Colette's Story

We welcomed our sweet Colette Therese last Sunday (February 24, it's taken me a little while to finish this post up).  It was beautiful, painful, intense, and a completely new experience, despite the fact that this was my second birth.  Miss Colette has been writing her very own unique story since she joined our family over nine months ago.

The day before her birthday, my mom decided to drive out as a second blizzard was supposed to roll into Kansas on top of the previous one that had dropped 14 inches on them.  Because I hadn't had any definite signs labor was imminent, I was worried that we would waste the time we had with my mom just waiting for labor to start (she has 8 other grandbabies to help take care of back home).  Apparently she and my Dad (who wanted her to leave asap), know what they're doing, because she made it with just enough time to get a little sleep before things got rolling.

Sometime around 4 am on Sunday morning, my water broke.  After having a slight freak out because I didn't realize what was going on (my water had to be broken with Anni when I was at 9.5 cm, so I never really experienced it before), we called my doctor and our wonderful doula and headed to the hospital.  The contractions were strong, but definitely not unbearable, and Daniel kept me laughing as we drove through the beginnings of a blizzard to meet our little one.

At the hospital, I was a 6 by the time the nurse checked me.  Our doula arrived soon after, and after getting my first dose of antibiotics (I am GBS+), I was set free to labor as I wished.  This was a dream come true.  My first labor had been (necessarily) tied down as they tried to slow labor to get my little preemie steroids for her lungs.  This time, we started out walking the halls, pausing when a contraction got a little strong, noting where the good coffee was, and chatting about just about everything.  We made it back for my doctor and mom to arrive through the blizzard.  I was at a 7, and the doctor suggested pitocin to speed things along, to which I replied that I'd rather give our girl time to make her way on her own (and luckily both my husband and doula encouraged me that I was moving along just fine and not to worry).  He agreed and said he'd check again in a couple of hours and we continued on our laboring way.  I tried just about every position we could think of for laboring: lying down when I had to (they did fetal monitoring every hour), standing and leaning on Daniel (my favorite by far), shower, bathtub, birthing ball... yep, just about everything.  I had music playing (Pandora's Enya station, because... why not?  Contractions during particularly intense instrumental portions kind of made everyone giggle... to the extent that you can giggle during contractions).  The beautiful thing for me is that up until the doctor's final check, labor flowed along at a really peaceful pace.  It was painful, but I felt in control in a way I was never able to feel in my first labor.  I was able to move, laugh and connect with what was going on with my body.

The next time the doctor checked me, I was still at a 7, despite the fact that things had definitely gotten more intense.  I was a little bit disappointed, but he mentioned that it looked like my water hadn't broken all the way, and if he took care of that, things would probably move along.  Oh, my, was he right!  Within 15 minutes, I moved from a 7 to a 10 and my body started pushing all on it's own. I am so glad my wonderful birthing team (husband, mom and doula) had been coaching me to breathe the entire labor as that was the only reason I remembered to breathe through those (slightly terrifying) last minutes as the contractions just rolled in, one after the other.  Miss Colette was born at 12:55 pm, with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.  Her oxygen had dropped during my last couple of pushes, and they had oxygen ready to put on me for her, but I was so determined to push that I got her out faster than they expected.  Luckily, the umbilical cord was taken care of quickly and I finally had my sweet girl on my tummy, safe and sound.  She started screaming as soon as she was out, but stopped as soon as they laid her on me, staring around with those big, wide-open eyes and throwing newborn grins to just about anyone who checked on her.  I was just so overjoyed that she was there and, honestly, that I was *done*.  While my doctor stitched me up, Daniel and I just soaked in the fact that we had made it.  I breathed and relaxed for the first time and looked at our girl and my husband.  Daniel noticed our doctor just couldn't stop grinning (it's obvious he absolutely loves the baby part of his job) and everyone placed bets on how big she was going to be when they weighed her (6 lbs 13 oz, in case you're curious, smaller than anyone but me expected, though I don't know why I thought she'd be in that range with her being 41 weeks).

A little while later, my in-laws brought Anni in to meet "her baby".  She was a little confused by the hospital itself and clung to her daddy, but knew her little sister immediately and hasn't stopped loving on her since.

It's amazing that this little girl's story is just beginning... I can't wait to see it unfold!

PS The first five photos were taken by my lovely doula... it's amazing to look through all of them from labor and delivery and "see" what was going on from the outside.