so i promised a better rundown of how the birth went and the events as they have transpired over the last few days. seems like everything is beginning to bleed together, i'm sure there is more of that to come.
so monday dec 10th, we got ready for work as normal. lisa mentioned that she had thought her water may have broken when she got out of the shower, but then realized it was just a water pressure change. we were putting our shoes on to leave, the car was warming and i found her in the bathroom considering what seemed to be leaking out of her. finally, we decided that her water had in fact broken. how convenient that we had finally finished packing up the bag for the hospital the previous evening. even more convenient that it really happened in the shower, and also happened BEFORE we even went to work on a monday morning.
we decided to call our best friends in the uk and tell them the good news and i called my mom too and asked her to call my other family members; lisa called anna in AUST and she called mic. then we called our boss's and let them know we wouldn't be in. we changed into some comfortable clothes, i loaded the car and we calmly made our way to the patient receiving unit at methodist hospital. i dropped lisa at the door and parked the car, then met her up in labor and delivery.
a slide test for amniotic fluid was inconclusive and made us a little worried, as we were quite positive she was ruptured. soon a pelvic exam revealed she was dilated 4cm, so we checked in for the long haul. we got comfortable in the birthing suite and started doing laps around the floor. lisa felt much more comfortable up and walking. we thought that we might as well use gravity to our advantage. so we walked and talked and even played catch with a racquet ball for a while. lisa's body continued to prepare for little ruby to arrive. she was able to calmly breathe through almost all of the contractions. she continued to dilate and the pain grew. i rubbed her back and helped provide some counter traction on her lower back to relieve some of the pain. after around 7 hours of labor, the pain became very, very unpleasant and lisa decided to have an epidural catheter placed in her spine. she did amazingly well up to that point and i am so proud of her for walking and keeping active and going with her body's plan.
once the epidural was in place, she had immediate relief and she was able to relax and rest, saving up so strength for when it was time to push. i was so please that her epidural was so successful. at one point she began to feel contractions on one side of her body, and i've heard horror stories about them wearing off during birth, etc. so i called for the anesthesiologist right away and they were able to sort that out very quickly. by 7pm it was the changing of the guards on the floor, so the doc we had gotten to know all day was off for the night. another quickly came in as it was time to push just after 7 pm.
i was so glad to be able to be a part of this whole process. i was right next to lisa the whole time, holding her leg and talking to her and watching her push, looking down and seeing the baby's head crowning. i had no idea what an amazing experience it was going to be. i have seen many live births on videos and in countless biology classes over the years, but you just can't explain being there. it seemed like a few big pushes and ruby was nearly sliding out of the doctor's hands. lisa did an amazing job, i can't even explain how proud i was of her. she only had a small tear that needed stitches and no other complications to speak of. so almost exactly 12 hours after her water broke, ruby was with us. amazing.
ok, i'm pretty tired. almost time to wake up the bambino for a feeding. more about this weeks events soon.
hope everyone is doing well. thanks for all the emails and comments and congrats. it is greatly appreciated!!
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