Little did I know when I took the picture on the left sidebar of Pistachio at "T-minus 2 days and counting," it would be the last picture of Pistachio EVER. Pistachio decided to arrive that night as a baby girl, whom we named Hadleigh Elizabeth. Here's the story...
As I headed home from work Tuesday afternoon, I was just sure Pistachio was not going to arrive until after his or her due date. I spoke to several friends and neighbors and mentioned there was no indication that the baby would arrive soon. Around 6:00 or 6:15, however, I began feeling contractions. They were quite mild, but coming every 2 to 6 minutes. Over the last nine months, I had heard every labor and delivery story imaginable; I had heard enough to suspect that I could have had false labor pains for days, so I didn't get too excited about my contractions. After about an hour of light, but frequent, contractions, though, the contractions got much stronger. My sister-in-law, Tasha, came to our house to keep an eye on me and distract me from the discomfort with massage therapy. Brian returned home from work in time to take a shower and drive us to the hospital - by about 8:00 my contractions had been strong and frequent enough (still about 4-5 minutes apart) to warrant a trip to the Birthing Center.
I expected the nurses to check me and possibly send me home (I must have been in a state of denial), but I was 4-5 cm dilated when we arrived. They kept me, of course, and offered me pain relief, which I refused.
I labored for several more hours, with very little relief between contractions. At some point, they let me take the monitors off and spend some time in the whirlpool tub. That was a mistake - moving from the bed to the tub and back was miserable - the movement was extremely uncomfortable. Plus, the water didn't get nearly as hot I would have hoped. Every time I had a contraction (which was pretty much constantly), all I could think about was drugs. The words "Nubane" and "epidural" swam through my head. When I felt pressure on my tailbone, I knew it was time to get back into the bed.
The nurse came back to check me to see how far my cervix had progressed. It felt like she was going to just pull that baby right out. After rooting around, though, she declared she was going to get the doctor because it was time for me to push. I was not mentally prepared for that - but somewhat relieved that the end was in sight. I jokingly asked if it was too late for drugs. The nurse assured me it was, in fact, too late.
With Brian, my mom, Tasha, the nurse, and the doctor coaching me on, I pushed and pushed for 19 short minutes - through about five contractions. Really, it didn't seem like that long, probably because I was concentrating so hard. Pistachio apparently was in a bit of a hurry to join this world, because her whole body came out in one squirt (the doctor had to scramble to catch her).
I honestly was surprised to see that baby Pistachio was a girl - a girl in need of a name, which we immediately declared was Hadleigh Elizabeth. Hadleigh meaning "field of heather" and Elizabeth after her great-grandmother Elizabeth Fitzgerald, her grandmother Elise Blacka, and another great-grandmother Bette Meeteer. She weighed 7 pounds, 1.3 ounces and measured 19 inches at birth. Her first APGAR scores were both 9 - a very healthy, beautiful baby.
Immediately after the delivery, I observed that I NEVER wanted to go through that again. But six days later, I'm proud of the accomplishment and admittedly open to trying it again sometime. But for now we're going to get used to life as a family of three and give little Miss Hadleigh all of the love in the world!
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