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Gaven's Birth

I was due with my first child on February 4, 1997 - I had dialated to a two
and started thinning out mid-January.  By my due date, I was still dialated
to a two and now 50% effaced - and growing impatient.  I couldn't wait to
meet the little person who had been kicking me for the last several months.
 I had very few Braxton-Hicks contractions so I didn't think my body was
working towards delivery at all.

My due date came and went - and I started driving bumpy roads in hopes that
something would get moving.  My parents came February 7 hoping to be here for
the big delivery - and my mom planned to stay for two weeks to help out.  I
was nervous about them coming before I started having contractions - "a
watched pot never boils".  We spent the weekend hoping for the arrival of a
baby and again driving bumpy roads.

February 9, the baby was extremely active.  I had often felt a lot of
movement during the last few months but this seemed to be an increase in
activity.  I did have Braxton-Hicks contractions most of that day but didn't
think anything of it - I kept thinking if it doesn't hurt, it doesn't count.
 

At 11:00 p.m., I decided I'd go to bed because obviously I was going to have
to report to work that Monday morning, much to my dismay.  At 12:00 a.m., I
woke up to a pretty good cramp.  It felt just like p.m.s. cramps - but again,
I wasn't worried because that was the first and I figured even if it was the
real thing it would be a long time before that baby would seriously consider
arriving.

By 12:20 a.m., I was having contractions every 3-10 minutes and they lasted
approximately 30 seconds each.  Everything that I had read, learned, etc.
indicated you had to have the contractions at consistant intervals and they
needed to be working towards a minute before taking it seriously.  My
significant other encouraged me to continue sleeping - thinking it would be a
long time before we would really need to go to the hospital and I should get
all the rest I could.  Yeah right - like you can sleep at this point!  The
contractions started coming every three minutes - not real strong and not
lasting real long but I was getting excited to go to the hospital and trying
to convince my SO that this was the real thing.  He was less easily
convinced.  So I pulled out all my reading material and we tried to determine
whether this was real or false labor.  

We spent approximately 40 minutes reading several sources - and laughing
about how ridiculous we were and how excited we were.  We realized maybe we
should have paid a little more attention in our prenatal class on what real
labor might be like.  While sitting on the bed laughing about the situation,
I had a contraction and felt like I lost control of my bladder.  A small
trickle of what I believed to be urine was now on the bed.  So we laughed
about this too.  Then as I continued to laugh, more "urine" kept leaking out.
 I was so embarrassed.  After analyzing the situation, I decided it had to be
my water that broke (I always expected a gush of water) and we should go to
the hospital.  

We checked in to the hospital at 2:30 a.m.  The nurses examined me - I was
dialated to a 4 and 80% effaced.  They could feel hair so my water had
definitely broken.  My SO and I decided to take my mom over to the ICU where
my SO works to show her around.  We would stop for contractions occassionally
but I still felt really good.  By the time we got back (less than one hour),
I was dialated to a 6.  The nurse checked the baby - heart rate still good
and allowed me to walk around more.  I was feeling sick to my stomach so this
walk was much shorter and it wasn't long before I had my head in the nearest
garbage can.

We headed back and the nurse offered us the opportunity to get into the
shower.  Which I jumped at thinking it would be a good distraction from the
contraction pains.  The contractions had become quite a bit stronger.  I
ended up asking for demerol to take the edge off and the small dosage did
help a little.  So I headed to the shower.  Found myself vomiting twice more
and lying on the shower floor during contractions.  The contractions had
gotten strong enough that I felt the urge to bit something (don't ask me why)
- and headed for my SO but he jumped out of the way fast.  We still get a
good laugh out of that one.

When I got back on the bed in the labor room, I was dialated to an 8 and
nearly fully effaced.  The nurse kept me on the bed - which I preferred at
this point, the pain was too much to be moving around and the contractions
didn't seem to end.  I believe I went into the transition phase at this point
because I calmly whispered to my SO "please don't talk to me right now" as he
was rambling on about ---- I don't even remember.

I suddenly felt the need to push - but my SO tried to tell me I was dialated
enough yet because it hadn't been that long since my last check.  But there
is no telling a laboring woman it's not time to push - you just know that you
need to push.  My body took over at that point - not waiting for others to
confirm "time to push" and next thing I knew, I was nearly sitting upright
pushing.

They wheeled me to the delivery room at 6:50 a.m.  I really did progress
through the dialation fast.  At 7:50 a.m. the nurses were considering having
me breath through a couple contractions without pushing because the doctor
wasn't there yet and they believed I was real close to delivery.  But the
doctor made it before the baby came - performed an episiotomy.  This was a
procedure that scared me prior to delivery.  But you really are numb at this
point so there was no pain associated with it.  The doctor found that the
baby was stuck in the birth canal.  So they decided to reach for the vacuum -
something I originally wasn't excited about but at that point it didn't seem
nearly as tramatic.  They attempted to latch onto the baby's head but the
head had swollen in the canal so they could not get good suction.  The doctor
explained to me that I was going to have to push more to try to move the baby
down.

So the nurses got me into a few different push positions.  My SO and the
nurses were a big help at this point.  We found the squat position to produce
results the fastest - although I worried that baby would shoot out onto the
floor with no one there to catch the bundle.  They could see that the baby's
head had progressed so at 9:00 a.m., they called the doctor back.  By 9:30
a.m., the doctor reached for the forceps - I was nearing 3 hours of hard
pushing labor and I was started to feel the fatigue.  My SO basically moved
me during the pushing to get three good pushes per contraction - I felt like
I was in a different world - with no control and no idea of when contractions
were even coming or happening.  It was all a blur.  

With forceps in hand, the doctor managed to retrieve a healthy baby boy
(Gaven) at 9:38 a.m.  His heart rate never dropped below 100 so he was never
distressed - however he did have a death grip on the cord which was wrapped
around his neck.  I believe his grip prevented the cord from tightening
around his neck.  Surprisingly he didn't have bruises on his cheeks from the
forceps.  He had a good sized bruise on the back of his head from the vacuum
attempt and it was swollen but by the end of the next day, it had smoothed
out and the bruise had gone down significantly.  He tipped the scale at 7
lbs, 13 oz and was 19-3/4" long.  And he was perfect.

Three weeks later - he's still perfect - an angel.  I wouldn't trade him for
the world and I'd do it all over again.  He makes me forget there ever was
pain.  

Parents: Jackie and Garrett