Baby Sister, The Birth

10:00 pm, Thursday, December 1, 2011

The braxton-hicks contractions have been popping up sporadically over the past several days. It started feeling different tonight. The contractions have spread over the full belly. 

Kate's parents came into town yesterday and while Ted carried on to the beach, Barb is sleeping with Clara just down the hall. Kate finished work on Tuesday and was looking forward to a few days downtime. We thought we might actually sneak in one last date night. At her 39-week appointment on Wednesday the doctor told Kate it looked like the baby wouldn't come for another week or two. Baby Sister is still riding high, Kate is only 1 cm dilated, and there are no other signs of impending labor. He examines her belly and says he expects this to be an 8+ pounder.

But all those best laid plans are in doubt shortly after Kate and Paul settle into bed for the night. No sooner do we turn off the light than an intense contraction grabs Kate. This happened last night, too, but it wasn't nearly as strong. Tonight the first is followed soon by a second and a third and...Kate sends Paul downstairs for a stopwatch to start tracking the waves. She turns the lamp back on and pulls some reference material from the bedside table, "How to know when you're in labor."

We monitor it over the next hour and decide to call the OB on duty, Dr. Richardson. We report what we see, and she tells us to head over to the hospital. 

Kate has a bag packed already. Paul rushes to throw a few of his things in there and grabs the camera and computer. We sneak into Clara's room. She's snoring away. We wake Barb and tell her it's time to go. We're feeling very fortunate to have her there.

11:53 pm

We're checked in at Rex, waiting now in the triage room. We caught two red lights on the drive over, making it a six minute trip. There's one nice benefit of our new neighborhood...proximity to the hospital.

Kate has changed into the standard-issue powder blue gown. The biggest struggle is keeping her backside covered while walking down the hall. Ruth the nurse is handling the admission. She straps Kate with a half-dozen plugs, takes her temperature, and then snaps on the latex to go in for a look-see. 3 cm dilated. Plus the contraction waves keep coming hard and closer together. Ruth calls Dr. Richardson to relay the vitals. She's told to admit us. We're sticking around to have this baby girl.

12:20 am, Friday, December 2, 2011

We've been handed off to Amber and escorted to room 239 for labor and delivery. There's an empathetic nature to our new nurse, obvious from the get go and a good trait for the lady who will be our guide for the next however many hours. She makes an effort to explain everything to us in great detail as she hooks Kate onto the IV and attaches a penicillin drip. Her shift lasts until 7 a.m. Hopefully Baby Sister will come out before Amber clocks out.

12:45 am  

The contractions are intense. Kate toyed just briefly with holding off on the epidural until she just had to have it. Forget that! Her back spasms with each wave. We decide to get the anesthesiologist in here pronto. He does his job swiftly, but - just as Kate recalled from Clara's birth - the process of putting the epidural in might be the most painful part of labor. But then that sweet numbing sensation....Ahhhhh.....

2:00 am

The epidural has done its job. The laboring continues, but Kate is able to doze off, her uterus contracting on its own without bugging anybody with the painful details. The lights are off. We listen to the sound of Baby Sister's heart beat, a rhythm that fills the room, punctuated periodically with the whirrs and clicks of various IV pumps.

2:45 am

Nurse Amber is back in the room for a check-up. We fired up the computer and are looking at some of the blog posts from Clara's birth. Has it really been three years? Always the proud parents, we make Amber suffer through our reminiscing. She obliges cheerily.

What are we going to name this child? Kate speaks through the short-list of candidates, listening to the sound of each combination, hoping one just jumps out at us. Not yet. We did the same thing with Clara. We didn't really decide until after she was born. 

We recall that Clara was born on a Friday. Amber reminds us that labor with the second child can move much more quickly than the first. With four hours until shift change, we hope that applies to Baby Sister and we get to meet her sometime in the early morning.

3:16 am

Nurse Amber said the baby has moved lower. The epidural is in full force now. Kate can only tell she's contracting by looking at one of the monitor tracks her pulse. The water hasn't broken. We take another stab at the names. Nope, not yet ready to decide. We talk about when to bring Clara to the hospital. Kate bought her a special "Big Sister" t-shirt that we'll remind Barb to put on her for the visit.

