Emilia's Birth Story: Part 1

"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.” 

---Frederick Buechner

Emilia Mae Ewald was born at 10:54 AM on Thursday, April 10th 2014. She weighed in at 9 lbs 1 oz and was 20.75 inches long. Like her siblings, she came out sporting a head full of black hair. Unlike her siblings, she has a tiny little head and absolutely enormous cheeks that were made to be kissed.

Five, almost six, weeks later, and I still can't believe I finally have this little love in my arms and off my bladder. She is healthy, she is strong, she is beautiful, and we adore her. Here's how she came into our lives.

Sweet Emi entered the world via a very odd labor and delivery, and it was both lovely and awful and I was so so happy when it was over and also incredibly sad, lest I never do this again. I think birth is inherently crazy and terrifying and exalting and life changing and it can be really hard to tell the story of it afterwards because nothing happens for long stretches and then all of a sudden everything happens so quickly that you can't really recall it properly.

Emilia's labor really started about three weeks before it actually started. Confusing, but I"ll explain.

I know, I can't ever really do a short post. Words. I like them.

Three weeks earlier...no, just kidding,, this is the birthing tub in the labor suite.  It only felt like three weeks.

At 37 weeks, I went into my regularly scheduled appointment hoping that I might be in early labor. I was spotting, sick to my stomach, and contracting every six or seven minutes. That was not the case, but I was "3 to 4" cm dilated and about 80% effaced at that point. This same pattern of labor-like symptoms continued every two to three days for the next three weeks and I was, of course, the picture of grace and serenity as I waited for my baby to choose its own time to be born.

Or not.

People, I was done. Just...done. I'm a fan of letting the baby gestate for as long as he/she needs, in theory, but in practice,  I was ready to evict this child. At 39 weeks they stripped my membranes. Consequently, I was up until 2 AM with painful contractions about 6 to 8 minutes apart, lots of spotting, chills alternating with hot flashes, and puking/upset stomach. But no baby resulted from all that discomfort. Just a very long day today and a touch of irritability on my part. A mere soupcon.

I was trying to explain my state of depression to my husband and I made the admittedly foolish mistake of saying "I don't know, my nerves are shredded right now, I feel like a shell of myself" and he made the admittedly much more foolish mistake of saying "Well, I wouldn't say THAT" as he laughed fondly.

Note to everyone not uber pregnant: things like "logic" and "humor" have no place in conversations with those great with child.

By 40 weeks, I was a wreck, frankly. Late pregnancy is truly awful in a way you can only appreciate if you've been there. You're tired of not being able to sleep for more than two hours straight, tired of peeing approximately 114 times a day, tired of lumbering around with all the speed and grace of a Panzer division, tired of your aching pelvis, your aching back., your aching feet. tired of the heartburn, tired of the nausea when your child shifts its weight to your stomach, tired of the various substances welling out of  your body, and you sort of know in theory that you're going to produce a child at some point, but it feels like that is a big fat cosmic joke and that you may be the first person in history to never ever EVER stop being pregnant. 

And that's why God is smart, because the last few weeks of pregnancy are so miserable that you actually look forward to labor. Now, that's ingenuity.

I know this is the end. I know it might possibly be THE END of my childbearing days for the rest of time, and given that, I wish I was appreciative of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was not.  I did jumping jacks. I ran (lumbered) up and down our stairs. I ate spicy food. I tried to bribe the baby into appearing by promising it milk and cuddles and cute outfits. I prayed. I cursed. I tried to cry. I tried to meditate.

Which brings me to April 9th and my state of mind was admittedly poor. My state of body was large. The same ole pattern of symptoms started up and I thought "oh yes, good, let's do THIS again" but this time the symptoms persisted from roughly 4 PM until about 11 PM and things seemed to be getting more intense and more rhythmic as time went on. I dithered a bit about what to do, and then decided I was going to lie down. Tim immediately vetoed this idea and said we were walking around the block for as long as it took. This tiny factoid should tell you that I was totally awesome to live with during this time period, because Tim is not normally one to veto a nap in favor of a walk, particularly at 11 PM. One lap around our block later and I was ready to head in to the hospital.

We got the kiddos out of bed and loaded them into our (extremely sexy) minivan for their last ride as the the only two Ewald kids. I was mentally willing my contractions to continue the entire time. We'd called my in-laws down from the Cities, we dropped the kids off at Kristen Yuan's at midnight (now THERE is a friend) and I was really upset that it was all going to be for naught, as we could very easily be sent home yet again. Tim offered to drop me off at the hospital but I insisted on parking the car with him and walking from the employee lot to the hospital to magically open up my cervix in the last 500 yards.

I got checked in and the midwife examined me and said "OK, you're 7 cm dilated, we'll get a suite set up for you".

I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. Seven centimeters? I wasn't even in pain. I could have eaten a BLT and watched the Real Housewives, which does not square with my previous experience of "seven centimeters" at all.  I was not about to complain about this, mind you.

We got checked in and I got super excited and nervous because we were finally going to meet our little one. I confidently predicted a baby by 4:30 AM.

Waiting for Baby E3

At about 6:30 AM I woke up from my nap in a labor that had basically halted. They checked me out and I was 9 cm dilated on one side and 7 on the other, which was more than a little bit odd. No big deal though, they would break my water and deliver this kiddo before the shift change at 7. Except that I balked at that, because I did not want to get caught in the shift change in the midst of pushing out an Ewald baby (read: huge).



So Tim and I wandered around for a while, then met the new nurses and the midwife, Tracy (who was amazing!) and we talked about our options. We could either 1) continue to wait 2) start some Pitocin or 3) break my water. Tracy explained that I was going to get uncomfortable at some point to have this baby and while it was fine to wait, it was basically delaying the inevitable. I had mixed feelings about intervening in the process, but finally agreed to let them break my water since I was already 9 cm dilated anyway and just wanted to meet my little person.

So they broke my water. 

And now I have to break my birth story into two pieces because Emilia is up and typing whilst breastfeeding is quite difficult...believe me, I've tried....but I'll give you a hint about Part 2. We had the baby!