The Story of Leah

"Nate! My water broke!"

"When?"

"Just now! Get some towels!"

I tried (and succeeded somewhat) to protect our bed and carpet from the sudden tidal wave as Nate stared stupidly at the linen closet (his words, not mine.) What seemed like 45 minutes later he finally handed me a bath towel which was soaked within seconds, followed by another one, and then a third. I'll cut him some slack, though - it was 1:00 on the dot on Monday morning, May 7th, and it'd been a pretty rough night.

False labor contractions had been bothering me all Sunday afternoon and as the night progressed they remained painful and inconsistent. Ugh. Luckily, "The Happiest Millionaire" was on KBYU, and it really was as good as I remember it being from my childhood. I might have even guffawed a few times when they found the pet alligators frozen in the conservatory,  in spite of my 3-days-overdue-gouging-my-eyes-out attitude. Nate and I debated on whether to go to the hospital and finally decided just to go to bed, and if the contractions kept me from sleeping we'd go in. They did, for awhile, and then I finally dozed off, and only had to get up about six times for potty breaks over the next few hours until 1:00.

Nate ran downstairs and woke his mom up (she had been here since the Thursday before, helping me chase the kids and providing a lot of milkshakes and moral support) and told her the news as I gathered up our things. A note on having your water break spontaneously: There are like 3 gallons of water in there! And it doesn't just gush out and stop, there are subsequent, smaller gushes pretty much until the baby comes. Luckily Nate dug in the back of the bathroom cabinet and was able to find a grown-up diaper from when we had Bryn, so we were able to get out the door and to the hospital without flooding the earth. I was pretty nervous about what was to come, and was freaking out a little, but Nate was able to help me relax and also gave me a blessing before we left, which was a real strength to me throughout labor and delivery.

The drive to the hospital seemed pretty short. There was no traffic and hardly any red lights. Regular contractions still hadn't gotten going, so the stress level was pretty low.

We arrived at the hospital at 2:00 and had to go in through the ER. The nice man at the desk congratulated us, took us upstairs and handed us off to the nurses at labor and delivery. I got changed and a nurse hooked me up to the monitors and started in on a long list of questions. Might I just say that this nurse was awesome. Here she was at 2 in the morning, pregnant herself with #5, hanging on to me and Nate's every word and making us feel comfortable and at ease. She set the tone for the rest of our stay. Every single nurse we had the entire time was excellent. After doing a pH test to make sure that my water had really broken (trust me, it had) and checking dilation (3+, which was a little discouraging after being at a 7 when I got to the hospital with Addison and Bryn) she started me on penicillin because I was strep B positive. After waiting in triage for a little while, we headed into the "natural labor suite."

Now I don't know why the lady who gave us a tour of the maternity wing several months ago was not aware of this room, but she didn't show it to us. Let me just say that it exceeded Nate and my expectations by far. It was big, had a giant tub, and the bed could be adjusted into about 300 positions. The lights were dimmable, the walls were painted lavender and had sweet little sayings in vinyl lettering on them, and there was a rocking chair and birthing ball and aromatherapy lamp right by the bed. There were even dried herbs hanging on the door for decorations. It was awesome.

After getting settled, contractions really still hadn't started in earnest, so Nate and I dozed for a little while. Before too long I had to start breathing through them on my own, and then Nate woke up and helped me. I'd like to state for the record that Nate was an amazing coach. I felt like he was my linebacker (a comparison I'm sure he's heard a lot throughout his life). If I needed something, chances were he'd gotten it 30 seconds before. If I had a question, he took it upon himself to find out the answer. I hardly had an opportunity to feel afraid or discouraged because he was right there the entire time offering words of encouragement, gentle reminders, and support. He completely took care of everything and just let me focus on my job, having the baby.

