I shall start with my three doctor’s appointments before Maria was born. At Orienda I never met with the same doctor, so I didn’t feel like I had a relationship with a doctor for delivery. This made my appointments a bit frustrating as I had to do all the hospital protocol tests, but never had one doctor I was discussing things with. (The two little boys were always delighted to go to my appointments, since Josh would take them to the pediatric floor and they loved the play area there. They also loved the free boxed soy milk and candy.)
At all three appointments I had to have 20 minutes of fetal heartbeat monitoring. These ended up being frustrating, since at the first two, the doctor was never satisfied with the first 20 minutes, and I would end up lying there for over an hour for two more monitoring sessions. I couldn’t tell what the problem was, since the heartbeat was usually within normal range – they just didn’t like that there wasn’t enough variety. I didn’t even feel like the monitoring was necessary since I was very aware of Maria’s daily movements. At the last appointment, I drank orange juice at breakfast to rouse Maria from her morning nap, so she had lots of heartbeat variety!
My last appointment before Maria was born had me at the hospital from 9 to 1. Most of the time I was waiting, but it was very frustrating since I often didn’t know what I was waiting for. Everyone was very nice, but things had to be checked off the protocol list. I had to meet with the anesthesiologist just in case I needed a c-section or wanted pain relief. He was the nicest anesthesiologist I’d ever met with, and he didn’t think I would need any pain relief. (I told him moaning was a form pain relief!)
When I finally met with the doctor that day, she checked my cervix and measured me dilated at a 3-4. She wanted to admit me to the hospital (this was Monday, July 17th) and told me that I would have the baby that night. I strongly requested to go home and be allowed to come back when I was in labor. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go into labor that night and didn’t want to be committed to the hospital and risk a c-section. We discussed how close we lived to the hospital, and once I said I would assume full responsibility for my decision, the doctor was happy to let me go. I did have to fill out a “Patient Refusal to Accept Medical Advice” form. I was hoping the doctor was right, but as it turned out I didn’t go into labor until 5 days later, so I was very glad I didn’t agree to be admitted into the hospital.
Josh had been praying we would make it to the hospital for the birth. He was initially surprised when I said I wasn’t praying for that and that I was simply praying it would just happen at a good place. Once Josh saw how frustrating the hospital appointments were for me and felt good about the hospital being so close, I think he was ready for another guesthouse birth if that’s what ended up happening.
Because I had contractions almost every night, I told Josh that if I went into labor during the day, we’d probably make it to the hospital. But I just couldn’t stay awake every night to “see” if this was going to turn out to be real labor. At night my goal was to just try to go back to sleep.
The guesthouse manager had also supplied us with a box of old towels, just in case. 😊
The night of July 21st I went to bed feeling very heavy. I didn’t start having noticeable contractions until sometime after 3am. This was unusual, since I’d been having contractions from 1-3am most nights; they always stopped around 3. That night I didn’t look at my watch until a little after 4am, and since it was after 3, I wondered if these contractions were going to turn into active labor. I started thinking about waking Josh up.
I knelt at the bed (due to contraction pain) and woke Josh up and told him it was time to go to the hospital. He was up quickly and got ready to go. But I wasn’t getting ready too fast, since I had to keep stopping to get through contractions.
I continued to mentally prepare for going to the hospital, but then my water broke and I knew we were not going anywhere. I was not going to attempt walking down three sets of steps to get to the car. From there things happened fast and after about three pushes, and Maria was caught by Josh. I remember him saying she was slippery. I was able to hold Maria, making sure she was breathing. She was interested in nursing right away.
Josh woke the rest of the kids up so they could see their baby sister, and then we walked down the stairs and got into the car to go to the hospital.
Once at the hospital – they took us into the ER and cut Maria’s cord. They didn’t take her from me until after they wheeled me into the labor and delivery room. My least favorite part – the hospital L&D room. Once they finished up their work, I had to wait 2 hours in the L&D room. While was there, the doctor who had seen me earlier in the week and wanted me to stay whisked in. She told me that my home birth wouldn’t have happened if I had listened to her on Monday and stayed. I laughed and told her that she said I would have the baby on Monday, and then I proceeded to count all the days using my fingers – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday – showing her that it was now 5 days later! We had a good laugh over it! She asked me if I had a headache or felt dizzy and then jokingly told me I could go home.
I ended up in the L&D room for over 3 hours before they were satisfied and moved us up to our hospital room. We had Maria with us the entire time, except when they took her to weigh her and do a check-up. It was lovely.
Hospital protocol required me to have the IV in for 24 hours (though, by the time they took it out, it was more than that). Another least favorite part about being in the hospital. I think I was a bit of a surprise to the hospital staff. In less than 24 hours, I was up and waking around, wanted a shower, and was asking to have my IV out. The hospital staff would often tell me that I was “strong” – they would say the word in English. I think they were surprised that I refused the paracetamol they offered and that I didn’t want to take unnecessary medications.
I was in the hospital for three nights. All three nights I had Maria in the bed with me and we both slept terribly, but that’s hospital life. Becca spend the nights with me, so Josh could be with the kids at night. Josh brought breakfast to me in the mornings (Khmer breakfast wasn’t great for milk supply) and kept me supplied with snacks and fruit smoothies. We had two friends watch the kids in the mornings and then Josh would bring them to visit in the afternoons. I had two friends visit me in the hospital – Ayra and Crystal.
The hospital staff was very kind and the room was nice. We were visited by a pediatrician and an ObGYN twice a day (usually a different one each time). The nurses were great. No one “scolded” me for having so many children – in fact a few doctors told me to have three more so we would have 10 children. 🙂 The hospital did a photo shoot of Maria and then a “exit” photoshoot of Josh, Maria, and me. It was hilarious.
Afterthoughts:
I loved Maria’s birth. It was the first birth that Josh was very involved and mentally prepared to be involved. I loved it because we did it together. (The only thing I would change would all the hospital interventions afterwards.)
