Welcoming Carter Anthony Jay Millington – The Birth Story

Carter Anthony Jay Millington was born on August 3rd, 2012 at 12:00am.  He weighed 7lbs, 12oz and measured 20 inches long. 
August 2nd was a relatively normal day.  I was 39 weeks, 1 day along and felt like I could pop any second (but I had been feeling that way for a while).  I had desperately wanted to make it to 39 weeks, but once that milestone passed, I was ready whenever the baby decided that he was ready to come.  I was feeling pretty tired but rallied to take Graham to a PEP play date because I wasn’t sure when the next opportunity would be. 
Over the previous week, I had been asking all my friends about what early labor felt like, because I had missed that with Graham (my water broke) and I was worried that I wouldn’t recognize the signs.  With all of the effort to coordinate care for Graham, I also didn’t want to jump the gun and go to the hospital, just to be turned around for ‘false’ labor. 
At around 6:30pm, I started feeling ‘things’ that seemed uncomfortable.  I decided to try breathing through these ‘things’ and figured I might as well start timing them (just to get some practice with the app I had downloaded).  The things (let’s start calling them contractions) were 4-5 minutes apart.  I thought that seemed odd that they were already so close together, but they were short (around 45 seconds) and I thought real contractions were supposed to be more like 90 seconds.  They were also totally manageable.  Breathing through them made them more comfortable, but they just weren’t that bad (night and day from what I had experienced with Graham).   
Alethea, who was scheduled to take care of Graham when I went to the hospital, was coming over to visit Graham after work.  When she arrived, I told her that I hadn’t wanted to alarm her, but I had started timing contractions and they were 4 minutes apart.
I called Nick and told him it was time to head home because I thought we may be going to the hospital.  I started packing a bag and continued to make dinner (just pausing to breathe through each contraction as it came). 
Alethea went home to get ready, just in case I needed her to come back.  When Nick got home, he and Graham ate dinner, while I continued to pack and I told Nick that I was going to call Alethea to come back and he should also pack a bag.  By the time Alethea was back and Nick and I were packed, the contractions were two minutes apart, but I told Alethea and Nick that I only gave us about a 50% chance of actually being admitted to the hospital because I just couldn’t believe that such manageable contractions (so close together) could actually be the real thing: I was anticipating much, much more pain. 
We got to the hospital at 9:00pm and I told the nurse that I hoped I was in labor because “these things” were uncomfortable and I didn’t want to go home and have to deal with them all night.  She said she would check me and we would go from there. 
The nurse checked me and said “honey, you are 7cm dilated; you are going to have a baby tonight.”  I couldn’t believe it!  I was proud of myself but also just shocked to hear where I was at in the labor. 
My birth plan going in was very clear.  I wanted the drugs.  I wasn’t going to hesitate, I wasn’t going to try to work through the pain and see if I could do it drug free, I was just going to get the epidural right away and have a magical, pain free labor.  I had visions of texting my friends and watching reruns on TV while I coasted through hours of pain free labor. 
I have a history of low platelets and I knew that Cottage Hospital had a conservative cutoff number for platelets (below which, they would not give an epidural), so I had spoken to my doctor in advance and said that we would need to come up with a plan if we thought my platelets were in danger of falling below the cutoff point because I simply could not go through labor and deliver without an epidural.  After consulting with other doctors, my doctor concluded that I was not at risk of falling below the cutoff number and wrote in my chart that I could get an epidural as soon as I asked for it and should not be made to wait or hold out until labor had progressed to a certain point. 
So… when the nurse said I was 7cm dilated, even though the contractions seemed remarkably mild to me, I didn’t want to take any chances and I said that I was planning on an epidural, so we should get started right away, and she said the anesthesiologist was actually right down the hall, so I should be able to have one within a few minutes.  I couldn’t believe my luck!
The anesthesiologist came in and told me that my platelets had fallen below the cutoff point.  I was really surprised.  He said he had a fairly liberal view and would still consider the epidural for me but wanted to make sure I understood that I had an elevated risk of some very rare but serious complications.  As I was discussing my options with him, I kept thinking in the back of my head, “why am I even talking with him about this, because the pain I’m experiencing is so low that I really don’t need anything.”  The anesthesiologist excused himself to consult with a colleague about it while I weighed my options.  The nurse took that opportunity to check me again, just so we could assess my progress.  At this point it was about 9:30pm.
She confirmed (as I had suspected) that my water had broken right after she checked me when I first arrived.  At this second check, she said I was 8 and ¾ cm, almost 9cm dilated.  The anesthesiologist came back in and said that after consulting with his colleague; they just weren’t comfortable doing the epidural.  They would consider it for a c-section, but not for pain management, especially given how well I seemed to be handling the contractions.  He asked if I would like any mood altering drugs that wouldn’t numb/take away the pain but would alter my perception of the pain.  He said if I wanted those drugs, I’d have to take them right away because, if not, it would be too close to delivery and they would have a negative impact on the baby.  I turned to the nurse and asked her how much worse I could expect the pain to get when I went into transition (which I had remembered hearing was the most painful part).  She told me that I was already through transition, which is when it finally starting to sink in that this was going to be an easy, fast, relatively pain free labor and I was going to do it drug free!
