We are proud to announce our new daughter, who will soon, but does not yet, have a name. She was born at Alta Bates in Berkeley on Oct 9 (8 days early) at 3:54pm. She was 7lbs 6.3 oz and 21 inches long (she also has long feet). We are all doing really well, and after 2 nights at the hospital, we are now home and enjoying time with her (and 2 grandmas). Without getting into all the details, I’ll say it was a pretty intense day. It all started around 7am with the beginnings of the mucus plug showing its stuff. We had some breakfast, took a walk, and did a little counting of contraction times. Right off the bat they were pretty close together and almost 30 seconds long. We got home and within about an hour, at around 11, things started to pick up quite a bit. Amy was still pretty funny so we knew it wasn’t that far along, but the contractions were already intensifying. From that point on things moved pretty fast. I called the moms, who adjusted their schedules and tried to find flights out here. I called the doctor’s office and they recommended we come in to get checked. But I wanted to hang out a bit and wait for our doula to get here, who was on her way from SF on BART. In the meantime, contractions starting getting more intense and Amy started getting more serious…a sure sign that things were progressing. By 2pm she was seriously laboring and contractions were strong. She started saying she felt like having a bowel movement and I got a bit concerned…and then the Doula said I could wash my hands and see if I could feel the baby’s head. If I could, then we should go in to the hospital. Suffice it to say, I did not want to do that and we elected to get to the hospital…pronto.
Amy labored pretty heavily in the car and the doula dropped us off in front of the hospital entrance. We made it in and everyone knew where we were headed. We got into the elevator with Amy on all fours, then made it to the L&D check in. The nurse at check in did not seem to believe me when I said we needed to go to a room – that Amy was pushing. She asked me twice whether this was our “first one” with the implication that she did not really believe we were that far along. Then, after waiting what I believe to be too long considering Amy was on the floor saying she was pushing, they sent us to Triage, where it also took a little too long to get a nurse. But once they checked Amy and found that she was 9cm dilated, things started to move a little faster. We were whisked to a room (Amy knew what was happening and had already stripped all her clothes off!) and about an hour later we had a beautiful daughter! We had a tiny scare when her heart rate dropped (though I think it was because the monitor moved, but I don’t really know that), and the doctor ran in (he was gone for a long time and we actually went through a couple of rounds of pushing with just me, Amy, and our Doula in the room). He ended up doing a suction to get Amy’s final push to be the next one, and it did the trick.
Luckily we had her the day before the nurses strike. Our postpartum care was still pretty darn good even with the strike underway – things just took a little longer because the replacement nurses were not as familiar with the place. And we had to hear the picket line chants starting around 7am each day. But all in all, a good experience at the hospital. Now that we are home, we are doing well and Mini is being pretty nice to us. We basically can’t stop looking at her. The whole thing is completely amazing.
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