Graham's arrival

Graham Robert Fortney was born yesterday at 4:21 pm, weighing 7 lbs., 12 oz., 20 inches long. So far as we can tell, he's absolutely perfect (that's the right English translation for the pediatrician phrase "no issues I'm concerned with," right?) He's an excellent screamer, and when not too cold or too angry, a natural nurser. He has dark hair, blue eyes, and was born with super long ragged fingernails, which we're cautiously working on trimming. Those are the basics; play-by-play below.

Labor started just after 8 am yesterday (Sunday), with contractions mild and spread out enough that, based on my experience with Finn, I thought might or might not stick around. We tried a car ride, and a change of scenery, and they got more intense and never really spaced out. I called the friends we had afternoon plans with around 9 to cancel, secretly hoping we could still maybe meet them for the train ride up in Felton. Um, earth to Katie: no. Katie to Lauren: sorry for being a delusional kook.

We called our Finn-sitters (big thank you to Margaret and Alan, by the way. They kept Finn entertained and in his natural habitat all day while we were at the hospital, providing us with major peace of mind that was just invaluable. We even got to see pictures on Facebook of Finn eating spaghetti shortly after Graham was born.). Jonathan and Finn went grocery shopping. I called our midwife Bethany to let her know we'd probably be heading to the hospital sometime that day (by this time I was a little less in denial, but still thinking Monday was almost as likely as Sunday).

We met Bethany at the hospital sometime between 12 and 1; contractions were about 4 or 5 minutes apart. I was... not great, inside my head. We were still only at about 2 centimeters. The pain was mostly handleable, but I kept thinking about how this was the "easy part," and how much longer we had to go, and sometimes it was BAD. During Finn's labor I got to a point where I was never rested, the pain never left between contractions, all I cared about was making it stop (seriously - the phrase "the baby's doing fine" did not even register), and I was just a big ball of fear and freak-out. I remembered that place, and I did not want to go there, or even close. I know there are people who can look at that, and say "hey, that's just fear," and put it away. I'm not one of them, and I could see myself starting to be governed by fear of the fear, and I decided I needed a more concrete action plan. So I said to Bethany, "Can we talk about the epidural," and she said "we can talk about whatever you want." Which is such a nice answer, and why she's great.

I know we have friends on the "epidurals heck no" end of the spectrum and some on the "okay, labor's started, where's my epidural?" end. I'm neither. My last experience was mixed, and I guess my place on the spectrum was "let's avoid that if we can." That was when I was not yet in labor, thinking hey, I did 30 hours before, 15 should be nothing. When I was actually in labor, looking at 10 more hours (or so I thought) of contractions that I can't properly describe (because really, anyone who's been through labor, have you ever successfully explained what any of it feels like?), things looked different. Bethany asked if I could give her 2 more hours first, to get me to 4-5 cm. I said "heck yes, I can do 2 hours. I can't do 10." "It won't be 10." (Oh man, she was so right.)

So we did 2 hours, serious contractions, got the IV stub thing in so we'd have it later, spent some time in the tub, some time on the ball, and .... we were up to 2-3 centimeters. I don't know about you, but when someone is telling you "not to focus on the numbers," and that you're now "2 to 3" instead of "about 2," and you've had a kind of long day and you're a bit touchy because you've been IN FRICKING LABOR for about 7 hours, I personally suspect that those two measurements are essentially the same.

It was 3pm, or a bit after. I was thinking maybe 11pm if we were lucky. Spoiler: Graham was born at 4:21. Did I mention how I was only at "2 to 3" centimeters after 7 hours? For those of you not familiar with this process, did you know that the goal is 10 centimeters? Do some math, and you will realize why the rest of this story has kind of a garbled feeling. Time got ... mushy.

Bethany suggested breaking the bag of waters. We did that with Finn and he still took another 12 or so, so it didn't seem like a big deal. I did realize that it would make things more intense (yesterday afternoon's internal translation: so we get to the epidural sooner), but Bethany said we could have some fentanyl ready if it got TOO intense, so I put the scary place away again.

