The Birth Story

In case you haven't heard, I'm a mom now. Our little Astrid was born on Tuesday, December 9th at 6:19 pm. I've been asked if it feels weird being a mom, but the weird thing is that it doesn't feel weird. It feels totally natural. Of course, I do pinch myself every once in a while because I can't believe I'm in this stage of life already, but I am happy and that's all that matters.

Astrid certainly took her time coming into the world. Her due date was set for December 6th, but in true Polynesian style, she wasn't too concerned about being punctual.

My contractions started on Monday the 8th at 2:30 in the morning. It was exciting and scary to think that by the end of the day I'd have a baby and be a mom (that thought turned out to be wrong). The contractions continued all day long, but they never became consistent. I checked in with my doula periodically throughout the day and she reassured me that even though things were going slow, that it was okay and I should try to go about my day as normally as possible. So me and my mom ran some errands in the morning and then Joe and I went to sign some papers for our mortgage at noon (oh yeah, we bought a house. I'll have to share more on that later). I had a nap in the afternoon and after dinner I had a bath and watched Sleepless in Seattle by my doula's recommendation to enjoy my final hours before becoming a mom. When I went to bed that night, I had come to terms with the fact that baby wouldn't be arriving until the 9th and decided to try and get as much rest as possible to prepare for what lay ahead.

At 11:30 pm, my contrations started to pick up in intensity so that I couldn't lay in bed any more when they came. I got my doula to come over around 2 am and we all worked together as the contractions slowly started becoming stronger and more consistent. (we had Fringe playing in the background the entire time. Thank you, Netflix). Finally at 6:30 am, Tuesday morning, I decided to head over to the hospital and hopefully be admitted in. When they checked me at 7:00, I was 4 cm dilated, but they weren't sure they were going to let me stay so they put in a call to my doctor. Because I was positive for strep B, they ended up keeping me and took me to the my room where I would eventually deliver.

After 5 gruelling hours, my conctractions were 1-2 minutes apart and had become quite unbearable. I had gone in with the resolve to give birth without any drugs, and so far I hadn't had anything for pain. At noon they checked me again and rather than tell me I was 7 or 8 or even 9 cms dilated they told me I was STILL 4 cm. My heart sank when I heard this. I was so tired and in so much pain and I had a whole 6 centimeters to go still. At that point I didn't care about going without drugs. There was no way I could last until 10 cms and have any strength to push without getting any rest.

The first thing I asked for was the gas because I had heard such good things about it from other women. I got it, but all it did was make me feel dizzy. Instead of wasting time with the small stuff like morphine or fentanyl, I went straight for the epidural. When I was making my birth plan, getting an epidural was out of the question. I was going to labour without pain killers, but if things really sucked, maybe I'd take some morphine. Little did I know I would be in labour for 36 hours before I would be told I was still only dilated at 4 cms.

By 2 pm I was hooked up to the epidural and numb from the stomach down. I hated the feeling that my butt was asleep, but I loved the fact that I no longer felt like I was dying, so I didn't complain too much about my tingling bum. I scarfed down the lunch that had been waiting for me since 12:30 and then I promptly barfed it all back up. I had forgotten that I was still nauseous from the gas I'd had earlier. I had a granola bar instead and then fell asleep for several hours. I woke up after 5 pm because I had started feeling some contractions again. I told my nurse and I was allowed to have another shot of the good stuff.

Things continued to ramp up and I could really feel the pressure increasing in my abdomen. At 5:30 I felt like I had to take a huge poop. I told my nurse and she got things ready for me to start pushing. I started pushing at 5:50 and the nurse told me I'd probably be pushing for an hour before baby arrived. In my head I saw this as a challenge and so I pushed with all my might. I ended up pushing for 29 minutes and at 6:19 I became a mom.

The hospital policy was that I could only have two people in the delivery room with me when I had my baby. But I had Joe, my mom and my doula all with me. Joe and mom held my legs and my doula was at my head coaching me along. I was later told that the nurse let everyone stay because we made such a great team and she didn't want to break us up. It was really great to have such great support. I am so glad I got a doula because she was able to coach us all along and she helped Joe and my mom to know how best to help me. Even though the birth didn't go exactly as I would have liked, the experience was the best that it could be. And in the end I got a little girl like I wanted! 

And now, pictures!

Just a day old in the hospital

Bindi being Astrid's guard dog 

All smiles while getting burped!