akeva is deeply asleep in patrik's arms right now, so i think i have a few minutes to tell the story of her birth :) she's been with us for six weeks now, and is growing like crazy, changing every day... i wish i had fresh photos to show, but our camera's batteries died (and going to the store is a major excursion these days! as is doing the dishes... jejeje) and our new computer (thank you philip! free computer at home is an AMAZING thing!) doesn't recognize our photo card reader... so i am still trying to figure out the whole photo thing... but, on to the story :)
at about three in the morning on wednesday, november 22, i woke up to pee (as i did several times every night during the last months of pregnancy) and began feeling waves of contractions coming every few minutes. i was so excited to be in labor, but feeling a little tentative since i had been having "false labor" every few days, so i went to bed and barely whispered to patrik that i thought i might be in labor... at that point the contractions really just felt like waves that would build up and die down, and i rode them with a big ol' smile on my face, so so so so so so so excited... after a couple hours of that, i decided i should call my mother so she could get on a plane and be with me in time for the delivery and then called my midwife to give her a heads-up that my labor had started... she told me to try to rest a little since it was still the middle of the night, and mentioned that she was just heading home after another woman's delivery... at around ten in the morning the midwife came over to the house to check me and saw that i was still just in the earliest part of my labor, so we decided she should head back home and sleep since she had been up all night with her other client, and i kept on laboring... my mom showed up around noon, having caught the last available seat on a plane on thanksgiving weekend, and joined my sister samantha (who just happened to be in town) in sending me happy thoughts as i rode through the contractions... aria also came to the house to join the party :) at around three in the afternoon (so that's 12 hours of labor, for anyone who might be counting!) the midwife came back to the house after her little rest and checked me out... at that point i was at about 6 centimeters and my labor was getting stronger... but kept "pausing"... i don't quite know how to explain it or know why it was happening, but i would get really good strong contractions, right on top of each other, and then my body would go into relaxation mode and i would stop getting very strong contractions... i was even able to sleep and rest, which was nice for me, but which slowed down my labor quite a bit. luckily my midwife was very patient and while i rested she took little naps as well or just visited with my family (at one point, i even think they all played a scrabble game! shows how mellow it was at the house... hehehe)
throughout my labor, patrik was amazing... luckily the gardens department in haifa and then working in landscaping here has kept him strong because i swear he carried me throughout the entire twenty-some hours... i kept leaning on him, or hanging on his arms as i squatted down, or having him hold me in the shower as i tried to let the water relax me... and at one point (maybe while i was sleeping?), he managed to go out and get a bunch of flowers and filled the bedroom with them... so when i was feeling the strongest contractions, i looked up and saw all these beautiful flowers that seemed to have appeared magically...
all this lasted about 24 hours before the exciting (and scary) part of it happened... in the middle of the next night, i started having very painful back labor, so the midwife gave me a series of shots in my back of distilled water... there's something about the balance of water in your body that makes injecting pure water into it take away pain (i'm sure there's a much more scientific way of putting that)... BUT before it takes away the pain it causes the MOST EXTREME pain EVER for about a minute... needless to say, that minute lasts an eternity... i screamed like crazy for the first and only time during labor when she gave me that series of shots... but it allowed me to not feel the pain of back labor for a few hours, which was a great relief... then, at about three in the morning, the back labor came back, and the only thing i could think of to do (since i was NOT going to get those shots again... EVER) was to try to get the baby to move... so i concentrated as hard as i could and centered my thoughts on akeva, telling her to please turn around so that she would be in the correct position... and suddenly, i felt her move and the pain was gone... it was an amazing feeling to be connected to her in that way...
but then, the midwife checked the baby's heartrate and it had gone WAY down after she turned... she thought maybe the baby was in distress, so she called 911 to transfer me to a hospital... i have never felt more terrified in my life then when i thought there was a possibility that something was wrong... the tears started coming and i started praying and then started begging pancho to help me from the next world... suddenly the house was full of people-- paramedics, police, firemen... it felt like 50 people had responded to the 911 call, all asking me questions and trying to get me on a stretcher in order to go to the hospital in the ambulance... plus my mom and sam and mary lou (the midwife) all trying to figure out the logistics of how to get to the hospital, and patrik holding my hand looking terrified too... eventually i got into the ambulance and we bumped and banged all the way to the hospital (ambulances really should have better shock systems... hmph) ... i was wheeled to the delivery room, where i was hooked up to all sorts of machines and given an IV for dehydration, and after what seemed like half an hour (but i'm sure was longer), i pushed out a tiny little creature :)
pushing was such a relief after all the contractions... being able to DO something and feel a release of pressure is wonderful after so many hours of feeling like you have no control over your body... yum.
akeva came out hungry hungry hungry, and even started sucking on teh midwife's finger when just her head had come out and i was getting ready to push the rest of her out... after being born she was put on a table near me where they made sure she wasn't in distress and where patrik got to cut the umbilical cord... and then they brought me this little bundle with big big eyes wide open and a tiny little mouth ready to eat... she began eating immediately and didn't let go until we had to move to the recovery room a few hours later :) and she still LOVES to eat :)
my midwife keeps asking if i'm happy with how the birth turned out, since it was so different than what i had planned or ever imagined... and although i still want to experience having a baby at home in water, i am so happy that she is healthy and that the hospital staff was able to help us... it ended up that she probably would have been fine being born at home, since her heart rate went right back up to normal immediately and she hadn't swallowed any meconium, but i'm glad we played it safe... and it was nice to see what a hospital birth is like, and to notice what i appreciated and what i felt could have been improved in the hospital, if any day i end up working in one as a midwife... i have to say, they have some cool "toys", like this bar they put on the bed for you to brace your legs against as your push, or the beds that recline and sit up, which make nursing so much easier :)
and now we have this perfect little baby girl... :)
here i was, trying to take one of those sweet "mama and child" photos, full of love and tendernes... but you can see very clearly what akeva thinks of cheesy posed pictures... jejejeje! ;)