Bethany broke the bag. There were contractions. There was a defeated puppy dog look to Bethany, followed by fentanyl. Somewhere in there she checked me, and I was hoping we were close to 4 cm so we could start finding the anesthesiologist... and we were at 5-6 (surprise!) so he was called, and we waited, and I yelled. I was pretty much consumed with surviving the contractions, but I did register burning, and remembered that that was supposed to be important, so I duly reported it. After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes), the epidural was in, and I was given the happy news that it would probably start to work in about 10 minutes. Too long, but hey, at least finite.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), speaking of 10, I was also now at 10 centimeters. And being told to push. I thought she was kidding at first, or meant something like I could push a bit if it would make me feel better, but no, she was serious, and about 3 contractions later (Jonathan estimates about 5 minutes), we had Graham. So the epidural was a helpful distraction, but otherwise not much of a pain management tool.

Same slow start, same happy ending, but otherwise a completely different experience than having Finn. And we're doing great, and the boys got to meet this morning, which was so incredibly fun. We head home from the hospital tomorrow, and my mom gets in tomorrow night. Here we go - wish us luck!

P.S. Thomas and Amy visited tonight, brought dinner, and took pictures.

Some pictures and comments

Hi all! Katie was fantastic yesterday. 30 hours of labor. As you can imagine, I have never been more proud of her. Our midwife Lin was fantastic and I'll never forget the attention and support that she gave us the past 9 months and the past 48 hours. We owe her so much.

During the ups and downs of the ups and down of Finn's pulse, the most unnerving part was that you could hear it on the monitor. Blup, blup, blup, blup, (pause), blup, blup. It was the pauses that were the worst. Or when you could hear that it was gradually slowing. It was impossible to sleep (for the 2 hours that we got from 3-5 a.m.) unless he had a steady pulse.

So far he is a very good eater, which is fantastic. He really likes to be swaddled up. I wish that I was better at swaddling him. The number of diapers that I've changed in my lifetime has gone from 0 to 4.

Who likes more pictures?

Day 0-1

Short version: Finn McGovern Fortney was born Tuesday, November 13, 2007, at 9:20 am. He weighed 8 lbs., 11 oz., and was 20 1/2 inches long. He has lots of pretty dark hair and blue eyes. Labor started about 3:30 am on Monday morning, and we went to the hospital around 7:00 at night. He came out the old fashioned way, with help from drugs (and lots of people), and started screaming right away. Got a 9 on his Apgar at 1 and 5 minutes (for those of you in the know on such things). The pediatrician says he looks great, and both Jonathan and I are tired but good, and very happy.

Now, for those of you who want the long version...

Finn was in no hurry. At 41 weeks, still no contractions that were strong enough to be uncomfortable, and few that were strong enough to feel. We went down the list of things that could/should get things started; I went to an acupuncturist; we waited. Our midwife, Lin, did an ultrasound and stress test last Thursday and said that everything looked fine, but that she'd like to do prostaglandin gel on Sunday night, and if that ripened my cervix, start me slowly on pitocin on Tuesday. I was a little nervous about pitocin, but willing to try the gel and go from there. So that's what we did.

Sunday night we went to the hospital for the gel. I was at 1 cm. Everything was fine, normal, and uneventful. We went home.

Monday morning I woke up with contractions I couldn't sleep through... although I tried from about 3:30 to 4:30. At 5:00 we got out of bed, and they were 3-5 minutes apart. We already had an appointment to see Lin at 10:00 so she could see how things were going with the gel, so we just kind of puttered around the house until then. When we went in Lin said I was at 2 cm and that everything looked good, and sent us home, telling us to keep her posted. It looked like we weren't going to need the pitocin after all, which was nice.

