How did the labor go?

Lisa was due on November 8th. Being late, we tried some folk remedies to speed things up, including eating pineapple, spicy foods, and other tricks. They seem to have worked: Lisa went into early labor starting sometime Friday. The contractions got pretty intense as evening came around, especially after she soaked in the hot tub. At around 9 PM Lisa said, "this is getting pretty serious, Alan. I think we should head over". The contractions at that point were ranging from 3 to 6 minutes apart.

So, off we went, with our pre-packed bag, cameras/gizmos, christmas lights (mood lighting!) and a whiteboard filled with photos of family and friends, in our car-seat-equipped car. When we got into our room, at around 10 PM, they determined that Lisa was 4-5 cm dilated, so we were here to stay. Yippee!!

Not surprisingly (first baby, after all) it was destined to be a long night...

Lisa had decided to go for a fully natural childbirth, if possible. Here's the short version of how things went (Lisa can elaborate later if she finds time (yeah right!)). She went through some pretty hard labor, bouncing back and forth between her bed, a bouncy exercise ball, and the shower, which became her favorite place to sit through the contractions. Dad got to hold the shower head and speak tender words of encouragement, and was doing his best to enjoy the support role. At times this was slightly challenging ("DON'T MASSAGE ME THERE!" in an angry tone, for example). At around midnight, she finally asked for some pain reducing drugs. These helped a great deal with the contractions, and allowed Lis to get some much-needed sleep. Unfortunately, they also meant the contractions were now getting spaced further apart (they had been regular, at 3-5 minute intervals). After a while, we discovered she was no longer continuing to dilate, being more or less stuck at 6-7 cm.

The staff nurses suggested we consider adding some Petocin to Lisa's IV. Fortunately, we had excellent training in our childbirth classes and recognized the P word as soon as we heard it. P is for "painfully strong contractions". So Lisa thought about it for a while and said, OK, go for it, but only if I can get an epidural. They contacted our OB at home (unbelievably, she'd left instructions for the nurses to contact her at home if Lisa showed up outside her normal shift!), and she said it would be fine to get an epi.

They contacted an ornery on-call anaesthesiologist at about 4 am, and by 5 am, he was there. I overheard him saying "if I have to be here at 5 am, why can't the OB be here as wel?". Cry-baby! That said, he turned out to be pleasant enough and did an excellent, excellent job with this delicate procedure. Lisa never felt anything "down there" other than pressure during the push phase.

PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!
Cut to around 11:30 AM. Our lovely OB, Dr Muir, had been with us since 7 am at this point and was just sort of hanging around the hospital (on her day off!!) so that she could be there for us during this critical final stage of the delivery. She said "Lisa, you're around 9 cm now. I think it's time for you to start pushing". And push she did! We had the best delivery nurse in the world, Carol, who coached Lisa to grab hold of the other end of a rag and play a sort of devil's tug of war with her in order to facilitate pushing. With an epidural, you don't have much feedback as to what's happening down there, so techniques like this are invaluable. It was incredible to watch Lisa and Carol battling it out, as Dr Muir and I shouted a ten-count for each contraction, so Lisa could keep the hard pushing up throughout the contraction. I was saying things like "Lisa, I want you to drag Carol into bed with you", and these exhortations grew ever more urgent, even to the point of "Lisa, I want you to pull Carol's arms off!". And she nearly did. Later, Carol showed us her hands, and they were still bright red and chaffed where she'd been holding the rag.

Things got really intense near the end. Lisa was getting exhausted but still had to keep pushing her heart out. Doc said most women don't end up having to push this hard.
It figures! Anyway, she persevered with unbelievable strength. At some point her sheets were drenched with sweat.

By 2:06 PM, we had Our Little Julia was out in the world (Dad cut the umbilical cord). They brought her up to be on Mom's chest as soon as she was born. It was an incredible experience, seeing this precious new life open her eyes for the first time and take in her first sight of our world. We were all overcome with emotion, needless to say. An absolute miracle. Her little head was quite compressed so she could make it out. Other than that she was already adorable, even with all the goo babies are born with.

Here are some very early pictures: