the labor tale

I only had to wait 11 more days from that post. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Here I am on Friday, September 30.

On Saturday, October 1, I woke up before 4am with labor pains. I had been SO curious how it would start, and how I would know it was real. And when it started, I just knew.

The contractions weren't anything like the braxton hicks I had been feeling all summer. They were like cramps, lasting for maybe 10 seconds, maybe every 10 minutes. After trying to sleep through them for an hour, I just sat up in bed, played on the computer, and recorded their frequency. Garrett saw me awake, and in a half-awake daze said jokingly, "How come you aren't in labor yet?" - a teasing phrase I'd heard that week, as we were so eagerly waiting her arrival. I said, "I am." I'm not sure if it shocked him, but he didn't go back to sleep, and we actually watched some tv show at 5am. Later, I drifted back to sleep and we didn't get out of bed until 10am. I was still having only slightly painful contractions, and I had a list of things I wanted to do while they were still mild.

We took our final Saturday morning photo (week 40!), showered, cleaned the house, and finished packing the suitcase. But as I got active, the contractions became far more infrequent. A walk didn't help it continue. I worried that it would go away and not come back for who-knows-how-many days. This is what has happened to my sisters. The afternoon was calm, with only some increased activity when I lay down again...the reverse of what "they" say works to bring on labor.

That evening we were scheduled to go to Jake's for a party. I really hesitated about going. Jake lives out from the city center, about a 45 minute trip by metro and bus. I could tell Garrett really wanted to go. I was thinking all day we probably wouldn't be able to go -- indeed earlier that week when Jake invited us, I half-jokingly said I hoped we wouldn't be able to come -- I hoped I'd be having or have had this baby!! But as the contractions slowed down, we didn't call to cancel. By 4pm I was feeling blue. Part of me thought it would be reasonable for us to stay home, pop in a movie, and hope labor would progress. But I knew if we did that, and labor didn't progress, I'd be very disappointed and discouraged. We'd still be waiting for her arrival, and we'd have missed the party to boot.

It felt a bit like an umbrella situation: if you bring it, you won't need it. But surely as you leave it at home, it will rain. I had a feeling that if we went all that way, I'd end up in labor. But the way I saw it, that would be just fine! I desperately didn't want to wait any longer to see my baby. If going to the party brought labor on, perfect! If it didn't, well, at least we'd have the party as a consolation prize.

We left at 5pm, promising ourselves we wouldn't stay late, no matter what. Even if the labor didn't progress, I needed rest and sleep for whatever lay ahead. As we walked to the metro, the pains began a bit more. It occurred to us we could turn around, but I didn't want to jinx it. At Dejvicka, I had to sit on a bench through several contractions. We met up with a friend waiting for the bus, and I tried to look normal through contractions - though I imagine I had this constipated look on my face.

You see, for the past several weeks, when my baby would be technically "on time" after 38 weeks, I had been telling people she could come any day.... And you should see the look people give when they hear that. Like I might spew a baby in their faces within the minute. Sheesh! I think people are seriously afraid of a woman in labor, like it would be terrifying. I had a feeling it wasn't going to be terrifying right at the start. And I don't think I was terrifying at that party. But I didn't want people to know that I was in labor, because I thought they'd freak out. They'd tell me to rush to the hospital (as if the hospital would even admit me that early). So, I tried to play it cool. As best I remember it, I could still mostly talk through the contractions on the way out to the party. I could still walk through them. When we got there, things simmered down, and I only remember one really painful one.

We left saying, "pray she comes tomorrow!" but I don't think most anyone realized we really meant it would happen.

Again, things picked up on the way home. By about 9pm, walking home from the metro, I had a cramp that I couldn't walk through. (Aside: If that's when you start counting hours of labor, I had over 12. But I can't figure out when to start counting. For some reason when people ask, they seem to want your answer to be short: "How many hours were you in labor? It was short?" Why do they make that question leading? I feel like I'm supposed to be chipper about my answer. No, I don't think it was quick. But time was a blur. I don't know; it doesn't matter.)

