Evelyn Letha Bohnsack

Posted by E-George on September 27, 2008

An epic saga worthy of much retelling, the story of Evelyn’s birth.  But, first, we will sum up:

Birth: 22-Sept-2008, 8:24pm

Weight: 6lb 11oz

Length: 19 in

Hair: Light brown

Eyes: Dark smokey blue

Nails: Long and freakishly sharp

This is her:

These are her long nails:

This is Evelyn and her new daddy:

This is Evelyn and The Godfather:

There’s a whole grand array of images from her first whopping 5 days outside of the womb here.

Note of warning: There are details.  Gory details in the writing that follows.  If you’re squeamish, or TMI sensitive, I’d advise stopping here.

Now, for the full story.  Not that it’s all that dramatic, but hey, it’s still worth sharing.  We had planned on having a home birth.  Note the use of the phrase “had planned” here.   One may rightly assume that we were unsuccessful, but through very little fault of our own, and certainly NOT for a lack of trying.

Saturday, 20-Sept 9:00pm - my water breaks.  A little.  Enough to have very noticeable and breathtaking contractions start within the following half hour.  We called the midwife and she gave us some tips on how to deal with it: Go back to bed and try to sleep as much as possible.  Matthew promptly obeyed.  I, however, was more miserable laying down than I was up and wandering about leaking various fluids.  So, that’s what I ended up doing.

Sunday, 21-Sept 6:00pm - the midwife and her assistant arrived to the house and began setting up for the birth.  I’d spent the entire night trying to “release to the birthing process” by breathing and talking to myself in a calm and reassuring manner.  The mental wrestling match proved more astonishingly difficult than the contractions, which surprised me some, as I’ve always been pretty good about being able to talk myself off the ledge of hysteria when it came to pain management.  This, however, was a completely different ouch-marathon than I’d ever experienced before.

Sunday, 21-Sept 12:00pm - all my water has broken by now, and we saw that it was muddied with meconium (brace yourself, that link has pictures).  The notable thing about this time was that was roughly when the midwife had expected me to be pushing Evelyn out.  No dice.  When she checked my cervix, it was only 3cm dilated.  We were still in early labor - we hadn’t even moved to active labor.  No one was more disappointed by that than me, because that meant that this pain that was mounting and more difficult to manage was going to get worse.  We began to think of ways to start improving the dilation process and tried all of the following:  walking, kneeling, hands-and-knees, bending over a balance ball, standing in the shower, NOT standing in the shower, rocking in the recliner, and finally, around 4pm, the midwife brought in…THE POOL.  Let me clarify by stating that THE POOL is actually a child’s inflatable play pool the outside walls of which are perhaps 3.5 feet high, and the internal wall height being approximately 3 feet high. It was clear (as in, see-through), except for the cartoon fish which generously festooned the entire apparatus.  The sidewalls were inflatable, as was the bottom portion that also contained a raised ring, clearly designed for the width of a child’s ass, not for that of a beached pregnant woman’s ass.   I relented about THE POOL for two reasons: (1) I had developed a muscle cramp laterally across the ribcage along my left side wrapping around to my back that was starting to eclipse contractions in terms of pain, and (2) I was only 5cm dilated by the time we got THE POOL out, but the cervix was so damn swollen that I might as well have still be 3cm dilated.  What was worse, the cramp was interfering in my ability to relax in between contractions enough to stay calm to “release to the process”.  Worse still was I knew that the fewer contractions I could release to, the longer and harder labor was going to be. We filled THE POOL with warm water and I crawled in and felt some relief.  It was really quite blissful, and when a cool cloth was across the back of my neck I sincerely thought that THE POOL might be just where we may have ended up birthing Evelyn.  Perish the thought.

Sunday 21-Sept 9:00pm - I’m out of THE POOL.  It was such a miserable process to get back out of the stupid thing that I never wanted to go back in.  I continued to labor along and it was worse.  Much worse.  But, I was consoled by the midwife who assured me that we were FINALLY in active labor.  A quick cervix check showed that I was now 5cm dilated.  That’s right.  No further along than when I was in THE POOL.  The only noteworthy thing here is that the cervix isn’t as swollen.  So, it was appearing as though moving around and being active was a problem for the progression of labor, thus I ended up laying in bed on the side that’s cramping and proceeded to labor there for the next 5 hours.

