Miranda Enloe

Posts Tagged ‘4 weeks’

This post was four weeks in the making, since our daughter was born four weeks ago today. It summarizes events from January 30 through February 2. It is long. Get a cup of coffee, or a beer, or both, I don’t care, and sit back and enjoy.

Wednesday the 30th of January rolls around and it starts as a normal enough day, normal if you don’t count the weather. We were in the middle of a bad week of snow, enough so that Spokane schools were closed for the entire week, something that had not happened in years (for the record, Coeur d’Alene had record snowfalls this year, beating the last record set in the 1915-1916 winter). Given the snow, our office was opening late at 9:00 AM, meaning that Mandy didn’t have to leave for work right away, so we both slept in a little. Working from home I pretty much could work nearly any 8 hours, so I happily slept in as well.

Once we were up for the day I set about my usual task of making her lunch and helping her get ready to head out the door. When I saw her come out of the bathroom I told her right there that she was staying home; she did not look well at all. Her pregnancy had been a good one, really. Some discomfort but not an unusual amount, and her back was the best it’d been in years. All good there! So, when she was in quite a bit of pain on Wednesday morning I began to wonder. I really didn’t think the baby was going to come, more that it was probably false labor. In any case, she was having contractions and did all day long. They would come in very sporadic spurts, anywhere from an hour or more to within 15 or 20 minutes. I stayed with her all day helping her as I could in between working. She dealt with the contractions like a champ and just hung out with me downstairs, watching “What About Brian” on DVD and napping a bit.

By the evening, they had intensified quite a bit and I started timing them with a bit more accuracy. We had a period where they were coming near six minutes apart and were pretty intense. Mandy wasn’t sure what to do, so we call her Dr. office around 9:45 that night. After some questions and discussion, they told us to go into the hospital and get checked out. I still didn’t think the baby was coming any time soon, I mean, three weeks still! Come on.

We arrived at the hospital around 10:00 that night and were whisked up-stairs and put into a birthing suite. A nice sized room with her bed, a TV, bathroom with jacuzzi tub, and a seat along the window that doubles as a daddy bed. Mandy got her gown on and the nice young nurse came in and shoved her hand into my wife. “You’re dilated to one,” she said. Ok then, nine more to go. How much longer could that take?

The nurse said she’d be back in a while to check Mandy again, and when she did return the results were the same: still at one. So, they sent us home with a prescription for Ambien to help Mandy sleep through the contractions. After the meds were picked up we got home and went to bed at about 12:30 AM. Mandy did have to take both of the pills, but she still seemed to be conscious off and on throughout the night.

Thursday morning comes, and the contractions are still there, and they’re coming steady as well. Six minutes apart, nice and steady at that pace. Folks, we are having a baby, today. But not yet.

Since I know we’d be leaving at some point, I went out to shovel the additional 4 inches of snow that had fallen over night so we’d have a clear path out of the driveway. I came back in and went up towards the bedroom, where I could see Mandy with a towel around her head and talking on the phone. I heard something about her mucus plug coming out? Something like that? I thought her water had broken – cue the comical music while I start to run around the place like a madman. I whipped through the shower (not even sure if I turned the water on, but I know I came out clean) dried and dressed (if I dried, there must have been water) and set about gathering the last few items for our hospital suitcase. Meanwhile, Mandy is calmly doing her makeup, reading a book, taking a nap; in other words, the complete opposite of what I was doing.

She was on the phone with her doctor, who told her to get ready and come into her office first before going to the hospital, just to make sure things were ready so we wouldn’t have another night like the one before. After my frantic race against, nothing, to get ready we left the house, heading off for the Women’s Clinic of North Idaho where we were scheduled to see one of the two Midwives, Rhonda.

Just a brief moment here to talk about how AWESOME they are at the Women’s Clinic. Rhonda is a person who has truly, honestly found her calling. She was a super star during the birth (more on that coming up) and was such a positive, calm (and calming) person, it was truly a pleasure to have her as a part of our whole birth process.

So, back to the story, we arrive close to 11:00 in the morning at the clinic and check in and are promptly lead to a room. Mandy does the usual routine (weight, blood pressure, strip to the waist, all that fun stuff) and we wait for Rhonda, who joined us in a short time. Here’s the unpleasant part, and this makes me so glad I don’t have women parts: Rhonda appears to shove a good part of her arm into my wife to see how far she’s dilated and what not. This is so, so clearly uncomfortable and I feel so bad for Mandy, but it is a necessary evil, unfortunately. Mandy does make it through the process and we learn that she is dilated to 4. 4! That’s three more than 12 hours ago. At that rate we’d have the baby in two days. Ok, not really.