At about 10pm Garrett called home. We told his mom I was in labor, we thought it'd be soon. I was laying in bed, trying to rest, but I didn't like going through it alone, so I got up to talk to them. At one point, in front of the skype camera, I had a bad one that I didn't handle so well. Nancy saw me and gave me some advice which really carried me through the night. (I didn't take any labor classes, so I really needed this.) She told me to choose something to focus on, to think of something positive. This really helped. All those labor tips sound really cheesy and stupid. They're not.

By midnight I was really miserable. I just wanted it to come fast. I felt like going to the hospital would help - it would at least be a step towards having the baby. At this point contractions were lasting about 45 seconds; not quite long enough to warrant the hospital, but I was tired of waiting. I think I managed to hold out till about 12:30am when I told Garrett to call my sister.

As we were driving along the river, Elizabeth said how amazing this was: she could remember the day I was born, and here she was, driving me to the hospital to have my baby. Pretty cool. I heard this, and have a vivid memory of it, but at the time I couldn't respond.

At the hospital, we went up into the receiving room. I had been there on Thursday; I thought perhaps my water was leaking. I wasn't received warmly, and I wasn't too excited about pushing the call button again. My fears were justified; the woman came out, and when I shook my head and said I didn't speak Czech, she told me rudely, that this is the Czech Republic. I should speak Czech. [How is this helpful at 1:15am, while I'm in labor?] I didn't bother use any energy to respond or even get annoyed; I just turned around to Garrett and sat down.

Garrett had to wait outside while I went in, sat with the monitor, and got checked. The doctor suggested I was not necessarily in labor (how?! when I'm in more pain than ever in my life?). He said I could stay, but they wouldn't admit me into a delivery room. Garrett couldn't come with me into the 2-person room they gave me; he took a taxi home. They said they'd check in 2 hours to see if progress was being made.

Once in the maternity ward, I had only good experiences. The nurse with long blond dreadlocks was kind and supportive. She told me to take a 30-minute shower. It felt amazing. But after it, I felt so bad, moaning in pain while my roommate who evidently wasn't in labor, was trying to sleep. The pain increased, and I lay there, curled up and alone, and felt like there was NO way I could make it to the end without pain relief.

By 3:30, when I was checked again, the cheerful nurse in dreadlocks told me I was doing fine -- without a hint of scorn the admission doctor had given me. Garrett, who had only just got home and hadn't been able to sleep at all, turned around and came back.

During those two hours by myself, I really felt hopeless about handling the pain on my own. When he met me, I told Garrett I didn't think I could make it: if it was supposed to get only more painful, I couldn't handle it. He said, "You can do it." And like a light switch, I decided I could. I did. But it was the most painful and difficult thing I've ever done.

I suppose I got to this room sometime at after 4am. I was sorry Garrett had to go back and forth and get no sleep. But I was glad they didn't put me in this room to begin with; that delivery chair was SO uncomfortable, and there was no bed in the room. At least for those two hours I had a more comfortable bed to rest in.

[In retrospect, I clearly should have stayed home as long as possible, which is what I had told myself I would do; in the pain, I changed my mind. Garrett could have slept, or at least rested. I would have been on our comfortable bed. And maybe the mean nurse and rude doctor would have believed I was in labor and been nicer.]

Garrett had to pay 1000kc to be in the delivery room with me...I know stupid, especially when the hospital encourages dads to be there, and certainly he's a help to the midwife. We joked that these shoe-socks cost 1000kc, because surely that's all the hospital did for him.

By the way, the labor room did seem offensively bright as in these photos, but shortly after these photos were taken, we turned off the overhead light and it was much better.

Last pregnant photo:

The midwife was very nice. I don't really remember the first one I had, but I remember thinking at 7am I was sorry to see her go and hoped the next one would be nice. And she was. She was great -- kind, encouraging, supportive, and not pushy.

I was having back labor, and the contractions I felt back there were far worse than the ones on my front. For some reason my midwife wanted me to lie on my side and it felt like the pain hurt a lot more that way. I'm really not sure why I didn't move myself, but I just did what she told me to: it was easier not to think about things, and certainly I didn't have energy for walking or much moving.

