the day you were born

On Sunday November 29th, my doctor had some unexpected news for me during his daily visit to my hospital room. He informed me that since the baby and I were doing so well, that he wasn't going to induce me at 34 weeks (December 2nd) like he'd originally said, and that we needed to hold out until 35 weeks. I had suspicions he'd do this to me, but started crying immediately when the words came out of his mouth none the less. ANOTHER WEEK! There are studies that show babies born at 35 weeks do better than those born at 34 weeks he told me. You'll work out child care he assured me. Yeah, ok, get out of here so I can cry ... and I did ... on and off all day on Sunday. I was fairly certain that I wouldn't survive another week in the hospital. I even thought about inducing labor via jumping jacks or something like that, but decided I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything was wrong with the baby that could have been prevented by staying in utero a little longer. Being stuck in the hospital can drive you a little crazy. My perspective on the matter was admittedly off (and my jumping jacks plan a bit childish), but that's how I felt. After a long day of crying and throwing a pity party, I took my ambien and went to sleep.

At 2:45am I woke up with a painful sensation all over my stomach. Ow. Was that a contraction? It couldn't be ... 15 minutes later same thing ... and again about 10 minutes later. At 3:15 I pushed my nurse call button to tell them "that I think I'm having contractions" so they put me on the monitor to see. Yep, they're contractions. I knew from having been there a week that you have to have regular contractions for about an hour before they will phone your doc so there I sat watching the contraction monitor for an hour pondering whether this was the real thing or not. I felt like it probably was, but I didn't call Dominic since I didn't know. While my doc had said he wouldn't do anything to stop labor (like he did when my water broke), I figured he hadn't kept his promise to induce me at 34 wees, so he'd probably break that promise too. The nurse came in at 4:30 to tell me that they'd called the doctor and were waiting on him to call back. By this point I'd decided that having increasingly painful contractions alone in a dark hospital room is not very fun, so I called to wake up Dominic at around 4:45. Even if it wasn't labor, I wanted him there with me. Thankfully his mom had just arrived Sunday night to stay for the week so a babysitter for Juliet was already taken care of.

Around 5:15 the nurse came back in to tell me that my doc wanted to try a shot of "contraction stopper" (don't remember the drug name) . Of course he does. Darn non-promise keeper! I'd had this shot before and it caused me to feel jittery, nauseous and faint so I asked her if I could wait a few more minutes for Dominic to arrive. Called the house and Dominic was leaving. About 15 minutes later (still no Dominic) the nurse came back in and told me that my doc was on his way to the hospital for another delivery and that he wouldn't be happy with her if she hadn't given me the shot when he got there. Fine, bring on the labor stopping jitters! So, she put the heart rate monitor on me, paused, told me to hold on a second, and walked out of the room.

Apparently my heart rate was too high for her to give me the shot. My heart knew this was the real thing! Dominic arrived just in time to get moved over to L&D probably around 6am. Still hadn't seen my doc. Hooked me back up to the monitor (monitors both contraction intensity and baby's heart rate) and sat and waited, still wondering if we were going to have a baby or not. Contractions were getting stronger, but still bearable. The weird thing was that I felt like they weren't registering on the monitor correctly, i.e. they felt much worse than the screen was showing. I'd been monitored 3 times a day for the last week and had small contractions on and off during that time. I don't know what exactly the numbers mean or if they are consistent from person to person, but for me a contraction in the 20's wasn't a big deal, but when it got into the lower 40's that was more painful. Well, these painful contractions were only registering in the upper 20's - which was really frustrating and somewhat confusing!

Doc came in shortly after that, glanced up at the monitor screen and said "if that's all you're doing, we aren't having this baby today." I should stop for a moment and say that I truly love my doctor. Really, I do! This post sure doesn't read like I do, but I do ... so he left and I figured we were just going to wait and see if things got worse so that he'd let me have the baby ...

After another half hour or so with the contractions getting worse and still registering in the 20 range, I pushed my nurse call button and told them that my contractions were getting worse even though they weren't registering that way on the monitor. The nurse that came in was one who'd taken care of me over in the anti pardum wing. I told her that I didn't feel like I was getting credit for my contractions :) She laughed and moved the monitor to a different place on my belly and Viola - all of a sudden my once 20 something contractions were registering in the 60's. That sounded much more accurate to me!!

Doctor came back around 7:15 to check my cervix. Dilated to a 7. He said "Good work. We're having a baby today!" Finally, I was liking what my doc had to say!!! Anesthesiologist came to give me my epidural. Probably 7:45 or 8 by the time that was done and I was feeling good again :) Doctor came by again, not dilated to a 10 (think I was an 8 by this point), and he told me that he needed to run back to his office for an hour or so, but would be back and thought I'd be ready to push when he got back.

I'd say it was about 8:30 when I started feeling some serious pressure down there. The nurse had rolled me so I'd be laying on my left side (I'd been laying on my right) and apparently that's all my cervix needed ... and now we just needed a doctor for delivery! The pressure would come and go and I was starting to get worried that my doc wouldn't make it back in time, but around 9:15 he strolled back in. Whew!

About 10 minutes later, after only pushing through a few contractions, our little GIRL made her way into the world! Another sweet baby girl. A full head of hair and she was crying - so that was a good sign as far as her health anyways :) We didn't get to see her for very long as the NICU nurses swept her off for her initial assessment. A nurse came back and told us her weight - 5 lbs 1 oz - Hooray! So small, but big for being 6.5 weeks early.

The rest of the day was surreal and different, mostly because we didn't have our new baby with us. We hadn't officially decided on a girl's name before delivery, but didn't want to pick a name having only seen her for 5 seconds, so we went ahead and broke the news to everyone minus a name. It seemed like an eternity before we saw her, but totally amazing when we finally did. She was so tiny and sweet and healthy - she hadn't needed any oxygen, her lungs were good, etc, etc! What a miracle! A sweet face with her daddy's nose, long skinny fingers and feet, and a full head of hair (her resemblance to her big sis not evident right at first). We had two names, but daddy felt she didn't look like one of the names, so she got her name -- Corinne Dorothy Schulte.

Corinne, pronounced kor-IN, because daddy and mommy like it. Mommy came across it while browsing ITunes artists for names and came across Corinne Bailey Rae. Mom liked it, and much to her surprise, dad did too!

Dorothy after Great Grandma Dorothy Mae Turbak who passed away back in May. Both our girls got their middle names after their great grandmas, and while they will never get the opportunity to meet them, their loving legacy lives on in the names of our little girls.

So, there you have it, a rather long summary of the day our sweet baby #2 was born! And no, just in case you were wondering, I didn't do any jumping jacks :)