Lily Helene Leonte is born!

On July 21st 2008 at 7:45am. It's already been 10 days since her birth and it's been a whirlwind! I've never been so sleep deprived, crying all the time and incredibly happy all at the same time:) it's hard to describe all the feelings...the one image i remember distinctly from a week ago is when the midwife put her on my chest all warm and greasy from my belly. I'll never forget that moment. But first things first, let's go back to Sunday July 20th at 7am when my water broke...I was sleeping soundly, having just celebrated my birthday the day before by getting my hair done and going out to eat with Lucian and i was looking forward to a nice relaxing Sunday having plans to have a bbq with our nice neighbors. But Lily had it planned otherwise...when they say: "trust me, you will know when your water breaks..." i know now they know what they're talking about. A huge pool of water came gushing out of me and i woke up Lucian to get me a towel. I knew that we had to go to the hospital right away. My suitcase was ready so it didn't take us much time to get to the maternity in Saint Junien. Once there they examined me and of course i wasn't dilated at all, "0" was still the last measure on the cervix and i wasn't having any contractions... not the scenario i had been preparing for of course. The doc came by and explained that they would have to induce me by Monday am if nothing had happen by then as there is a risk of infection when the water has been broken. That didn't please me as i was hoping for a natural birth without meds but they gave me until the end of the day and so i did as many exercises as i could, walked around the hallways, moved my hips, did some yoga, etc. while Lucian was watching Formula 1 on tv but nothing happened. Came the evening the doc told me there was an alternative: introduce "something" in my cervix that would slowly dilate it, without giving me contractions, the idea was to start things slowly while allowing me to get a good night sleep in preparation for delivery the next day. That was the plan but again Lily decided otherwise. The midwife inserted the "device" around 1pm and by 2pm i was feeling those darn contractions and they were very painful...I called the midwife, told her there was no sleeping in my future tonight so she proposed a shot of morphine to help the contractions pass...i opted for it (maybe shouldn't have in retrospect but i was fooled by the prospect of a "good' night sleep). I started feeling loopy but still felt the contractions very strongly, so much for morphine!. I began breathing and moving my hips as i had been preparing myself to but contractions were getting more and more painful and by 4am i was in such pain that i couldn't manage anymore and called the midwife again. She checked my cervix and it was at 5cm!! alleluiah I remember yelling!! at least something happened! they decided to move me to the delivery room at that point. Once there the midwife asked if i wanted an epidural, i wasn't quite sure given i knew things would go quite a bit faster from now on. She estimated it should take another hour before i'd be fully dilated and by that point i was able to manage the contractions by moving my hips. She told me i was doing very well and it might be best to continue this way as it would make it easier to figure out when to push, so i decided to keep going without meds. Lucian was holding my hands and supporting me as i was moving around and i was also letting out big loud grunts with each contractions. It was incredibly painful but i was managing. Soon enough i was fully dilated and felt the urge to push. And I pushed, as best i could but i was exhausted and even though i wanted to try different positions i couldn't think about it as i was focused on managing the pain of the contractions. So i let the midwifes tell me what to do but after 45 mins of pushing it became clear that the baby wasn't moving down anymore and i had very little energy left in me to push. They decided to call the doc who was on duty that night and luckily it was my doc...He quickly saw that the way i was pushing wasn't doing anything, i had to round my back more and that the baby's shoulders were blocking the way so he decided to use a vacum...That's when i experienced real pain! hard to describe with words but i didn't know pain before is all i can say...First he pulled out a huge needle which i had time to see unfortunately, supposedly to numb the pain, which of course he inserted in my vagina...And he proceeded to install the vacum. From my viewpoint i have no idea what it looked like and how it was inserted in my "area" but let me tell you i felt it, and i wondered what happened with the anesthesia: the pain was excruciating. I remember saying: "i'm just going to die now, this is unbearable". He told me to push and i don't remember how many times i did but i want to say 3 or 4 times until everyone told me "keep going, keep going, we see the hair!"...i couldn't believe it...shortly after she came and they put her on my chest and all the pain disappeared at that moment. She was all warm against me, moving around as she had been doing in my belly all this time. Incredible!