Mostly, in the last few hours, I remember flailing my arm out toward Garrett every time a contraction came and squeezing his hand with all the force I could. I'm quite sure I slept between the contractions. I have no concept of the time.

At 8cm, the midwife asked if I wanted them to break my water. I didn't. I really wanted it to happen naturally. Garrett says it was about 15 to 20 minutes later when it happened naturally. It was rather thrilling: even Garrett could hear the pop. That was probably about 8am.

Not long after that, the midwife told me it was time to push. I didn't have any drugs, but my exhaustion and sleepiness made it such that I was quite out of it. I didn't feel any different; I couldn't sense that I needed to push; I just did it. I guess I pushed for over an hour -- maybe close to an hour and a half. It was SO much more painful than anything before. I pushed and pushed, and her head finally crowned. The sweet midwife was excited, and told me I was doing great, and put my hand to feel her head.

But that was just the beginning. It took a long time -- with sleeps between contractions. Both Garrett and the midwife (and a doctor too, but I don't even think I consciously looked at her) were very encouraging. But sometimes I just shook my head and said I couldn't push through that contraction. I'd close my eyes for rest and the next thing I knew it was time again.

It was taking so long that the midwife wanted to give me IV of oxytocin to lengthen my contractions so I could get more out of them. At this point I was willing for anything that might help, and happy to not care and just take advice.

By the time the oxytocin was flowing, it was just minutes more. The midwife said I barely needed any. So whether my body was just finally ready for the final push, or the hormone helped, who knows. I just know that I got a sense of resolve and then, just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, I heard one of them say, "It's a girl." I opened my eyes and was amazed to see a baby, suspended between my legs. I wonderingly felt my flat belly. The doctor held her while the midwife clamped her umbilical cord and asked Garrett if he wanted to cut it. He stood up eagerly. And I just sat back and smiled.

Within moments she was on my chest, and I was meeting my daughter. The feeling is beyond compare.

The rush of adrenaline continued for those first two beautiful hours of her life while Garrett and I got to be the first to welcome Julie Anna into this world. The Czech hospital does this best: a baby is most alert for those two hours, before becoming the sleepy little newborn everyone else meets. They put the baby on the mama's chest immediately, for the physical touch and eye contact that is so important. The midwife helped us start nursing half an hour after delivery, just like all the books recommend. The new parents get to enjoy her in peace -- she was only taken by the midwife to be wiped off, weighed, measured, and bundled, all in the delivery room.

Garrett holding his daughter for the first time.

At 11:30, a nurse took Julie to be bathed and then put in an incubator to rest until her body temperature was self-sustaining. I was wheeled to the recovery room where I'd stay with Julie for 4 more nights. And Garrett went home to sleep. He'd return at 3pm, with a host of visitors (every day).

Julie Anna

Born 9:24am on October 2

7lbs, 2oz 19.6in

It's hard for me to believe that each day brings me closer to meeting this little one. But it is true. I remind myself this often, so as to make me believe it more.

For the past several weeks, I have had so many conversations about labor and delivery. I feel like I know at least one birthing story from every mother in my community.

And really I've been enjoying learning lots, and since this whole pregnancy and becoming a mom thing is rather consuming, I'm glad to talk about it with others. I've certainly gotten a lot of advice and opinions, and while I haven't cared for all of it, I've really loved some people's perspectives, so I'll take the occasional bad egg with the good.

But the truth is, I feel like I can't take this much longer. I just this evening realized I have this feeling that everyone is waiting for me. Waiting for me to go into labor. Expecting me to do something. I don't like feeling that people expect something of me. Or feeling that I'm disappointing them, as if I had any control over its timing. I don't. They know I don't. But still I feel that people are waiting for me to do something.

I realize they are expecting the inevitable. And I know that I will have this baby. I realize that I will be heading to Podoli with the expectation of coming home with our little one, on one of these days...within the next four weeks. But I realize it in the way that I realize that Jesus could return on any day. I mean to say, I can imagine it happening, I believe it will happen. But the truth is, I can't wrap my head around it actually happening. And since the timing is so uncertain, it's hard to really believe it will finally happen.