This labor and delivery was a lot different than the last two because we wanted to do it without any pain medication, so I had to cope with the discomfort in other ways. The number one best coping method we used was deep abdominal breathing. It got me through every contraction. Others that were really helpful were soaking in the tub, leaning on the birthing ball, changing the position of the bed so I could kneel or sit comfortably, sitting on the toilet, and leaning on the bed and rocking my hips back and forth. I'd been a little worried that the nurses might be kind of lame, frankly. It seems like it'd be a lot more work to have a patient laboring naturally than with an epidural, and I thought they might not be the most supportive. But every one of them made me feel like a rock star for even attempting to go natural.

Once we got to transition I was pretty tired, and the contractions would come on pretty fast, so I sat on the edge of the bed and leaned my head into Nate's chest for pretty much all of transition. This was the part of labor and delivery that I'd feared the most going into it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. Although the contractions were really painful, they weren't relentless, and I even dozed between a few of them. As things intensified, the nurses called the doctor and told him to start heading in our direction.

Pretty soon thereafter I started getting the urge to push. I was almost completely dilated at this point, and one nurse got on the phone with the doctor and told him to hurry up while another one assured me she could deliver without the doctor if needed. She got on some gloves and said to go ahead and push when I felt like it. I was a little scared because Bryn had only taken about one and a half pushes to get out, and I expected the same with this one, and there was no doctor in sight. But the urge came, and push I did.

Nate tells me that while this was going on there were people running around getting the incubator heated up and setting out tools and towels for the grand arrival. I don't remember it, though, because pushing took every ounce of everything I had, and this time around it was not proving to be super effective. Not to mention the fact that it was excruciating. About that time the doctor waltzed in, looked at me slogging through the valley of the shadow of death, and decided to offer me some pain medication.

Did we say in our birth plan that under no circumstances did we want to be offered pain meds? Yes.

Did the doctor have a copy of said plan? Yes.

What did I say in response to his question? "Yes!"

So he sent a nurse running for something to put in the i.v. I asked how much longer I had to push and he said "Oh, could be ten minutes, could be an hour." Then he checked my cervix and said to my amazing and wonderful nurses in a tone that would've made me feel like a complete idiot, "You thought she was crowning?" That was the moment when I should have lifted my foot out of the stirrup and kicked him in his very conveniently located face. But I was a little busy.

Anyway, about the time the pain med nurse got back, I was not in the middle of a contraction, Nate had helped me to calm down, and he had, on my behalf, refused the pain medication. What a guy. Thank heavens the dingbat doctor had left the room by then, giving my nurses the chance to keep coaching us on effective pushing, and also to figure out why the progress was so slow. I guess the baby's body was rotated about 90 degrees from what it should be to come out, so in a stroke of genius, the nurse had Nate help me turn on my side while they helped the head rotate, at which point there was a little gush of fluid, and the feeling of pressure increased by about fifty times.

At this point I am 99% sure I was not graceful. I'm 100% sure that I yelled with every push and then some. I didn't care about finding out the gender or any of that other fun stuff, I just wanted it OUT! It felt like my tailbone was breaking, and that was the least of the pain. The doctor, who had come back to steal the nurses glory, said he saw lots of dark hair, which was very encouraging. And then a couple pushes later the head was out and I just had to get the shoulders. The contraction I'd pushed the head out with was over, but I wanted that thing out! So I pushed and yelled some more, and heard the cry and knew that we'd done it. The nurse and then Nate announced, "It's a girl!" I was just so relieved to have the baby out. And then they put her on my chest, and Nate cutting the cord and the delivery of the placenta is all a blur. She was so beautiful. She was very awake and responsive to my touches and soothing and she calmed right down and laid there and looked at me and Nate and her surroundings. Everybody cleared the room and left us alone for the better part of an hour, which was wonderful. She nursed very well and the three of us got acquainted.

We finally came up with a name late that night. After deliberating between Leah and Claire, we named her Leah ViAnn. Leah because we liked it and it seemed to suit her, and ViAnn after my mom, whose influence and example I hope Leah will feel and draw strength from her entire life.