Emma's Arrival

Well, now that Emma is one week old, I finally have found a few spare minutes to share the story of her arrival. Before I begin, I would just like to say that she is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I never imagined how much I could love someone until I became a mom on May 18, 2009.

The week leading up to Emma's arrival was filled with day after day of false labor so when I awoke last Sunday morning at 2 am with contractions that were 7 minutes apart for three consecutive hours, I thought, hmmm, maybe this might be it. As I was about to wake Larry up, they stopped...again. The rest of the day was very uneventful and contraction free. I tried walking (which led me to the neighborhood 7-11 for an ice cream sandwich) =), sitting on the yoga ball, accupressure points....still no contractions. This is when I decided that this baby was NEVER going to come.

During dinner on Sunday night around 6:30, I started getting contractions about 10-15 minutes apart. They felt a little different, but I pretty much just ignored them because I was sick and tired of being teased that my baby was on her way. Within a half hour, they ranged from 5-9 minutes apart. This continued for the next three hours. I could tell they were getting stronger but kept the thought in the back of my head that the hospital didn't really want to hear from us until they were 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. At 9:45, I asked Larry to call triage at the hospital and ask them if we should come in even if contractions were 6-7 minutes apart. They said come in if I was in pain. Now the pain I was dealing with was increasing, but nothing I felt like I couldn't handle. I just knew the pain was getting stronger, so we packed up the car and prepared to head to the hospital. Between the time I walked to the bathroom, used the bathroom, got a sweatshirt, and walked to the door, I had three contractions. For lack of a more appropriate thought, the first thought in my head was "Oh shit, I think I'm about to have a baby."

We drove to the hospital and got checked into triage around 10:30. My biggest fear was that they were going to check me and tell me I was 1 cm along and needed to go home. When I was checked, I was already 4-5 cm dilated and contractions were beginning to come every 2 1/2 -4 minutes. Larry reminds me that at this point I made some statement that Emma was never going to have siblings. =) The nurse said I definitely would get to stay at the hospital and asked if I wanted to walk around or just check into my room. Walking did not sound appealing so I opted to head up to our room. Room sounded much closer to epidural. My plan for drugs was to go as long as I could without an epidural but at this point, I was starting to think I needed one soon.

We got up to our room around 12 and they informed me that I had to be on an IV for awhile to get fluids before they could get me the epidural. I was certainly practicing our birthing class breathing at this point because the contractions seemed like they were right on top of each other. A paramedic intern was at the hospital that night and for training he put my IV in. That took longer than normal, but he finally worked that out and fluids were pumping away. I was getting pretty uncomfortable and denied the Phentanol (not sure of spelling) push into the IV because the thought of a "narcotic to just take off the edge until the anesthesiologist came" sounded bad for the baby. Well, that thought dissapated after 15 more minutes of painful contractions and it seemed to calm me until my savior, the anesthesiologist, arrived at 12:45. I was almost 8 cm at this time.

I had a previous bad experience with an epidural. When I had surgery when I was 19 to remove a fallopian cyst, they convinced me to get the epidural instead of general anesthesia because "I would be in much less pain when I woke up". Well, at that time, they made two attempts stabbing my back and never got the damn epidural in so I went under general anyways. I expressed my fear to the anesthesiologist, who assured me that he did so many of these that he could do them in his sleep. He was amazing and I barely felt a thing. By 1 am, I was much more relaxed and amazed to see contractions happening on the monitor but not be able to feel a thing. He told me I would be completely numb for the next hour and then I would feel a bit more pressure, but nothing should be painful. I sat back, expecting a very long night ahead of me.

Of course, shortly after the epidural, my blood pressure dropped enough for them to be concerned so they put an ephedrine push into the IV to increase blood pressure and had me lay on my left side to help. This seemed to do the trick. By 2:15, I started feeling pain again equivalent to the contractions. This pain sucked to say the least and I was sad to think that I could labor for hours in this level of discomfort. I kept pushing the magic button for more medicine, but that did not seem to help. =( The doctor came in at 2:30 after I complained of being in pain and she said I had the look of someone that needed to push. When she checked me, I was fully dilated and ready to push the baby out.

With the next contraction, I started pushing and Emma's heartrate dropped dramatically. They attempted to put a fetal monitor on her head and still could not pick up a strong heartbeat. The doctor told me she was going to have to get a vacuum to help get the baby out. The next few minutes were kind of a blur. Tons of people began rushing into the room and everyone seemed frantic. I, of course, was bawling my eyes out, worried that something was wrong with the baby. They weren't able to fit the first vacuum and had to get another one. I pushed as hard as I could and within 15 minutes, Emma was born. Once I knew she was okay, I could breathe a sigh of relief. The doctor did the needed stitching repairs while I held my angel in my arms.

Emma Kalai Lui weighed 6 lbs 10 oz and was 18 1/4 inches long, born on May 18, 2009 at 2:46 in the morning. I never knew how much my life would change after that moment. It looks like my piglet has awoken from a nap so I need to go feed her, but I will be sure to update on our first week home.