Which is why I remind myself often that each day is bringing me closer. So hopefully soon I'll believe; and then, it will happen.

baby coming

This past weekend marked week 38, and ladies at my school threw a shower for me. It was a ton of fun.

(might this be the last photo of its kind? i only wish. we've observed this Saturday morning ritual every other week since week 12)

Sheila asked me questions she had asked Garrett to see if we could come up with the same answers about his childhood and babies.

I got to open up a bunch of adorable, precious, tiny baby clothes and hats and toys. We played a "shower game" where if you say cute you lose a clothes pin. I did pretty well until I opened up the presents....

It was fun to show it all over again at home to Garrett. Then I gathered all the baby clothes we have so far and did my first load of baby laundry. They were just irresistibly cute, hanging on the drying rack.

Kate and Miriam gave us a blue dress with these leggings...they kill me.

Check out the size differential here: Her Daddy's sweatpants; her pants!

photo shoot

A few weeks ago a fellow teacher at our school offered to take photos of us, as she is practicing to be the photographer at a wedding this summer. I thought it would be fun to have some photos of our pre-family before she left town.

They are a bit more artsy than I am used to, but I am liking them. Here are two.

The first is with Prague Castle behind us. The second is in the castle moat, the "deer moat" which neither of us had ever been it. It's very pretty.

You can see more here.

entering the third trimester

This is Week 28, marking the start of the third trimester. In less than 10 weeks, our little girl would be considered "on time," but I'm trying to mentally prepare for more like 12-13 more weeks.

So far, my pregnancy has been "by the book" and just about everything that most women experience, I've been experiencing. Weird dreams. Leg cramps. Restless leg syndrome, mildly. Don't like picking things off the floor. Don't like standing up from the floor. And I believe I have also entered the less-energy phase again. I don't feel that good in the evenings, when I'm full from dinner and all my organs seem to be squashed.

But I love feeling her move around, and my favorite is getting to feel a part of her when I poke on my belly. I'm not so sure I can distinguish between head and rear, but still it's thrilling to be feeling something that is her. Sometimes a leg or arm goes slipping by my hand, or I can watch it slide with a bump across my belly. Garrett says it feels slimy. Weird, but it kind of does.

In about a week we'll have our last ultrasound, and hopefully there will be confirmation that she is, in fact, a she. Or I shall have some un-doing to do in my mental preparation.

quilt

This week my friend Laura came to visit us in Prague. She brought a beautiful quilt she made for our baby. It's got triangles and squares of red and blue, and the back is a beautiful print with birds.

Here we are together, sitting on it on our park with Prague in the background. The baby bump is growing.

coffee

This morning I had a cup of coffee, my first in over 20 weeks.

At about week 7 or so, I started getting morning sickness, and coffee was no longer interesting to me. In addition, I understood that I should cut back my caffeine intake, so I started having a cup of tea. I've been very happy with this cup of tea for months.

During morning sickness, I had several aversions. Some foods made me feel a bit queasy to smell or think about. Others, I just wasn't interested in, and coffee was one of them.

I remember my sister Ruth having a cup of tea in the morning when she was pregnant, saying she didn't drink coffee anymore, and I thought I could never do that. But somehow, I've found I'm much more content giving something up for the good of my baby than I used to think I would be.

For the past month or so, the smell of coffee has been more intriguing. And this morning, I woke up, and decided it was what I wanted. I'm having half-n-half caf, so it's about the same amount as a cup of tea. So, I don't feel bad about it, and I'm glad to be enjoying coffee again.

nesting

They say pregnant women have a extra strong "nesting" instinct, involving serious cleaning and organizing of various parts of their home. It is supposed to be strongest just before you giving birth - perhaps a sign that it is close.