Upon checking my wife’s pipes, Rhonda tells Mandy, “You’re having a baby today, girlfriend!” At which time Mandy bursts into tears like we just told her her dog had not actually passed away, it was just lost and we found it…but it got hit by a truck. Twice. I had seen this gut-wrenching face once before, when I asked her to marry me, so I knew that it was a cry of joy not sadness. She wracked out a few sobs while Rhonda asked her what was wrong. “I’m just happy!” she finally said.

We packed up from there and headed to the hospital, which was just down the road. We checked in (again) and were taken upstairs (again) to a birthing room (again). Only this time there was something different. There were two beds in the room, with curtain dividers. Not good, not happy. We asked what the hell and were told that all the other rooms were full (we learned later in the day that January was a record number for births at Kootenai Medical Center, although how many we never learned) and that someone was being discharged so we would have a room once it was cleaned. We were alone, for all of five minutes, before they wheeled in another whale (kidding!) and her, whatever. I think he was doing a documentary, perhaps, because all I could hear him do was play with a video camera, filming something and then immediately re-watching it, as if his short-term memory was straight out of Memento.

While we sat in our shared room, breathing and clutching through her contractions Mandy had indicated that she did in fact want and epidural. Before they could get to that, however, they had to get her IV in and a bag of fluids through her. The nurse proceed then to not so gently poke and prod at her forearm trying to get the IV in place. This pain was worse than the contractions, and it was pissing Mandy off, I could easily see. Even more so when she switched from the left forearm to her right and proceeded to do it all over again. She finally gave up, thankfully, and we were moved to our own private birthing room. The time was 1:00 PM.

Now that we had our own room and were somewhat settled in it was back to the task of the IV. This time a different nurse came along and placed it in the back of Mandy’s hand instead (which the would have done the first time if they had listened to her), then they got the bag of fluids (which sounds sort of vague to me) flowing. She had to wait for that to finish before she could get the epidural. So we sat, chatted, had a couple of visitors (her mom, sister and dad). Hey, speaking of parents…

Let me digress for a moment. While we were on the way to the hospital I took a moment and called my folks, my mom at work where I had to leave a message and my pop at home. I got him live and let him know – hey, uh, ya know that baby we’re having? Well forget the 20th, it’s coming today, so change yer travel plans. They were actually coming over that weekend anyway, a quick trip, for the baby shower (which was Feb. 2nd, just to throw the date in there) so I thought, hey, why change that? Come now and just stay a little longer. So, my pop said he’d discuss with my mom and they’d figure out what they were going to do. Now you know what my parents were up to in Montana.

The fluids finally finished, I don’t recall what time it was, and I think I actually brought that fact to the nurse’s attention. Not my job, but I did it anyway because that’s the kind of guy I am. “Ok, I can order the epidural now,” was basically her statement. Which meant more waiting. Another hour, at least. Whee. Hurry up and wait. she only asked for the damn thing three hours ago!

The anistegiolist showed up and did all the prep-work on her back to get her ready. For those not familiar with an epidural it’s pretty interesting. A big ass needle is jammed into your lower spine – jammed is a bit strong, yes, nevertheless… Once the needle goes in just the right distance a catheter is fed through the needle and basically inside the spine. The needle is removed, the catheter taped to the mother’s back and then attached to a machine which regulates the dosage and after a little while we have no feeling from the mid-section down! What fun is modern medicine. (You can read more on the subject here and see a nifty picture here. Our guy wrapped up the procedure at 4:00 PM, four hours after we were admitted. Speedy they were not.

From that point forward, though, it was smooth sailing for Mandy, she was content as a bug in a rug what with them contractions under wraps. We had more visitors, in and out, in and out. Time becomes somewhat abstract at this point, I was aware of time passing, but not really of what time it was. At some point Rhonda returned to check on her progress, I think it was at about 5:15. She did the old reach-up-you-hooch-and-feel-around and announced that she was dilated to 4.5. Crap. Not a lot of progress in the past several hours. Given that she made the decision to break Mandy’s water and after doing so Mandy jumped right to a 6. Or a 9, I don’t remember. Maybe it was 8. I think it was 8, I somehow remember thinking that it nearly doubled. (It was 6.) Some more time passed and we had some more visitors. I think at one time we had 9 or 10 people in the room, plus Mandy and I. Meanwhile, I was ready to pass out from exhaustion. Get that, Mandy’s giving birth and I’m the one tired. Anyway, after her water was broken a couple hours passed and a nurse came to check her again. This time the announcement was that she was ready, fully dilated and ready to start pushing.

