The Adventures of
David
Elizabeth
and Leif

Dear Readers,

Many of you have expressed interest in the story of my labor with Leif, so I thought I’d summarize it here–minus, of course, certain choice details, but including the bulk of the story, for those who wish to spend the time.
For the cursorily curious:

• The hardest day of my life
• God was very near to us
• We love Leif!

For those with more interest but less attention span:

• Admitted to hospital for induction on 11/14
• High risk room drama
• Abnormal labor pattern
• Epidural–ahhh
• The push
• Leif

For you braver souls, or those needing procrastination fodder:

• You may know that we had planned to deliver our baby at the Brooklyn Birthing Center which is a free-standing facility for low-risk natural births. However, a few days before Leif arrived my blood pressure began to rise steadily and it became clear that I was entering the high risk category and would not be able to deliver at the center. (I later learned that I was developing a condition known as Preeclampsia, which can be very dangerous…) This was a major bummer for me since I hate hospitals and dreaded the over-reliance on monitors and tubes, etc. that are so confining when a woman is laboring. (We learned in our childbirth class that being able to eat, drink and move around freely are some of the most important factors in acheiving a smooth natural delivery. All three of these are typically either greatly hindered or outright forbidden in most hospital settings.) Adding to my chagrin was my midwife’s belief that I needed to be induced to get the baby out of an increasingly dangerous environment. Fyi–induction ranked a close second to hospitals on my “Things I Definitely Want to Avoid in Childbirth” list. So I was not a happy prego. Had a teary night and then woke the next day ready to face the unpleasantries.
• We were admitted on Tuesday 11/14 at 1 pm to Maimonides Medical Center (my-MON-i-dees), about a mile from our apartment. (Item of interest: the hospital was named for the 12th century Jewish philosopher, Moses ben Maimon.) Since I was technically not in labor we were installed in a high risk waiting room, which fell far short of the pretty labor suites of which the hospital boasts. Think dismal, cramped, institutional, completely uncozy. Again, I had to take a deep breath and surrender my hopes of having the baby in the inviting homey setting of the birthing center. (Now that I’m looking back on it all, it was a minor concession, but at the time it felt like a major loss. One of the down sides of being an idealist!!) I snuggled into the luxurious and airy (from the back) hospital gown and rubber-footed socks they provided and offered my arms and belly to the IV, blood pressure cuff, fetal heart beat and external uterine monitors that would accompany me along the entire journey.
• To prepare me for the induction drug Pitocin, our midwife started me on a course of Cervidil at 3 pm, which we expected to last about 12 hours. An hour later David, my sister Judith and I settled in to watch House of Flying Daggers (one of the best movies ever…) when suddenly about 10 people rushed into the room, flipped me on my left side, slapped an oxygen mask over my face and began yelling at me to “breathe, mama, breathe!!”, all the while shoving various wires and catheters in various places and also yelling at each other. It became clear that they couldn’t find the baby’s heart beat and were prepping me for an emergency C-section. However, they eventually found the heart beat and things settled back down. For the record, this event was much harder for David and Judith who had to stand by and watch the ER-like proceedings, while I had the luxury of a little bit of shock to help me feel brave. I remember telling myself, ok, I’m going to have a C-section and then it will all be over and I won’t have to face whatever else may come my way today. Meanwhile, I took large gulps of pure oxygen and tried to reassure my family members that I was doing ok. (This was the first sense I had of God’s closeness to us in the peace I was able to enter during the trauma. It was strange and wonderful to be drawn to comfort David and Judith even while the doctors were frantically working away on me.) One of the residents who rushed in to help told us later that the Cervidil probably caused a light but very long contraction that was hard on the baby, causing his heart rate to drop from 130 or so to 60 and then off the reading altogether. Removing the Cervidil seemed to normalize everything again and the baby recovered well from the distress. Anyway, when everybody finally left the room I found myself strapped to even more uncomfortable and restrictive machinery, at which point I began calling the hospital “Mymonitors.” (And when all was over I decided to adopt “maimonides” as a new curse word. It does marvelously–try it: “Oh, maiMONides!” I’ve since found it works in a variety of circumstances.)
• After the Cervidil and all the drama, my body decided to go ahead and begin labor on its own, without the need for Pitocin. This felt like a major blessing, as Pitocin-induced labors are often more harsh and painful than natural ones. So we settled in and waited for my body to do its thing. (My take on it was that this was my body’s way of responding to all the aforementioned manhandling: “ok, ok, I’ll go into labor!!! geez, people, relax!…”)
• When it was established that I was in true labor, we were finally transferred to the cozy labor suite, which was quite nice. It appeared that I was pretty far along in the labor–my contractions were intensifying and coming close together, signalling that I might be in the final stages of first stage labor, just before the pushing begins. But when my midwife checked me I was only 30% dilated and not the 70% she had expected! So it seemed we had a long way to go and it was already pretty difficult. The midwife wanted to start us on Pitocin, but I asked for another hour to see if things might progress more and then spent an hour standing by my bed, avoiding stepping on all of the wires and tubes and trying to make use of gravity.
• When checked again after an hour, I had made some progress and was at 40-50% dilation, a good sign that gravity was doing its job and we might not need to go to Pitocin after all. However, my contractions continued to be closer together than what would be considered normal, and so I wasn’t able to get the rest I needed in between. I was getting exhausted and could not try another hour standing by the bed, not to mention that I still had to face the real transition when the contractions would begin coming even harder and faster. The midwife expressed that the labor pattern was somewhat dysfunctional, and that the closeness of the contractions at this point did concern her. She wanted to go to an internal uterine monitor instead of the external one I was wearing on my belly to get a better idea of the intensity of the contractions. This was one of the most painful things I had experienced all day! Ugh, it was awful. She finally got it attached and, like before, all the manhandling seemed to push my body further along, but this time it began to be overwhelming, and at only 40-50% I began to be concerned about my stamina. After 10 or so more really difficult contractions the midwife checked the monitor readings and said that the contractions were actually fairly light in intensity, but because they were coming so close together I was having a harder time without the rest in between that I normally would have experienced.
• After consulting with my birth team–David, Judith and the midwife–I went ahead and asked for the epidural. After the very difficult and painful process of getting “hooked up”, it was great. Immediate relief, and though it was not what I had originally wanted for the birth, I thanked God for modern medicine! David and I both got some sleep while my body kept up its work and in another couple of hours I was fully dilated and ready to push.
• I pushed. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked.
• Leif emerged an hour and a half later and after some work on his breathing by the pediatrics staff snuggled, surprised, on my chest.

