Her Arrival

All I can say is that Angela's food puts me in the hospital every time. Okay, maybe not every time, but the last two times. The first time was when I went to her house and ate quiche and fried Oreos (yum) and then later that night ended up with a placental abruption (or so they think...). The next time I was at her house, I ate meat loaf, cottage cheese and orange juice. And then, I went into labor. Something about that girl's cooking....

Okay, so here's the how it all went down:
Earlier in the week I went to see my midwife, Beth, to have a non-stress test to make sure the baby was doing well and check her growth. Everything looked good, and Beth told me to expect a tiny, but healthy baby. She said that she thought the baby would weigh between 5 and 6 pounds and that I should buy preemie clothes. I resisted this, because we have so many clothes already and the newborn clothes look so so tiny. Friends said their 5-6 pound babies fit in newborn sizes, which fueled my resistance. But, on my way to Angela's house, on Friday, January 14th, I stopped by Walmart (yuck) because I had a gift certificate and needed a changing pad for the nursery (and then it would be near complete!). While at the Hell on Earth that is Walmart, I saw a preemie sleeper and I bought it. What the hell, it was 5 bucks. I then showed up at Angela's and announced, " Well, I bought a changing pad and a preemie outfit. I can now officially have the baby!" Famous last words.

Around 1:30 am, I was lying in bed with Amos and he was tickling me. He does that. I am VERY ticklish and it drives me crazy. Which is why he does it. Anyhoo, I had just gotten up to go to the bathroom and returned to bed when he started to tickle me. I told him, "Please stop, because I am going to have to pee again." He tickled me again. " Great. Now I have to pee." I got up and started to literally pee my pants. Or so I thought. I waddled to the bathroom, embarrassed by my total lack of bladder control. But then it felt different. I thought, could this be my water breaking? I had just met with Susan, out doula, that day, and asked her how often women's water breaks before they go into labor. She said not very often. So needless to say, I thought maybe I had just peed my pants and if so, that is gross. I went back to bed and told, a now falling asleep Amos, "Either my water just broke or I have completely lost all bladder control." He said, half-asleep, "Just don't get any placenta on the floor." And then he fell asleep.

And then I started to have contractions. Okay. Here we go. I laid down in bed and Juliette jumped up and curled up on top of my belly. She NEVER does this. I continued to have contractions every few minutes, not too strong, for about an hour and Juliette purred contently on my belly the whole time.

Finally, around 2:30, I decided to call Susan and let her know what was happening. By the way, I had yet to wake Amos up, as I thought, well, if I am in labor, he might as well get as much rest as possible because this is going to be a long haul. My midwife told me to expect a labor similar to my mom's, which was 36 hours long. So I prepared for the long stretch. I called Susan. "I think my water broke." "You probably just peed your pants." "Oh, okay, that what I thought." "Go back to bed and try and get some sleep." Well, I'm having contractions." "Oh. Well, you should still try and get as much rest as possible. Call me in the morning, or if your contractions get longer, stronger and closer together."

So I tried to lie down for a little bit, but then decided I should probably start packing my bag for the hospital. I did that for a little while and then lay down on the couch. Contractions started to get stronger and I found myself obsessively reading the paper that Susan had given me titled, "When to call your doula. When not to call your doula, and go straight to the hospital." I took a shower. I lay down. I walked around. I lay down.

At around 4:30am, I started to get anxious because I didn't feel her moving. A decrease in fetal movement was one of the reasons listed under "When not to call your doula and go straight to the hospital." I called Susan. She told me that sometimes in labor, babies get really quiet, as they need to conserve their energy for birth. She told me to drink a soda and lie down and see if that got her moving. She told me to try and rest as much as possible, to conserve my energy. The only soda we had in the fridge was a strawberry Jarrittos, a Mexican soda leftover from our Dia De Los Meurtos party in October. I drank it and lay down. I didn't notice a change, but the contractions were getting more intense, so I decided that everything was okay and that I would just try and focus on relaxing, as much as possible. My contractions were every 2-3 minutes and my method of pain management was to moan though them. Miraculously, I did manage to rest, pretty deeply, in between them. At around 7 am, I decided that I wanted to be in our bed, instead of on the couch. I went into our room and gently woke Amos. "Amos, I am in labor. If you want to keep sleeping, I would suggest that you move to couch, because I may make some noise when I have a contraction." Then I had a contraction. "Shhhhh, "Amos said, half asleep. "Stop being so dramatic."

Now, when I have told this story to others, they gasp at this point and make some remark about how I must have wanted to kill him. No. In fact, upon hearing this, in the middle of my contraction, I burst out laughing. Which was wonderful. I'm guessing he didn't realize fully what was happening, as it was 7 in the morning, he had been out honky tonking the night before and he was still half-asleep. By my next contraction, I think it started to sink in a bit more. His friend Chuck called around 7:30 to see if Amos was ready to go hunting. As I was moaning loudly in the background, Amos said to Chuck, "Uh, I think Katy is going to have the baby soon, and she would probably kill me if I went hunting." Good call.

Susan had told me to call he when the pain got to be more than I could manage by myself. At about 8 am, I told Amos to call her. He said, "Why don't you wait 15 more minutes?" Okay.....5 minutes went by. Amos called Susan and told I thought it was time for her to come over. I told Amos to call our parents.

