Welcome Alice Joy Lynch Pinney: Labor Part I

Alice Joy Lynch Pinney joined our family on January 23, 2010, at 5:24am. She weighed in at 8lbs 6oz and was 20-1/4" long.

It was a long and hard journey for her to get here - for all of us. My water broke on Thursday, January 21st at around 8pm. I was really surprised that it broke, given that only 10% of women have it break prior to labor starting. I assumed it would break during labor. Anyhow, contractions started up during the night. They didn't get more intense until about 11am on Friday. Fortunately, our midwives allowed us to labor from home rather than having us rush into the hospital. It's a lot easier and more relaxing to be in your own environment. We called our doula, Jesse, right away, too. Her M.O. is to come over to help with contractions get intense enough that you have to breathe through them. That didn't happen until the next day, Friday, at around 3pm.

Lark was home from school because she wanted to be the first person to meet baby Pinney. She hung around with Tom and me while I labored. It was very sweet to have all of us here, getting excited for baby. Lark had a momentary bout of doubt about having a baby. Before she went to bed on Thursday she started crying and said our life is so good that she didn't want anything to change. Poor Honey. I hear what she's saying. It is good and we had just had a wonderful evening out grabbing burgers and then heading to the bookstore. Outings like that are going to be a little more difficult with a little one, but there will be new kinds of fun. Back to the labor...

Jesse arrived around 4pm and Kristy, my sister, with 3 month old baby June in tow came soon after (Kristy actually may have been there before Jesse - it's a little blurry at this point). If you had asked be ahead of time if I would have wanted June there, I would have said no way. But, having her there was perfect. She was comic relief with her crazy, wispy hair and infectious smile as well as a good reminder of the prize at the end of all of the work - a sweet little baby. I was having crazy noodles back labor at this point, which never let up once because of the position the baby was in.

We decided to head to the hospital at around 6:00pm. My contractions were coming every 2 minutes at this point. I was in transition. When I got in the car, I ended up sitting in the front passenger seat on all fours with my bottom toward the windshield. We must have been a sight riding along 94 with the windows down and me moaning through contractions. During the ride, I told Tom to call my mom to come to the hospital. The original plan was that it was going to be just him, me and our doula. It's funny how you want your mommy when you're in excruciating pain. We made it to St. Joseph's hospital and made our way through the emergency room up to the maternity ward. Again, it was crazy noodles getting up there as I was having contractions every 1-1/2 to 2 minutes. The emergency room staff almost didn't let us go alone (it was me, Kristy, June and Jesse -Tom was bringing in all of our luggage). They wanted me to ride in a wheelchair. Yeah, right. I think they thought I was going to have a baby right there. We convinced them to let us go up. Really, I just kept walking and said we're heading up.

Once in our room, they hooked me up to a monitor to check the baby's vitals and then checked me to see how far I had dilated. 7cm! Yay! I was happy. Only 3 to go. This was at around 8pm. We moved into the water birth room around 9pm. I got in the tub and labored some more. My mom showed up in the meantime. Next time I was checked, I was at 9-1/2cm. I stayed there for a long time. My midwife, Mary, tried a couple of times to move back the cervical "lip" that was on baby's head while I pushed (f-ing ouch), to no avail. My contractions had lost some of their oomph and I was tired. I was out of the tub at this point and trying some different positions - sitting on the toilet, laying in bed. Relief came when Mary suggested that we start a pitocin drip to kick up the contractions. I knew something needed to change, so I was game. So much for intervention free. The pitocin helped me get to 10cm, but baby just didn't feel like it was descending. I was frigging exhausted beyond comprehension at this point, but had never uttered a word about it.

I was relieved again when Mary suggested that I needed to rest to push this baby out (I think it was around 1am on Saturday at this point). When she mentioned "epidural" I was ready. I looked to Tom, Kristy, my mom and Jesse and they were all nodding encouragingly. I said sure and at that point, it couldn't have happened soon enough.

More later...I have a little one who wants to get fed.