I read this in Vicki Iovine's The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy:

A couple of days before you go into labor, you may feel an irresistible urge to clean your hosue or defrost your refrigerator or put all your CDs in alphabetical order or some other such anal task. I am not talking about the normal panicky cleaning fits some of us fall into when our mother calls and says she is stopping by unexpectedly, or the way you finally get around to putting the broken toilet paper dispenser back on the wall because your brother and his new wife and coming to stay for the weekend. No, I am talking about the kind of feverish cleaning where you use your husband's toothbrush to scour the pipe that goes from the back of your toilet into the wall. I'm talking about taking every switchplate cover in the house and soaking them all in Pine Sol. This is the time when otherwise rational women truly believe that they cannot sleep for one more night in a house where the baseboards have not been freshly painted. This is nature's way of making sure you will be ready for the new baby, and it is called "nesting."

A week after her due date...my Girlfriend Mindy was discovered by her mother tottering at the top of her six-foot ladder, feverishly sponging down the shelves at the top of her closets. To indicate how out of character this was, I have to tell you that Mindy's "baby" is now seven years old, and that those shelves have never seen a sponge since....

My Girlfriend Sondra starting cooking as she neared her delivery date. She calmly and rationally explained that she just wanted to have a few meals frozen so that her husband could microwave them when she was in the hospital and when she first got home. It made sense, until I saw Sondra's car in the grocery store parking lot at 7:00am waiting for it to open. She made so many casseroles that she filled her own freezer and soon spread out to her Girlfriend's across the street.....

I'm not close to my due date, and I don't think I'm close to the irrationality in the above stories, but I had a spurt of organizational projects this last week. I have always enjoyed deep cleaning and re-organizing. I love making things look nice. I can remember as a small child taking great delight in ordering my dad's screws into the correct coffee cans.

I was thinking about that on Friday as I sorted the tool box at school.

This is the third re-organization project I took on last, as the end-of-school-term craziness has quieted down.

I started out asking a question about a field trip, and ended up taking on the task of organizing old field trip information and brochures into beautiful binders.

But in order to do that project, I needed plastic sheet protectors. I couldn't readily find them in the cabinet, and as I was shifting through the supplies, I realized it needed an overhaul. I don't know how many times it's been re-organized by very competent, organized people who piled and labeled until they were blue in the face. But all the slippery office supplies come sliding together, and staff in a hurry don't always put things back where they belong. It needed a serious overhaul, a brand new scheme. The empty mailboxes spoke to me: these trays would be just the thing.

Several hours later, with the help of Jarka, I had it beautiful.

Friday afternoon I came home, emptied the dishwasher, and tried to stuff the darn tupperware into the darn tupperware drawer. Too full. I promptly sat down and re-arranged until it all fit in this beautiful fashion.

Naturally if you could have seen the state of disorder these things were in to begin with, you might better appreciate all these photos. Alas, I don't have a "before" shot. But still, hopefully this captures the essence of my excitement in these projects.

summer reading

I've taken to a flurry of pregnancy reading.

I started out reading online about weekly developments of our baby on various websites. I particularly like:

• http://www.babycenter.com/ which has many articles on all sorts of questions I might have as well as videos of baby development, delivery, etc.
• http://www.birth.com.au/ offers even more detail on the baby's development in their weekly emails.

When Carol came to visit, she brought a few books from Ruth.

• Vicki Iovine's The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy. This is an entertaining read written from the perspective of your girlfriend. It's not a doctor's guide, and it's not full of so many statistics. But it explains all sorts of unusual feelings and behavior of pregnant women, and warns the reader about lesser-known side effects and things to be prepared for. It's got laugh-out-loud passages and lots of good advice.
• The Little Big Book of Pregnancy, which is one of those coffee table books with quotes and short stories and photos to inspire and encourage pregnant women...

Garrett's mother sent us a care package with a book that was my sister-in-law's favorite:

• Tracy Hogg's The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. This book was written by a British woman in the 90s who was a ...and lactation specialist. She was a bit opinionated, but I liked her philosophy a lot and will probably try to adopt it. She included lots of good guides that I am sure I will reference when our little one is born.

