Monaloca

It seems like more than three weeks ago that Melina joined us in this world. She’s such an integral part of our lives now! She’s also growing like crazy: at her two-week doctor appointment she was already almost nine pounds, and 75th percentile for weight, 90th percentile for length (not sure where she gets the height – Joey and I are both on the small side of average!) Last night she took her first bottle of breast milk and was even able to hold onto it herself. Crazy. She also likes being held in her kangaroo pouch sling. In fact she’s in it right now, sleeping as I type.

I’ve been wanting for a while to write about Melina’s birth in a bit more detail. Here goes…

Birth Story

My water broke at 7:30am on May 31. The on-call doctor wanted me to come in immediately because of risk of infection, but my contractions hadn’t started yet and I didn’t want to be induced, so we held out at home until late afternoon. By the time we were admitted I was finally having irregular contractions, but they didn’t want to check my dilation – again, because of risk of infection.

We proceeded with our planned hypnobirth through the night, or for the first 18 hours or so of my labor. No drugs, low lighting, lots of visualizations and working to breath through the contractions and relax (even sleep) between them. At some point in the wee hours of the morn, the contractions became much more intense (I suddenly had this incredible urge to PUSH), though still 7-8 minutes apart. My own doc came on call the next morning (yay!) and said that with such a long contraction interval she wouldn’t be surprised if I was only 2 cm dilated (sigh). When she checked, the good but surprising news was that I was 8 cm! Even so, she warned that with the long interval I would likely be in labor another 20 hours without the aid of Pitocin to move the contractions along.

At this point I was exhausted yet incredibly excited about finally meeting my baby. With great clarity, I decided that the best thing for me, the little one, and Joey would be to start the Pitocin drip (to speed up delivery) and also to get an epidural (to allow me the rest I would need in order to be more fully present for delivery and for bonding after birth).

WOW. Within 15 minutes of receiving the epidural I was pain-free, chatting up a storm, and eventually able to nap. I flew through the remaining labor, and by the time they partially cut the epidural for delivery I was so excited to reach the finish line that three hours of pushing barely phased me.

Melina’s arrival wasn’t exactly the birth we had planned (is it ever?) but it was one of the most amazing and beautiful experiences I’ve ever had. In the end I was glad I had both the natural and “epiduralized” versions. Even immediately following 27-plus hours of labor, I was in awe of how perfect it all had been. How could it not be? It resulted in our beautiful baby girl, born at 4:55pm on June 1.

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