The day of Maddie’s birth is one I had been picturing ever since those two blue lines appeared on a pregnancy test the morning of Mark’s 31st birthday.  As my bump grew in size, as I passed all the milestones of first scans, first kicks, and first contractions, I have imagined what the day would be like that I got to first hold our daughter in my arms.

That day came on July 24, 2010.

I had been expecting her for weeks.  Contractions came and went, I drank my red raspberry leaf tea and religiously sat bouncing on my yoga ball.  But the day came where I was in the waiting room at my GP’s office, about to attend a midwife appointment I hoped to not make it to: the one five days past the due date.   There, I was scheduled for an induction, almost two weeks past my due date.  Still, I hoped to go into labor naturally before then.

Mark and I picked my mom up from the airport on the 16th. She would be in town for three weeks to help with everything and luckily timed her trip just right to be here for the birth.  We waited and, when I didn’t go into labor on my own, reported for our induction at the hospital at 6pm on July 22nd.

I was admitted to a ward which held several other women and given a prostaglandin to help my cervix thin out and, once visiting hours were over and Mark and Mom forced to leave, left to wait for the dose to take effect.  I slept until around 4 am the next morning, when I felt my very first real contraction.

At 10 visitors were allowed back on the ward and thus Mark and Mom returned. By then the contractions were regular at about one every ten minutes and starting to get uncomfortable.  I kept busy.  We played cards, took walks around the labor and delivery ward, etc.  Sometime that afternoon, they became strong enough that I could no longer talk through them and instead had to focus on getting past the pain and discomfort.  At this point I was still ready to do this without any medication.  Then my waters broke on their own (and I was shocked at just how much comes out!) and the contractions became unbearable.

Maddie, seconds after birth.

I walked around the ward with my mom and up and down stairs trying to help labor progress, stopping every five minutes as each contraction rolled through me.  I was having terrible back labor, and it felt as though my lower spine was about to snap in half with each one.  When I could no longer manage walking, I took to kneeling on all fours in the hospital bed, receiving back rubs from my husband.   That evening, the pain became unbearable. I was moaning / screaming / crying loudly in the ward with the other women there waiting to go into labor, almost surely putting them off of idea.  I wanted to be checked for progress so I could be moved to my own room in Labor and Delivery, and I wanted to be checked to be told the contractions were doing their job.  The midwife came, and she checked, and as she did I thought to myself “I can do this without the drugs, they will check and I will be at least halfway to fully dilated and I can get through this from there.”

I was 2 cm.

I begged for the epidural.

So they moved me up to the next floor and into a delivery room, where I waited for the relief to come.  Each contraction rolled through me, starting at the front of my uterus and quickly enveloping my entire midsection and lower back.  The lower back pain was the worst of it, as it felt like I might be snapped in half.  At long last, the anesthesiologist came into the room like an angel.  I was afraid of the epidural, but I was more afraid of having to continue laboring in the amount of pain I was in.  In between the contractions, which were coming every 3 minutes now,  she worked her magic and got the epidural in place.  When finished, I sat back and waited for the relief to come.

It didn’t.

I was the 1 in 20 women who needed to have the epidural repositioned.  The anesthesiologist removed it and started again.  “Installing” the epi take about five minutes and, for the most part, they can stop any time you get a contraction and resume once the pain recedes.  However, at one point you must remain still as they cannot stop and continue.  I got a contraction right at that point and remaining still was the hardest thing in the world to do, but I did.  The new epi worked fantastically.  And there, in the wee hours of the morning of July 24th, I was able to finally sleep and get some rest.

Sleeping peacefully (The mark on her face is from the foreceps).

Mark and Mom never left. They slept in the room with me, kept me company, and supported me the entire way.  A midwife was always in the labor room as well, even while we slept, watching over me and my baby.  I slept off and on throughout the day, exhausted from the day before.

At some point Saturday afternoon, my epidural became unattached.  We didn’t know this, however, and as the pain started seeping back in, the midwife topped up the dosage in order to help. Of course it didn’t as it wasn’t attached and in just a short time I was screaming in agony.  The anesthesiologist was in the operating theatre and would take about 10 minutes to come. The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life.  This was the full blown labor, the contractions enhanced by the induction.  My spine felt ready to break into a thousand pieces.  The contractions were on top of one another, as one ended a second and a third began with no breaks in between.  I was delirious with pain and could be heard in every room on the entire floor I screamed so loud.  By the time the anesthesiologist came in, I was begging for a c-section, anything to put an end to the pain.  He injected some sort of epidural cocktail down my line as a quick fix, and within minutes I was numb again.  The line was reestablished and the epidural back in working order.

As a result, I checked the connection in the line every so often the rest of the day out of paranoia.

At 7pm I was fully dilated and allowed to push.  I pushed with each contraction for an hour, thinking only of meeting our daughter.  After an hour, the doctor came in and told us Maddie wasn’t handling the contractions well and wasn’t making enough progress.  I would be prepped and moved to theatre where I would be given one last shot with foreceps before needing a c -section. Admittingly, I cried.  It wasn’t how things were supposed to go, and hearing Maddie wasn’t handling it well was hard news.

Mark h0lding Maddie for the first time.

I was wheeled in on my bed, now completely numbed with a spinal block.  I was prepped and told to push and  I pushed with all my strength.  Even in my numbed state I could still feel the pressure of my baby as she was pulled out with the foreceps. Suddenly, she was laid upon my chest for a brief moment before being whisked away again for checks.  I will never forget that moment: those deep blue eyes, the head of hair, and the feeling of being completely in awe of just how beautiful she was.  When I had her back again, I cried.  I loved her immediately and fully.  I loved her tiny hands, her button nose, her pouty lips.  She didn’t cry, she only laid there and looked into my eyes and I looked back.   Mark had tears in his eyes as he sat next to me, and I knew this is what love was.  Through all the pain, the 41 hours of labor, the stitches… it was all worth it in the end.  All of it was worth those few first seconds with Madeline.  Nothing could have prepared my heart for those seconds, for how full I would feel with love for this new human being.  The tiny baby whose little feet kicked inside me for months, whose hiccups could be felt resonating in the womb, who we have thought about and dreamed about for the better part of a year… was finally here with us. And we love her so much.

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Posted Maddie's Birth Story, Madeline |