Baby Makes Her Entrance

After forty long weeks (and a day, but who's counting?) our blogger's baby decides to make her entrance to the world.

By Meagan Francis

Last Thursday night, I thought "Friday the 13th would be an interesting day to have a baby."

Four hours later--at 3:40 AM early Friday morning--I awoke to a contraction that felt different from the Braxton-Hicks I'd been having for weeks. In a sleepy haze, I thought I felt a POP--and when I rolled over, my water broke with a gush.

It's amazing just how much amniotic fluid the body can hold. "NEED TOWELS!" I yelled at my husband, who awoke in confusion, finally managed to figure out what was going on, and threw towel after towel at me as I shrieked "Ahh! Not enough! More! More!" Finally I was swaddled in towels and the flooding was under control. "I guess this is it!" I said.

With all but one of my previous babies, my water didn't break until the final few minutes of labor. So immediately, we kicked into high gear. My husband ran downstairs to get the birth tub set up, as I called our midwife. "Probably a good idea if you come now," I said, imagining the baby flying out of the birth canal within a few minutes. She said she'd be on her way.


Half an hour later, she was there, the tub was set up and filling, and...nothing much else was happening. We chatted, we watched TV (mostly infomercials at that time of night), and we chatted some more, but my contractions, while still hanging around, just weren't going anywhere. "Maybe we should all try to get some sleep," I said around 7 AM. Jon and I headed back upstairs and lay down. Within five minutes he was sawing logs, and I was dozing in between contractions, which had decided to space themselves out exactly 8 minutes apart and weren't exactly anything to write home about.

I began to wonder if maybe I'd jumped the gun a little on calling the midwife. Was this going to be one of those long, exhausting labors?

But just after 8:00, something seemed to shift. I got up to go to the bathroom, and my contractions got down to business. By 9 AM I was in the tub, and the contractions got steadily more intense over the next half hour.

At 9:35, I had a contraction that grew and grew until it seemed to take on a life of its own. Suddenly I could feel the baby coming, but I was so overwhelmed I wasn't able to say anything. I was holding on to the tub with one arm and pointing down toward her with the other, the only way I could communicate! Luckily my midwife got the message and leaned down to see that the baby's head was almost out. One more push, and our girl was born at 9:40 AM--just an hour and forty minutes after I'd decided that maybe I actually would be having a baby that day.

Clara Marie is adorable and perfect, looking like a more feminine blend of her big brothers, with big dimples in her cheeks and chin. We spent a lovely day just laying around, napping and getting to know her.

That's the wonderful part of the story.

 
The next day begins the scary, stressful part. Saturday afternoon I was sitting on the sofa holding Clara, who had just popped off after nursing and seemed to be sleeping. I noticed that her lips looked a little purple...and then before my eyes, her head and face turned purple as well. I yelled to Jon, who came running, and he took her in the bathroom and ran her feet under cold water to revive her.  She cried, turned pink, and all was well. Until...she did it again. And again. And when we got to the ER, again. That began our journey to someplace I honestly never thought I'd be, but the place I'm writing this post from right now: the NICU.  It's been a blur of tubes, wires, needles, and numbers; not enough sleep and not enough snuggling. Clara is going to be fine, but we've had a bumpy ride getting here. And as much as I'd like to share the whole story right now, this is one postpartum mama who needs to go to sleep instead. So please check in on Thursday, when I'll fill in the blanks. Hopefully by then, my brain will be functioning a little better, and I'll be getting back to normal life with a new baby.