I told the nurse I wouldn’t be needing any medication.  She kept on telling me how impressed she was and how well I was doing and I kept on telling her how shocked I was because it was such a different experience from my first labor. 
With Graham, both Nick and Alethea were in the delivery room and they worked for hours and hours flipping me around and massaging different parts of me through each contraction.  This time, Nick was sitting on a chair across from me and I didn’t feel like I needed any support.  I was literally just chatting with him or the nurse and would pause to breath, each time there was a contraction.  Around 9:45, I finally needed Nick to apply some pressure to my back during the contractions and at 10:00pm (an hour after arriving at the hospital) it was time to start pushing.  Nick held one leg and the nurse held the other.      
The pushing was harder.  I felt like I wasn’t doing it right and wasn’t connecting the way I needed to in order to make it effective.  They kept on telling me that I was doing a good job, the baby was just in a strange position, so he couldn’t progress.  They kept on trying different positions and told me that each time I moved positions it helped, but I started to lose confidence and became worried that after this storybook labor, I was going to end up with a c-section because we just couldn’t figure out the right technique or position for successfully pushing the baby out.  After the fact, the nurse, doctor, and Nick told me that they had never been worried about a c-section and I had, in fact, been making progress with every push, but I didn’t realize (or believe) that at the time. 
After about an hour and a half of pushing, the nurse told me that she thought one more position change would do the trick, but the doctor had to step out of the room to deliver another baby, so she wanted me to try and hold off, so the doctor (instead of her) would be able to deliver our baby.  The nurse also noticed that sometimes the baby’s heart rate slowed, but would pick back up with a position change, so after about 10 minutes of waiting for the doctor, we decided to change positions anyway and get back to business.  I had started on my back, then had moved from one side to the other, and now she wanted me to try on my hands and knees.  I hated the position but they kept on assuring me that it was doing the trick and the second the doctor came back in the room, I told her that I hated the position and she said, “then let’s get you back on your back and deliver this baby.” 
I flipped over and after a few more pushes, she said, “OK, be ready to push and then hold off and stop pushing.”  I pushed the baby’s head out and then needed to pause because the cord was wrapped around his neck and they needed to cut it before I could push the rest of him out.  During the next set of pushes, I remember them saying, “open your eyes, look, look, here is your baby.”  I refused to open my eyes and just kept pushing.  The nurse, doctor, and Nick were looking at the clock and laughing as they were discussing if we were going to have an August 2nd or August 3rd baby and I said, “stop talking about it, I don’t like this,” and then out he came and they called it as August 3rd at 12:00am on the dot!  It is crazy to think that if we hadn't slowed down for those 10 minutes while the doctor was out of the room, then Carter, almost certainly, would have been born on the 2nd, but I kind of like his special 12:00am birthday.  The birth certificate says 00:00 for delivery time.   
Carter was just stunning when he came out.  With Graham, I remember being traumatized by the birth and being very worried that he wasn’t immediately crying and hadn’t started breast feeding the second he came out.  Carter was actually in worse physical shape than Graham (upon arrival), but I didn’t have any of the feeling of concern with Carter that I had with Graham. 
Carter wasn’t crying much but his eyes were wide open and he was just looking around and taking everything in.  He was intensely staring at me, the room, and the other people around him.  He was also moving his arms and legs a lot and everyone in the room was exclaiming about how alert he was.  They ended up offering him a little oxygen and even calling in the NICU team to evaluate him because he wasn’t crying and wasn’t pinking up but they seemed somewhat confused because the alertness didn’t appear to match with those other symptoms.  He was given an Apgar score of 6 but had perked up to an 8 by the 5 minute mark.  They figured he just took a little longer to transition because of having the cord tightly wound around his neck when he came out.  He was given a clean bill of health and after some time with Mommy, Daddy and Carter headed off to the nursery to be weighed, measured, cleaned, etc.
Apparently, the full moon from the day or two before had taken its toll, because there were so many new moms that the hospital was full, which meant that I had to share a room and Nick was not allowed to stay (or even come into the room) with us :( 
The hospital stay included lots of visitors, room changes, relaxation, recovery, reassuring doctor visits/updates, and the much anticipated meeting of the Millington brothers, but I’ll save all of that for a different post. 
In the week since the delivery, the shock and elation of the ‘easy’ labor has worn off slightly and now I can acknowledge that it wasn’t a complete walk in the park (with some screaming, tearing, and burst blood vessels in my face) but as far as labors go, I had a relatively easy time and a healthy mommy and baby is the best outcome I could have hoped for. 
Here are the pictures that accompany Carter’s first hours/day of life :)

Checking in to the hospital:

Just born:

Getting examined and pinking up:

Back to Mommy:

The delivery team:

Daddy holding Carter for the first time:

Off to the nursery:

Fun with the camera, in the recovery room:

Carter with Mommy and Daddy: