long as I did and not fainting at the sight of my insides gushing out between my legs!

Here is to a new chapter in our lives!
Welcome to the world Sydney Gar-Wai Huynh Le! We love you :)