Monday 22-Sept 5:00am - We have gotten NO. WHERE.  I’m at 7cm, but the cervix is swollen again, worse than before.  Membranes have been ruptured for damn near 30 hours, and the baby’s heartbeat has suddenly gone from being in a safe range to going tachycardic.  My blood pressure has been climbing this whole time, and my own pulse has been steadily increasing.  I’m exhausted.  The midwives are exhausted.  Matthew has had so little sleep I feared he may have actually been seeing double and just not saying anything.  I’d failed.  But, I hadn’t given up - obviously, the baby had to come out and there was no going back now.  The options were: (1) stay home, keep laboring, and hope the baby can withstand the stress; (2) go to the hospital, get an epidural, get some rest, and try again.   We opted for (2).

Monday 22-Sept 7:00am - We arrived to UNM Hospital and check in to OB Triage.  Here’s where it gets fun.  I’ve consented that the only way I could finish this process, given the persisting muscle cramp problem, is to have an epidural, get a nap, and push this kid out.  I’m in the stupid hospital gown, looking like a shit storm that’s just made landfall, laying on the horrid examination table and learn that we’ve checked in EXACTLY at shift change.  SHIFT. CHANGE.  There will be no examination until after shift change.  There will be no drugs until after shift change.  There will be no nap until after shift change.   Finally, an OB doc showed up (who, incidentally, proved to be a marvelously supportive and exceptional human being), did an examination and found that I had reduced to 5cm.   I wanted to cry.  They moved me to the labor and delivery ward, and almost as soon as I got there the anesthesiologist was there and gave what was probably the most perfect epidural in the history of epidurals. After the epidural, one loses the use of their legs, so a foley catheter had to be installed. Also, as part of monitoring for the power and frequency of contractions, some sort of pressure doo-hingus was put up into the uterus. I recalled thinking that it seemed odd to have so many various apparati going up an area where something much larger is trying to come down. The hospital staff saw the fetal tachycardia sprout up again, but after a quick bolus of fluids back into the uterus everything calmed down. They suggested they may just not bother letting me progress enough to deliver vaginally, but force a c-section. I replied that I wasn’t interested, and any further discussion about it was going to have to involve more immediate peril to me or Evelyn before I’d submit to that. They (surprisingly) acquiesced. And, in exchange, they hooked me up to a Pitocin drip. I got a nap. The midwives got naps. And, Matthew got a nap (and more importantly something to eat and some coffee).

Monday 22-Sept 6:00pm - The baby’s heartbeat kept doing bad things.  We’d endured another shift change, so I had a new doc who would be doing the delivery.  She was OK.  Not as great as the one before, but beggars can’t be choosers. We start pushing.

Monday 22-Sept 8:25pm - It was interesting to note that right before Evelyn crowned, my delivery room suddenly seemed to be TEAMING with people.  Someone introduced himself as the, “On Call doctor from pediatrics”. I wouldn’t ordinarily have noted that, except he did so right as I was bearing down on a big ol’ push and wondered if he thought I was rude for not responding to him. There were no less than 10 different faces staring up my action trying to get the best view. It didn’t matter.  I pushed Evelyn out and got to feel the whole thing (sans the eye-popping pain).  Turns out, the cord was wrapped around her neck, her shoulders, AND her body, explaining the tachycardia.  One could only imagine how she managed such a feat, but given that part of her genetic makeup is from me, we’ll not delve into any deep speculation.  They untangled her, handed her to me right away, and we haven’t been apart since.

I have NEVER been poked, prodded, stuck, bossed, jammed, monitored, and generally observed in all my life.   And, as I had been assured since learning I was pregnant in the first place: It. Was. Completely. Worth. It.

Matthew was wonderful throughout and continues to be attentive and amazing in his post maternity care of both of us girls. I could stare into her beautiful little face all day.  She’s a prodigious eater.  She’s a prodigious farter.  She’s a prodigious charmer.   OK.  One more picture.

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