Saturday, January 12, 2008

The birth story - part 4

The anesthesiologist arrived shortly after Emme and I got Lucy out of the bath. He began making preparations and explaining what was happening. Before we knew it, Lucy had cords and tubes connected all over her body. Then the medication began to flow and nearly immediately Lucy began to feel relief.

Soon after, Lucy was able to lie down and even had a smile on her face. She could still feel some pressure, but the pain was gone. We all began to think about rest. Lucy was already in a nice sleeping position. Emme went out to the waiting room to find a chair while Pat and I shared a long bench under the windows. The nurses dimmed the lights and we all closed our eyes.

Sleep was quickly upon us, but just as quickly gone when the midwife came back in. She had been watching the baby monitor and had been noticing some worrying patterns in the heartbeat. The midwife repositioned Lucy to see if that resolved the issue. After several more repositionings, the heartbeat returned to normal and the nurse and midwife left again. We all went back to sleep.

We roused ourselves at about 7:00 am on Monday. Lucy still felt the pressure, but was otherwise feeling fine. She was able to brush her teeth and we had a little breakfast. The midwives had changed shifts and now Anna, whom we had met before, was our midwife for the day.

At about 9:45 am, Anna came by to check Lucy. After a quick exam she asked, "Do you think you would like to begin pushing?" Lucy was fully dilated and the baby was at a +2 position. Lucy and I were overjoyed, excited, and relieved. Anna stepped out to begin preparations while the nurse explained what was going to happen. We were about to meet Sam.

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