So that’s the long of it. Everyone says you forget the pain when the baby comes and I must say I have yet to enter that particular amnesia. And yet I’m really glad for the time of facing the pain. It was important for me and I consider the whole experience a great teacher of things that I’m still processing (hence this hugely long blog!). But I also have greater respect for modern medicine, which it turns out I did need, and I’m grateful for all those people watching those annoying monitors from their desks who ran in when Leif needed them. I’m also unspeakably grateful for David and Judith, who were the best labor partners I could have wished for! I love you guys!!! I wish I could have had a normal, low-risk delivery experience, but this was our path and I deeply treasure the way God was near to us in wisdom, peace and strength throughout the whole ordeal. Thanks for reading, dear reader. Until next time…

This is a happy dog.

These are dogs looking for squirrels to eat.

This is a squirrel.

This is a dog chasing the uncatchable squirrel.

Before Leif was born, we enjoyed leaves.

This is our street about 3 weeks ago … no leaves anymore!

The block north of our house is the “Parade Grounds” where troops once mustered, and now athletes of all ages congregate.

The block north of the Parade Grounds is Prospect Park. It was looking fabulous, even after the “peak” of fall colors.

I thought that this grandmother and kid were funny because the grandmother was running in the park and the kid was trying to keep up!

One of my favorite trees looks haunted. It’s reaching out to gobble up any puppies and small children. Wouldn’t it look scary in the dark, silhouetted by flashes of lightning?

Following the path …

… to the lake …

My favorite tree of the fall was yellow.

I’m still working on the upgrade to this site … some older images might be missing, and I know the images are wider than the column, causing the text at the right to go over the images. I’m working on it. In the meantime, I decided to play. I added a plugin called Flickr Post Bar that allows you to get a row of images below your rich text editor and click them to make them appear in the post. It’s pretty good. Keen even.

Here’s a view of our bathtub before and after it was enameled.