4:02 am

First visit from Dr. Richardson a little while ago. She went in for an exam and discovered that the water did break at some point after Kate went on the epidural. That should speed things along even though we're still only 4 cm dilated. Baby Sister is a little sideways right now so they decided to pull out one of the bed stirrups, flip Kate on her left side, and plop her right leg high across her body in a technique called the Texas Twist. This should get baby straightened out.

Another check-up in 30 minutes or so. At that point they'll broach the question of whether we want to introduce some petocin to speed things along.

4:30 am

7 cm dilated. Apparently that Texas Twist helps. Nurse Amber liked it so much, she flipped Kate on her other side to make another stab at getting Baby Sister all straightened up before the pushing begins. Check again in 30-45 minutes.

5:10 am

Nurse Amber makes another feel. "Oh yeah!" She says. Wheel in the table. Page Dr. Richardson. Time to have a baby!

5:15 am

Nurse Amber transforms the bed, taking off the end and flipping up the stirrups while Dr. Richardson suits up in her scrubs. Within seconds Kate is leaning forward in bed with her hands wrapped under her knees. "Push!" says Amber.

5:17 am

Two contractions and six pushes later and Baby Sister is out! The cord is wrapped up in all funny ways, but Dr. Richardson was quick to pull it back and twist Baby Sister out by shoulders. The crying started immediately. She has a set of pipes. Nurse Amber puts her immediately on Kate's chest while rubbing her with a blanket to get the circulation going. We take her over to the heating station. More crying. She slowly turns from a grayish hue to that healthy pink.

We bring her over to the weigh-in station. 7 lbs 14.7 oz. The same size as Clara three years before.

As soon as Kate is stitched up, Baby Sister is back on her chest. With only the slightest of prompting, she latches on and is nursing. Hurray! She's a natural!  Kate breathes a big sigh of relief.

6:02 am

The APGAR test. A platoon of be-scrubbed nurses descend upon Baby Sister from all directions. They poke. They prod. They measure. They bathe. And the child wails. It's a hardy holler that makes her parents feel good. At each check of her vitals, they declare her healthy.

7:00 am

Nurse Amber is off-duty. We thank her profusely. She leaves, and so does the rest of the platoon. Finally, we get Baby Sister to ourselves. We hope for a few minutes alone before being wheeled out to the recovery room.

7:32 am

Text message from Franklin, "In lobby. Can I come up?" He snaps pictures for the better part of an hour, helping us transition into our recovery room. Baby Sister sleeps the entire time. As we walk down the hall, nurses keep telling him congratulations. He does not deny paternity. More importantly, he facilitates consensus on the name. By the time he leaves, we think we've settled on Baby Sister's official name.

Kate talks with her mom. Clara gets on the phone. She wants to know what Baby Sister's name is. We suspect the question was a plant given that she has insisted for nine months that the child shall be christened  Baby Sister and known by no other name. She also tells Kate, "Now I can sit on your lap.  And, and, and you can carry me now." The belly has been in the way.

8:23 am

It's quiet in the recovery room. We've ordered up breakfast. Kate is working over Baby Sister's finger nails with an emery board. Her finger and toes are so long, and her fingernails are even longer. As soon as she was separated from Kate for cleaning and testing, she started going after her fingers for suckling. A nurse looked at a blister on her lip and said it means she spent a lot of time doing that in the womb. Unfortunately, the long fingernails are taking a toll on her cheeks and nose. So sharp!

9:20 am

Clara comes in, fitted in her "Big Sister" shirt, with Ga and Papaw to meet Baby Sister. She is interested in the baby but a bit cautious. Kate sweetens the encounter with a handful of lollipops. Over the next hour, she edges closer, gives her little pats on the head, and spends some time holding her with Mama. She becomes more bold and more comfortable by the moment.

We use this visit to announce the decision. From this point forward, Baby Sister shall be known as Harriet Mae Dryden. Or Hattie for short. Harriet was the name of Kate's maternal grandmother. Mae has antecedents on both sides of the family. 

Welcome Hattie, our precious little bundle!