the birth of Alison

Where do you begin when telling the story about one of the most important days of your life?

Alison was a week late, she was expected on July 11th and when she didn’t show up by the 13th my doctor decided it was time to schedule an induction. I was so excited to have an end date – I knew I could handle all the discomfort knowing that it I would be meeting my sweet girl by July 18th. My parents had offered to fly up for the birth but I told them to wait to come to visit after she was here; I was afraid they wouldn’t get to maximize their time with her as we would be in the hospital the first few days. In a selfish way, when looking back, I wish I had told them to come because I would have loved to have my mom there in the delivery room with me.

I woke up on my induction day, July 18th, at around 2.30am with pains. I had some contractions the few days prior but these felt different. They felt more definite. The time was near and she knew it. It was as if she knew she was going to get evicted that day but wanted to do in her own time frame. By the time we left for the hospital I was having contractions ever 6 minutes apart.

Donavon helped me check in, called my parents to tell them we were there and that I was in labor on my own. After we got settled into our room the nurse told us that the doctor still wanted me to be hooked up to the picton, to help move my labor forward. I was disappointed as that meant I couldn’t walk around or use the jacuzzi tub. Cell phones weren’t permitted in the room and Donavon didn’t want to leave me side but every few hours I would kick him out so he could give my parents updates.

It felt like I was progressing so slowly, but at the same time was moving so fast. It was very surreal, never a feeling I’ve experienced before. Part of me had wanted to try my hand at natural birth but after a few really bad contractions I decided to go for the epidural. The first one numbed the left half of my body, but not the right half. I didn’t really notice until the doctor came in to break my water and I felt every painful movement of the process – but only on the right side of my body. I was given a second epidural and that finally worked as it should. I had no feeling in my legs. I progressed quickly after that and before I knew it I was being told to push. Since I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down the nurses had to put my legs in the stirrups. I started to push and after about 20 more minutes the doctor said it would probably be another hour so she was going to go check on another patient down the hall. Was she ever wrong!

After the doctor left we found, by accident, that if Donavon made me laugh while I was pushing I would make great progress. So every time I would have a contraction he would use a different funny voice and make me laugh so hard I would cry. Before we knew it 20 minutes passed and she was almost crowing. I remember thinking ‘this is it!’ at the same time the nurse started to yell ‘Oh shit, stop. Don’t push. Oh shit’. Apparently Alison was not going to wait for the doctor to come back and was pushing her way out – with her hand fisted up next to her head. At that moment the doctor came rushing in, barely had time to put on her scrubs before our little girl came ripping out of me. They let Donavon cut the cord but we could tell something was wrong.

Everything after this is kind of blurry and runs together for me after this but I remember the nurses taking her over to clean her off and I was straining to see her. Donavon took a picture with his cell phone so I could see her. I could hear her pretty well. She eventually calmed down though and just looked around at everything. During this time there was a lot of activity at the end of the table. I remember the doctor asking for them to call for another doctor – since this was my first time I didn’t realize this wasn’t the norm. They told her there was only a resident there at the time and did they want her to call a doctor from home. She hesitated and then said no but to get the resident. It ends up that when Alison came out she torn me up something good. While the doctor was trying to be calm we could tell she was freaking out. Donavon made the mistake of walking around the end of the table to come to me and saw the amount of blood and started to realize how serious the situation was. I was pretty oblivious to it – I just knew I wanted my baby girl in my arms. Eventually she was brought to me to hold. There is no other feeling like holding your first baby for the first time. At that time I started to get some feeling back so they gave me another epidural. It ends up Alison torn me, in a jagged fashion, from the front to pretty much my rear. The doctor told me later that I was only two stitches away from having my anus torn too (that would have been painful to recover from!). In the end it took multiple nurses, the doctor, and the resident almost two hours to stitch me up (I asked at one point how many stitches and the doctor said she couldn’t keep count, there were that many).

I still wasn’t grasping the severity of the situation. I could tell the nurses and doctor were anxious, Donavon was trying to hide his fear, though I was able to pick up on it – but all I could think about was holding Alison and wanting to eat.

I was finally taken to our room around 8.30pm. We had Alison in the room with us for a little bit, we ordered some food, and then the pain set in. Man did it hurt. Hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before. They gave me some drugs to help but I was cautious to take anything too strong as I didn’t want to dope up Alison through my milk. We ended up being in the hospital for two days. Up until the morning we left there was talk about possibly having to give me a blood transfusion, I lost that much blood while they tried to stitch me up. In the end I didn’t have to have one. It took many long and painful weeks to recover but in the end it was worth every single stitch and second of discomfort.

And that is Alison’s birth story, from my perspective/memory.