We managed to sleep a bit when we got home, and the contractions slowed to almost 10 minutes apart for a while. They were pretty erratic for most of the day, but got stronger and stronger. We tried to reach Lin, but... um... Jonathan and pagers don't get along. We won't dwell on that. We reached Olga, the other midwife, who said we could go ahead and go in if the contractions were pretty intense and we wanted to get checked. So we did. And I was still 2 cm. I think they were going to give me something so I could sleep and send us home, but they put me on the monitor to see how Finn was doing for a while, and by the time an hour had passed and Lin had come in to see us, I was at 4 cm, so they decided to keep us. It was around 9:00 p.m., it was the real thing, and the only way I was going to be sleeping between then and having a baby was an epidural.

We walked around a bit to see if that would help move things along; it didn't. Both Lin and the nurse pointed out that if we just let things move slowly I would probably be completely and utterly exhausted by the time I had to push. That sounded reasonable, since I'd been up since around 4am, so we decided to have Lin break the bag. I think that was around 10:30, and I was at about 5 cm. As expected, the contractions felt a lot more intense after that, and were coming closer together. Lin recommended I try the shower, so we did that for a while, and it helped a bit. But for the hours after the bag was broken, I had a really hard time finding a comfortable position either between or during contractions, and didn't feel like I was getting any rest in between, especially in my back. At some point after midnight, I have no idea when, I felt like I was at the end of my rope. I couldn't focus on anything; I just wanted to cry and for it all to go away. But Lin had had the nurse get the warming table ready, and the cart full of instruments and stuff, and from the questions she was asking me about what I was feeling and where, I got the impression it might be time to push soon. So she checked me for the first time in hours... and I was still at 5 cm.

This was when I finally truly understood what people mean when they say that there are times when having someone stick a needle into your spine sounds like a reasonable, nay, a brilliant idea. So they called Dr. Brown, the wonderful anesthesiologist, and he came and did the epidural. Good thing: I could function again, and think about sleeping. Bad thing: Finn's heart rate wasn't doing so good. They thought it might be related to the epidural and my blood pressure, so they gave me something for my blood pressure. It helped a bit (I think; I was not at my most alert at this point), but his pulse was still falling during contractions, and in between them not getting up as high as it had been. Lin called the doctor on call, Dr. Barrett, and he looked at the readout and said that if it went that low again, they getting him out. Period.

I was so out of it and so tired by then that I probably would have done anything anybody told me to. But Lin was great. She thought that he was coming up high enough between contractions, and as long as he kept that up, we'd watch carefully, give me very small amounts of pitocin, and wait for my cervix to catch up. Apparently some (most?) of the nurses in labor and delivery really thought we should have a C-section, and if Dr. Barrett had come back to check on us, we probably would have, but we didn't hear about any of this. We knew there was concern, and monitoring, but from our perspective the positions I was in and the fluid they put back in had gotten things back in a good place, and everything was fine. Thank you Lin! We slept a bit; they checked on us periodically, and we got through the night. It was scary to go from a free-range person to one attached to no fewer than six instruments/bags/whatnots in such a short time, but we were doing okay, and so was he.

When the new nurse, Maria (who replaced Maria, who replaced Emily) came on sometime around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, I'd been awake for about an hour. Finn's pulse was now good (back up to pre-bag-breaking-levels) after every contraction no matter what position I was in, which was great. I could still feel the pressure of the contractions, and I couldn't get entirely comfortable, but my attitude was a lot better. The pressure was telling me it might be time to push, so I told Maria that, and she checked me - completely dilated, and ready to go. She said if I felt like pushing, go ahead. We started pushing; Lin came; and then at 9:20 we had a baby! I guess it must have been about an hour and a half of pushing, but it really didn't feel that long. The cord had been wrapped around his neck, which was probably the problem in the night, but it was around loosely, just once, and he's very healthy. And loud. And has a full head of hair. And is a skilled eater.

We like him. We're going to keep him.

-Katie