I am very happy to say that on Saturday, September 8th, Iver Theodore Watzke was born. Maybe because he shares his mother's sense of punctuality, he even managed to arrive on his due date.
Of course, the labor and delivery was a story itself. On Friday, it was about 85 degrees here in Seattle. This is hot for anyone around here, but I felt it was extra taxing for me as I hit the 40-week mark of pregnancy. Because of the heat (I thought), I was particularly uncomfortable.
KLC picked up the twins from kindergarten and then we went to our favorite bookstore to let the kids pick out a new book as a treat for finishing their first week of school. I was sitting on a chair while they looked around and I felt some pressure in my lower abdomen. Thinking it was the end of the day, I just dismissed it as general pregnancy discomfort. After all, I had gone to the OB on Thursday -- just a day before -- and was told my cervix was still completely shut. I took this to mean that it was unlikely I'd go into labor any time soon.
By the time we got back to the house and we did dinner and bath with the twins, I was feeling this "discomfort" more regularly. Still not believing they were contractions, I agreed to KLC's suggestion to at write down what time I was feeling things. There wasn't an obvious pattern at first, but then it seemed like they more or less were at 10-15 minute intervals.
Around 10pm, I conceded these very well could be contractions and called my doctor. Luckily, my OB was on call that night so she answered and told me to call back if the contractions became 5 minutes apart, 1 minute in duration, for 1 hour. (This is the "511" thing to memorize that they teach in birthing classes.) She also said the contractions could stop and so not to necessarily expect to be giving birth any time soon.
Over the next couple of hours, I was half tracking the contractions and half falling asleep in between them. By midnight, I was fairly sure I was reaching the 511 threshold. I called the doctor back. And waited. And waited. For some reason, my doctor didn't call me back (she could have been delivering a baby or who knows what else.) I was trying to be patient and not be the overly anxious first time mother, so I waited too.
Around 2:00am, I told KLC that I thought the contractions were closer than 5 minutes and thought we should just go to the hospital. We called GSP, the twins' co-parent, who had agreed not only to watch the kids but also Comet (I don't what we would have done without her.) She came over right away and we were off to the hospital.
We got to the maternity floor at Swedish Medical Center around 3:00am where the nurse promptly told me I was already 5cm dilated. (You have to get to 10cm before you can push.) While we were waiting to go the delivery suite, my water broke. This, by the way, wasn't a huge flood as I imagined. It was just another element of this whole process that doesn't fit the way it's portrayed on movies and TV.
Let me just pause here to say all of the doctors and especially the nurses we had were great. At Swedish, you have a dedicated labor and delivery nurse who is with you at all times. Zoe was young (she mentioned she was just a year out of school), but knew what she was doing. During the contractions, she was totally calm and got me to breathe and move and work through them. Between her and, of course, KLC, I had some phenomenal coaching and support which made a world of difference to me.
Between 3:00 and 6:00am, I tried just about everything I could to deal with the contractions. I was in bed, I stood up, used the bouncy ball, and got in the tub. The two things I thought would be most helpful -- the ball and the tub -- turned out not to work for me. For example, the tub was great for the couple of minutes in between the contractions, but once it hit, I almost jumped out of the water because I felt claustrophobic. Standing up and swaying ended up being probably the most (relatively speaking) comfortable position when the contraction was at its most intnse.
My OB came to the room around 7am and I finally got "permission" to push. Up until this point, the nurse told me I had to wait to push until the cervix was completely gone or else pushing could make things go awry. It seems funny, but that not pushing was one of hardest physical sensations I've ever felt. So that even though the pushing was painful, it also felt like a relief. (I've also heard women say it was good to feel like you were doing something as opposed to just bracing for the next contraction to hit. I completely agree with this.)
After about an hour of real pushing, with KLC on one side, a nurse on another, and the doctor in the middle, I pushed and felt his head come out. KLC was able to help pull the rest of him and then cut the umbilical cord. Immediately, they put him on my chest for the skin-to-skin contact. I was so grateful he was there and relieved that the pushing was over that I barely noticed anything else like the placenta or any of the tests they were doing to him or me.
We stayed in the delivery suite for a couple of hours, where Iver nursed for the first time. After that, we went to our postpartum room where we were waited on by nurses and the room service food for the next 24 hours. Because everyone was healthy, we were able to get all of the tests done and checked out of the hospital by noon on Sunday.
Sorry if this reads like a boring litany of events, but I realized that I would probably forget all of these details if I didn't write them down somewhere soon. In hindsight, it was a great experience on so many levels. I couldn't have done it, of course, with my partner in life for everything, KLC. We have a lot to figure out and work through over the next weeks and months with a new baby, two high-energy five-year-olds, a 10-month-old puppy, an ornery cat, and 4 chickens (who are by far the lowest-maintenance members of the household), but I'm looking forward to doing this and everything else with our newly expanded family.
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