They prepped the room first by lowering a light from the celling that looked like it belonged in a James Bond film. I kept waiting for Q to pop in from around the corner telling us the many things it could do. The ceiling panel was hinged on the side away from the bed and opened that direction. When they first turned it on the way it was aimed I swear I could see through Mandy it was that damn bright. Once all the preparations were made Mandy started pushing about 9:10, maybe 9:15 . Rhonda arrived back shortly thereafter. I had her left side, she had her right and we both would pry back on her legs while Mandy would fold herself in half and push. I’ve got a birds eye view of the whole process, by the way, right as it’s happening. I was amazed when I could first see a glimpse of the top of her head. The hair! Wow, she had a lot of hair (the baby, you perv, never mind my wife). Rhonda would work at things while Mandy was pushing, I gave her as much encouragement as I could. Mandy rocked the house, she did great that night. With the epidural, she didn’t mind it one bit.

As things progressed they had trouble keeping the monitors on the outside of Mandy’s belly working properly. They first inserted an internal monitor so they could better tell when the contractions were coming. Since they were also concerned about the stress on the baby, they attached a monitor to the top of her head for her heart rate. This gave Rhonda and the staff a better picture of what was going on. Things went on for a while pretty unchanged; the baby moved a little each time, but not a lot of progress.

We had said early on that we were not a fan of the old forceps. Partially thanks to our birthing course which laid out in nice big text in the PowerPoint presentation all of the potential risks should the Dr. mess up. Of course, that’s all we could think about. Rhonda mentioned at one point she felt it might be necessary and that there was a doctor there that she trusted completely with the tool. He popped his head in at one point when the baby’s heart beat dropped to 94 and I swear I thought they were going to go at it right there. He made a comment about the drop, she said something about as long as it’s over 90, he said something about it still being too low, meanwhile I’m doing the tennis thing looking at one of them then the other than back at the first then at the other, repeat a few more times. He finally was convinced, I guess, and left at the next push. Rhonda then made a decision that change things up a bit.

I had never heard the word episomity before our birthing class (and never spelled it before this sentence) and certainly did not know what it was. I learned in our classes that sometimes it’s necessary to make an incision to sometimes prevent tearing (heebie-jeebies that makes me cringe) during birth. In some cases a woman can tear at the base of her vagina and the cut made there can prevent this and speed up birthing. All good to know, since that is what Rhonda decided to do. She mentioned a couple times, though, that it was not her first choice. She didn’t elaborate as to why, but she is one who would prefer to not have to do one. Given the lack of continued forward motion and the stress on the baby she deiced to go that route with Mandy. And, as with everything else going on below her belly button, I got to watch.

It wasn’t that big of a deal, she just picked up a big pair of shears and *snip* a cut was made. Ta da! Best part? Mandy didn’t feel a damn thing. Once that was done things really started to happen fast. A contraction came and Mandy managed two or three pushes and the baby made good progress. The head was knocking at the door, baby! Here I come! At the next contraction Mandy pushed again and she really moved, her whole head slid right out as I was watching, Rhonda with it in her hands. That was when we learned why it was so stressful on the baby.

In our wonderful birthing class we also learned about how the baby should exit the building, and how it can potentially exit the building. The proper way is for the head to come out face down and then they basically twist their shoulders through and turn over as the rest of their body exits so they are then face up. That is how, in a perfect birth, it should be. Our child, however, opted for another method.

She came out and rather than seeing the back of her head (covered in so, so much hair) I saw her face. Rather, I saw the face of a boxer on the loosing end of a 12 round fight. Holy hopping crap on a pogo stick, her poor face was flat. “Oh, you naughty little girl, no wonder you were having so much trouble,” Rhonda said to her. Our baby was born. Miranda had entered the world at 10:40 PM January 31st, 2008. They placed the little one on Mandy’s belly first and rubbed her down while the prepped the cord for me to cut. I did the snip job and they cleared her nose and throat, she gave a cry or two, that was all. Then they placed her right on mommy’s chest, where she got to hang out for 45 minutes and rest, get warm and eat, man, eat.

While all that was going on Rhonda was still at work down below. The placenta was out, and although Mandy didn’t want to see it at first she kind of had no choice when it was held up to her face. It really wasn’t that bad, just a red bag with a string. Her umbilical cord was pretty short, Rhonda commented, which is why they placed the baby on Mandy’s stomach first, my guess. After that she went about stitching up the snip she had done and generally cleaning up. There was a bustle of activity with three, four sometimes five nurses in the room.

I ducked out to tell everyone the time of birth and get congratulations from everyone. They all wanted to come in but we needed some more time for weight, bathing the baby, etc. Everything checked out good with her. It was after about an hour that I realized she hadn’t been crying since she first came out (not until the shots, anyway). She just looked so small and fragile. Her face improved almost immediately and by the next day her little nose looked fine. She got herself a little bath with some wet wipes, and her hair washed along with all the other goodies (measurements, weight, etc.). Then it was back to mommy.