Now, Susan and I had just gone over my birth plan the day before, and my plan was to labor at home as long as possible. I had asked her, as a part of the plan, when she thought would be a good time to go to the hospital. She said when I was 6 or 7 centimeters dilated. She said she would now this by how I acted. Not knowing what she meant, I went with it. This is why we hired her. I wanted to be at home as long as possible, so I could avoid all the interventions and rules that come in to play as soon as you walk into the hospital. I wanted to be able to get up and move around and not be hooked up to anything and eat, drink, dance whenever I felt like it. For the record, I did not eat, drink, or dance, but I could have if I wanted to. But I didn't.

Susan got to the house around 9am and I was in the living room sitting on a yoga ball, with my grandmother's quilt wrapped around my shoulders and Rosco standing guard.


Susan sat on the floor next to me. Afterward, she would say that every time I had a contraction, my left hip would lift up off the ball, and she thought that maybe the baby was bearing down in an awkward position. She asked me if I thought I might be more comfortable if I moved to the couch. She thought this might change the position of the baby, but she didn't mention any of this to me, she just posed it to me as if it might make things more comfortable. I guess she didn't want to worry me unnecessarily. I moved to the couch and lay down. As soon as I did, shit got INTENSE. Whoa. Serious pain. I thought to myself, If I have 24 more hours of this, I will never be able to do it without an epidural. I had told both Amos and Susan, and had written it in my birth plan, that I did not want to be offered any sort of pain medication. We had all agreed that an epidural would only be discussed if I had been in labor for something crazy, like 43 hours, and I was really suffering. At this point I had only been in labor for 8 hours, and it was starting to really be painful. How was I going to do this? Susan would later tell me that as soon as I moved to couch, I transitioned into hard labor. I didn't know this. I thought I had a day to go. I had, of course, never done this before.

Susan asked if I was starting to feel any pressure. I said, "I guess so." Truthfully, it was kind of hard to tell, it was all so intense. Again, I had never done this before, what the hell do I know? Then Susan said,"'I think we should probably go to the hospital soon." Oh, good, that means I must only have 5 or 6 more hours of labor. I can do that.

Amos ate a big breakfast and offered me some food. No food for me, thanks. He finished packing the bag. I had this list in one of my pregnancy books of what to bring to the hospital. Amos was going off of that. He would look at the list as say, "Okay, shampoo." And then go and get the shampoo and put it in the bag. He'd then come back, pick up the book again, "Okay, deodorant." Then he would go back to the bathroom and find the deodorant. Not the most efficient packer under fire. But charming. The bag got packed. "Katy," Amos called, "Do you know where my black sweatshirt is?" "Sorry, sweetie. My uterine homing device is a little busy right now, you'll have to find it yourself." The sweatshirt (aptly printed with "Spawn Till You Die) was found. He told me he packed me several books and Scrabble. Susan told him she didn't think we would be playing any Scrabble.

Susan called the hospital to let them know we were coming and that we wanted a room with a big tub. Finally, I was going to get to take my first bath of my pregnancy! Yay! (Foreshadowing...I never got that bath) We got into our cars. We started toward the hospital and I thought I forgot my purse. Amos went back to the house. I hadn't forgotten my purse, it was in the bag. We started off again towards the hospital. At this point my contractions were so intense I was lifting off the seat and screaming like a Neanderthal (I actually don't know if Neanderthals screamed like this, but trust me, it was some primal shit.)

Thankfully, the hospital is only 8 minutes from our house, so we got there fairly quickly. Amos dropped me off at the emergency room entrance and parked the car. Susan took me up to Labor and Delivery while Amos registered me. When I got up to the L and D floor, I was wheeled into a room and I got up onto the bed. The nurse told me she was going to check to see how far along I was. When she did, she looked at me and said, "Okay, your baby's head is right here. The doctor is delivering another baby, so if you feel the need to push-don't." WHAT?! I thought I had 5 or 6 more hours! Where was Beth, my midwife? She was still at home, in her jammies- not going to get there in time. I had a contraction and felt the need to push, and just had to breathe through it.

Amos came in to the room and said, "Oh no, I forgot the birthing ball." Susan put her hand on his shoulder and said, "We aren't going to need the birthing ball. She's going to have this baby now." Amos' eyes got really big and he turned and walked to the opposite corner of the room. His back was to me and for a minute I thought he was using his cell phone, but then I realized his head was in his hands. He turned around and came right next to me. He was crying. For the record, not crying like he did at the wedding. No hysterical sobbing. Just tears. This was happening. Now.

Dr. Stell, a lovely doctor I had met when I was on the hospital in December came in the room. Amos asked her if he could catch the baby. She told him he could, if there was time. Another contraction. This time I pushed. As I was pushing, I thought, Oh God, I am not pushing the baby out, but I am about to poop on this table. I don't want to poop on the table! That would be too embarrassing! I thought about stopping. I tried to mentally rewire my pushing energy. Then I thought, Fuck it. I need to just push this baby out, poop or no poop. I pushed again and out she came in one fell swoop. No time for Amos to catch her. Dr. Stell put her on my chest. "Oh, Baby. Oh, Baby. Oh, Baby." I said over and over again. She was here! She didn't cry, she just kind of squeaked. 9 1/2 hours of labor, arriving at the hospital at 10:50am and giving birth at 11:11am. She was perfect and tiny and perfect. And she had so much hair! It was so dark! She was perfect. And AWESOME.

June Apple Hopkins, born on January 15, 2011 at 11:11 am. She weighed 4 pounds, 12 1/2 ounces and was 18 1/2 inches long. AWESOME.