An English library in Prague had a used book sale recently, and I picked up a whole bunch of other books:

• The New Mother's Guide to Breastfeeding: I just finished this last night. It rather smacks of propaganda from the American Academy of Pediatrics, but specific instructions were helpful, and I'm glad I got it.
• Babywise: I haven't started it yet, but it appears to be about training your child to sleep through the night.
• Babywise, Book Two: Parenting Your Pretoddler, Five to Fifteen Months
• Burton White's The New First Three Years of Life

And finally, my sister Elizabeth just lent me:

• What to Expect the First Year

24

Here I am at 24 weeks, on June 11. In a little more than 2 weeks from now I will be entering the third trimester.

baby girl

We think our little squirmier is a girl. I am conscientiously saying "we think" because I understand these things are never 100% until delivery. And I don't want to forget that, since I know already it would be a bit of a shock and an emotional shift if we found out we were wrong.

The ultrasound technician said she thinks we're having a girl. From my untrained eye, I agreed. I also understand from Kristie that the heartbeat can suggest if a baby is a boy or girl: girls have higher heartbeats. I asked my doctor about this, and she said she had done a study: babies' heartbeats range from 110 to 160. (They beat extra fast in order to get all the oxygen they need.) A heartbeat of 150 has a 90% chance of being a girl; a heartbeat of 160 has a 95% chance of being a girl. Our little one has a heartbeat of 150. So, we think she's a she!

We have a name picked out for our girl. We are keeping this a secret. The reasons for this are obvious to me: 1) we'd like something to announce when she arrives 2) we don't care for any input on our decision 3) we don't need any criticism about what we've decided; people won't say anything bad about the name of a born baby, but they will give their opinion about your hypothetical name. Two things baffle me: 1) adults who don't understand these reasons and are so irritated about us being "all secretive about it." 2) kids who think that if they beg us we will cave and tell the name.

Being pregnant is an interesting experience. Mostly, I'm excited and I'm loving it. I love reading about it and learning about my baby. I love talking about it and I love hearing other women's stories. I love just thinking about it, and I can amuse myself for countless minutes just looking at my belly and feeling her kicks. But every once in a while I'm hit with the startling fact that I'm pregnant, and I'm overwhelmed: it's not stopping; I keep growing; there is a little person inside of me; my life will never be the same; something that I've wanted to happen to me & wondered if it would happen to me nearly my whole life is happening to me.

Being pregnant and starting a family is way more intense than being engaged and getting married. I was told this before, but now I know why it is true. When I was engaged, I knew the man I was going to marry. I knew the date we'd be married, and we went through it together completely. My identity did change a bit, and I had to work out being a wife and how that affected being a girl friend and a daughter. Of course there were things I didn't know, but mostly I felt in control of the situation.

When pregnant, there are about a zillion more unknowns. I'm going through this with Garrett, but in many ways, he can't experience it as I do: for one, he doesn't experience the hormonal emotions (ok, sort of he does, but not for himself)...for two, he doesn't have the physical reminder constantly before him. We don't know this person is who is joining our family. (This is largely why I wanted to know if we're having a boy or girl: there are already plenty of unknowns.) I know she is from us, but I don't know who she'll take after, or what little personality is developing in there. I don't know if she'll be difficult or easy, timid or outgoing. There are so many more things to worry about. She may not be healthy, she may come before she is due. I don't know what kind of life God has in store for her, if it will be long or short and if He'll draw her to Him at a young age or old.

When I was in my first trimester, I worried a lot about losing her. Even though I barely knew her, I was attached. I thought that worry would be gone when we passed into the second trimester. I was dead wrong: instead I had only grown more in love with her and knew that losing her would hurt even more. I realized that the fears will never end--they'll just grow as she grows. I had to give them up or go crazy. I think a mother must have to keep letting go of her fears, day after day.

baby

For most things, I can sate my curiosity by opening a book or doing a google search. And I've learned a lot about a baby's growth in the womb, and expectations for how my body may handle it, and why weird things are happening to me. I've learned about how much weight I'll gain, and why I pee all the time, and what other women's experiences have been.

But nothing can sate my curiosity for how painful labor will be for me, or what it will feel like when I get to hold my daughter in my arms and lay my eyes on her for the first time. I just have to wait to find out how tired I'll be in the third trimester, and how far out my belly can grow, and when her birthday will be. And I'm so darn curious.