Our visitors came in groups starting at about midnight. They all got to see mommy and the new little girl and theproud papa. All three of us were tired, as can be expected. After a little while more they moved us to a recovery room (post partum) and again we found ourselves in a shared room that, thankfully, was again empty. Upon hearing that we would be moved into a shared room we were both visibly unpleased. Mandy asked what I would ahve to do if someone else were to be in or join us in the room. The answer was that I would have to leave the room and sleep out in the visitors area; I may as well have just crawled up on the floor outside the door, it would have been just as comfortable. Mandy said it was unacceptable, I said I was going to be a very, very unhappy camper if it came to that. Our kind nurse clearly understood and went to talk to the post-partum nurses about our situation. She came back as we were getting ready to leave and said not to worry, we would be taken care of.

As we passed by the delivery nurses station they all smiled, waved and wish us congratulations; all the nurses there were super, super nice (if not all gentle). When we went by the nurses station for the post-partum section we barely got a glance, let alone a smile. They came off as cold and distant and, oh, look, another baby – yawn. It took our nurse an hour – one freakin’ hour – to come in and check on us. Unbelieveable. There was a definite difference between the two sides. The gals on the birthing side appeared to actually be happy to be there, while many of the post-patrum nuses appeared to be living out prison sentences. Strange, the difference.

The room was ours with no other occupant, we were at least pleased to see that, although the room was small, even for just the three of us. Mandy and I had not eaten in a while, especially her, so I went down to the cafeteria about 1:00 AM to scavenge up some food. I found lasagane, bread, mashed potatoes & gravy. We ate it like we were ravenous dogs. Although I am quite sure the meal was left over from the previous dinner hour, it was actually quite good. We ate, the baby ate, we all tried to sleep. The baby slept, well, like a baby, while we did as much as we could.

At 3:00 AM our nurse came in and asked if it was ok if she did the hearing test. Mandy and I said sure and the gal wheeled her out of the room. I dozed but Mandy didn’t sleep – Miranda was gone an hour when Mandy finally called the nurses station and asked where our daughter was. She was wheeled back, test undone as there were two infants in ahead of her. Fine, whatever, no big deal. Not sure where she was though, and why she was kept just sitting there. Mandy was able to sleep after Miranda was back in the room with us.

The next 24 hours or so is all a bit of a blur. I had handfulls of sleep here and there, but was mostly up. Our friend Kati came to visit us that morning for a little while and was nice enough to bring in a big, fat cheeseburger. Yum. Then my folks arrived around 1:00 in the afternoon. I was worried aobut their drive given the shitty road conditions from here to damn near anywhere given the feet and feet of snow we’d been getting. But, they made it safe and sound and in good time to boot.

That afternoon they finally moved us to a private room so we did not have to worry about sharing it and me having to go sit in the waiting area away from my newborn baby. The hostpital certianly is baby friendly, but they are not at all times family friendly. We had more visitors, Mandy’s grandparents, her sister and husband, my folks came back, all was good, really. The baby checked out great time and time again. They even did the hearing test, which, to our surprise too no more than five minutes. We still do not know where our baby was for that hour and what they were doing. I just hope I don’t turn on the TV in 5 or 6 years and see some child actor on a sitcom that bears a startling resembleance to my daughter.

Our goal was to check out of the hospital and be home before 11:00 AM on February 2nd. Why? Well, that’s the day of our baby shower, of course. No point in canceling it, since we don’t have half of what we’ll need to raise the kid. We asked the nurse to try to do what she could to expedite us out of there and she did do a good job. We didn’t hit 11:00, but we did get out at noon. An hour before the shower was scheduled to start. We did not get home, however, until 12:30 as we hit Wal Greens on the way home to grab Mandy’s perscriptions.

A few people were already there getting set up: Mandy’s mom Bobbi, sister Christy, friend Francses, and my folks. Before we could both take a shower people started arriving. I think there were probably 17 people here. I got a bit buggy, to be honest, too many people too quickly for me. But it was still a good time. We got lots and lots of great stuff (yes, we are working on the thank you cards) most of which we needed.

The problem with a baby girl is all the all-too-cute clothing that they put out, which everyone wants to buy – damn the registry! Damn the diapers! Let’s keep the girl clothed until she’s 27! Seriously though, we did get stuff that we did need right away, which was super helpful. And we were and are super thankful. My folks stayed for two weeks, which was great all around. Both in the help they provided and that they got to be a part of Miranda’s first two weeks ouside the womb.

So, that, in a nutshell – a very frickin’ large nutshell – was the birth of our daughter, Miranda. Hope you enjoyed the read as much as we enjoyed the ride.