Our daughter Isla Gail (silent "s", pronounced eye-la) was born Monday, May 3rd at 9:42AM...just 10 days past her "due date." She weighed 7lbs 1oz and measured 19.75in long.
Here is the story of how she came to join our family. I'm beginning the story with our 37week doctor's appointment, because as many of you know, that's when the "drama" began.
My O.B. sees a lot of "high-risk" patients, so he routinely does ultrasounds at 37weeks. Hindsight being 20/20, I probably would have just said, "no thanks," but I thought it might be nice to get one last peek and check the position of the baby. The ultrasound estimated that that baby was on the small side (5lbs 8oz; 10th percentile), so they wanted to monitor us more closely and put me on modified bed rest. We were also told at this appointment that if all the markers weren't right on and growth didn't improve, they would want to induce me and our birth plan would go out the window. Needless to say we "freaked out," not so much because we were worried that something was wrong with the baby (in my gut, I felt that baby was just small) but because it seemed they were practicing defensive medicine and wanting to take the baby before he/she was ready.
We decided to seek a 2nd opinion and set up an appointment with a midwife at MCV, Margie R. Meeting with her was wonderful (yet terrifying thinking about switching practitioners at 38 weeks) and made me wish we had considered a midwife sooner. Margie seemed so caring and understanding of my feelings, and she put me at ease right away. She made arrangements to consult with her partners and get permission from their Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist to take us as her patients (make sure we were "low-risk" enough to be treated by the midwives). Unfortunately, their MFM looked at our ultrasound records and said, "Why hasn't she been induced yet?" This was heartbreaking because it meant not only that we wouldn't benefit from switching, but that now 2 specialists were suggesting that maybe the baby would be better on the outside. It just seemed so counterintuitive to want to deliver a small baby early. I guess they were worried about the symmetry of the baby's growth measurements. For example, if the head is growing faster than the abdomen or leg, it can indicate that the placenta is not delivering enough nutrients and the baby is taking what it gets to grow vital organs only.
At our next appointment with the original O.B. practice, we had a follow up growth check (just 10 days after the first), which showed that the baby gained over a pound (est. 6lbs 9oz; 22nd percentile), symmetry looked good and all biophysical measures were right on with baby scoring 10/10. We were incredibly relieved that what we believed to be true was confirmed by their tests. It just goes to show how inaccurate and unreliable ultrasounds are at sizing babies.
Given the results of these tests, the doctors started to cut us a little slack...at least until I hit my due date. Though they respected the fact that we didn't want to be induced, they increased the frequency of monitoring and started talking about "coming up with a plan." Alvin and I kicked the "natural induction" into high gear. I got lots of good lovin', ate tons of spicy food, started taking evening primrose oil, drank raspberry tea like it was going out of style, got 3 prenatal massages, took regular walks, bought caster oil (but chickened out before taking it), ate nearly an entire pineapple...you name it, we tried it. Oh yeah, and Alvin even got a pedicure with me, which was hilarious!
I don't know if any of it made a difference; baby just wanted to come when baby was ready! I can't really pinpoint when labor finally began because I had "crampy Braxton Hicks" for several days, sometimes regular, but never lasting. Around 5PM on Sunday, May 2nd Alvin and I decided to start timing the contractions. They were about 4-5min apart and lasting around a minute. We suspected that this might be it, but didn't want to get our hopes up and have the contractions subside. We also thought we might be in for a long labor because I hadn't dilated much at my last appointment and we knew from the many ultrasounds that the baby was in a posterior position. We gave our doula, Sarah, a "heads up" and decided to carry on with our evening. We took the dog for a walk, grilled out, ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen, watched a little tv (great James Taylor concert on HDnet, must have been those smooth mellow sounds that sent us over) and started doing some last minute packing.
Around 10:15PM I was laying on the sofa with Alvin reading to me when my water broke. I jumped in the shower, which felt wonderful, and Alvin called our doula. She warned us that things might start to speed up a bit and boy did they! The contractions got more intense, lasting 1-1.5min and coming every 2-3min. Alvin loaded the car, and we decided to head on to the hospital asking Sarah to meet us there.
We arrived at St. Mary's around midnight and were only asked twice if we needed a wheelchair when I stopped to have contractions on the birth ball. The nurse who checked us in was great about not talking to me during contractions and seemed supportive that we were "Lamazing it" as she called it. I was 6cm dilated when first checked, but the baby was still pretty high and posterior.
Over the next several hours, Alvin and Sarah did an amazing job of comforting me. There were times when I couldn't tell who was doing the hip squeeze and who was doing the counter-pressure. I spent a lot of time on hands and knees trying to get baby to turn. I was on the fetal monitor a lot more than I would have liked, which hindered movement a bit. They were taking extra precautions because baby had passed a little meconium in utero and was showing some changes in heart rate during contractions in certain positions (likely due to compression).
The contractions got really intense and I started feeling the urge to push. Unfortunately, I was told that I could not begin pushing because there was a little lip of cervix left. This had to be the most frustrating and painful part of the whole experience, like needing to take a massive dump and not having a bathroom in sight. Alvin and Sarah helped me breathe through these contractions. Apparently I was moaning pretty loudly because after the delivery, my doctor told me that if my current career didn't work out, I could always take up Indian chanting.
Finally around 8:45AM, I was allowed to start pushing, which was such a relief. While it seemed to take me a long time to get to this stage, it turned out to be a blessing because it meant that my doctor would deliver our baby. Given the drama toward the end of pregnancy, I didn't think this would be a big deal to me, but during delivery, I realized that he was much more supportive of our birth plan than the on call physician. When he arrived, he pulled me off several monitors, told me I didn't have to have pitocin to deliver the placenta and even did perineal massage during pushing.
Overall, I pushed for about an hour, the whole time using a mirror to help control where I was pushing and to witness the amazing event. When the baby was born, they suctioned really well to make sure they got all the meconium, told us we had a girl and placed her skin-to-skin on my chest. Daddy got to cut the cord, while Mommy bonded with and breastfed baby Isla, delivered the placenta, got stitched up and apologized for the F-bombs she dropped during pushing.
The whole experience was incredible...exhausting, painful, overwhelming and surreal, but incredible! We are so delighted with the way everything turned out and couldn't be happier to be home with our precious baby girl!
As you can see from the attached photos, baby Isla has more hair than her daddy. I think he's a bit jealous.
Stacy B