kitten is here!

i put off writing my 39 week update until after my midwife appointment, but things didn't go as planned that day!  i went to the clinic at 4pm and everything was going really well.  i mentioned that kitten wasn't moving as much over the past 4-5 days, but we confirmed she had dropped and was in the ideal position for labor, and i felt great.  when veronica monitored the heart rate, i eventually noticed that she was taking much longer than usual and she looked perplexed.  she faxed the results to the hospital and came back and said it was probably nothing but she had never seen that particular pattern and she wanted me to go to the hospital where i'd likely be staying overnight for monitoring.  colby had to leave work early and we only had so much time before the last car barge left, so we threw a bunch of random stuff into the hospital bag just in case.

they were expecting us when we arrived and got me straight into a room and hooked up to oxygen, fluid, and monitors.  we waited several hours for the doctor to arrive, watching kitten's heart rate fluctuate all over the place and occasionally drop scary low.  things started to improve right off the bat so they concluded that i was probably just dehydrated, but i knew it wasn't that.  after a few hours i asked if i could take off the oxygen and not long after that her heart rate began to drop again.  when the doctor did a sonogram, she was concerned immediately about the level of amniotic fluid and began talking about recommending an induction.  i had my heart set on a 100% natural birth, and it all went out the window because we probably had to get her out right away.  the doctor left me hooked up to sleep for a few hours to see if the fluids they were giving me would improve my amniotic fluid levels, but in the morning nothing had changed and there was actually a period of 4 straight minutes of heart decels that were very concerning, so we had to do something.

at 9:05 am on thursday morning, we began pitocin induction despite the fact that i was not dilated and only slightly effaced.  i had zero hope of anything but a c-section when we started out because i've heard all the horror stories.  i tried to stay calm and nap, but there were women in rooms on both sides of me giving birth and not handling it very well at all.  one woman was literally howling the exact way sebastian does when he's super upset about me leaving.  the other one was screaming and wailing and had a screaming toddler with her also.  as the day went on, things progressed surprisingly well.  i went from 0-2 and then to 4 within a couple hours and without feeling a single contraction.  when i began to feel contractions, the nurse offered me demerol for pain and i went ahead and took it.  i didn't expect it to be so strong, but it pretty much sent me to outer space for a while and next thing i knew i was at 8 and my water broke on its own.  at this point, i was f'd up, in pain, shaking violently from the demerol, and starting to feel like epidurals were pretty awesome and i might want one.  turns out my insurance doesn't cover that and we'd have to come up with $1200 up front so i accepted my fate.  colby, however, couldn't stand to see me in pain so he set out to acquire $1200.  even if he had been able to, there wouldn't have been time because i was ready to push shortly after that.  colby says i pushed for 2 hours, but it seemed like about 45 minutes to me and honestly wasn't bad at all.  i didn't scream or cry, i didn't poop, and i only had one minor internal tear.  i was able to get immediate skin to skin and delayed cord clamping.

colby was so supportive and excited the whole time and i couldn't have asked for a better partner.  he kept telling me that what i was doing was amazing and thanking me for going through it for us.  he got to touch kitten's head while she was coming out and even though he had said he didn't want to, he jumped at the opportunity to feel and cut the cord.  it wasn't the birth experience we planned, but i have to say it was awesome!

catherine amory thompson was born at 6:39 pm on 12/6/12 after 9.5 hours of labor.  she's a petite little cat at 5 lbs 12 oz and 19.5 inches long.  she's absolutely the most amazing thing ever and we're so ridiculously in love.