New Sideshow Freak - the eternally pregnant woman!

Believe it or not, I started a blog in February about how well I was coping with being pregnant.  I thought I was doing really well with holding it together.  Then... the waiting began.  You see, though I always go a week late, I had (once again) convinced myself that I would have this baby early.  I talked a good game about how I didn't expect to have the baby before March 15, but in my heart of hearts, I thought I'd have a late Feb/early March baby.  Boy, was I wrong. 

Mom, in true best Mom on the planet style, basically moved in with us in the month of February to help me (read keep me from killing the kids).  I told her that someday, the girls would know how grateful they should be to her for being here, cause the amount of beating they would have received was greatly reduced.  After a week or so of being here, Mom gently suggested that we put the girls back in pre-school and I quickly realized that she was right.  My ability to do anything creative or fun had really been sucked entirely out of my body.  So we signed them back up and after a couple gigantic snow storms, they started in March. 

March 9, my due date, rolled up on the calendar and now my dad joined the party.  He was pretty convinced I would have the baby quickly, and wanted to be here to help at a moments notice.  (here's where I'll tell people that don't know, my parents live about 2 hours away and we all thought this baby would pretty much fall out of me, this is why being close was important)  No baby on March 9.  No baby on March 10.  Do you see a pattern?  I had an ultrasound at 40 weeks to check on Bullseye - they predicted the baby weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces.  We all laughed.  This baby wouldn't be anywhere close to that, those late ultrasounds are so inaccurate.  This baby would be 10 pounds probably, but no more...

By March 15, I started to lose my sense of humor.  People started telling me that we'd HAVE to name the baby Patrick or Patricia if it was born on St. Patrick's Day.  My response?  Would I name the baby Jesus if it was born on Christmas? NO. 

Advice on how to go into labor poured in.  Seriously?  I thought, I've had 3 babies, don't you think I've tried all this crap?  But try it again I did.  Indian food, raspberry leaf tea, castor oil, chinese food, coffee ice cream... nada.  Walk, walk, walk!  People said.  Like it's my fault that I'm not in labor cause I'm lazy and obviously not doing enough to go into labor.  March 17 went by, I wanted to have a ceremonial burning of the "Baby's First St. Patrick's Day" outfits.   March 18, 19, 20.... In my more morose moments I felt like I was disappointing everyone by not having the baby.  My parents had basically put their lives on hold and were living in my house.  My poor dad is hobbling around on a bad knee, but hadn't scheduled an MRI cause he was at my house helping me out.  And in the background,  the voices started... there's something wrong... there's a reason this baby isn't being born.  I'm going to have to have a c-section, the baby's got a problem, something's not right...

If I went two weeks overdue, I would automatically be transferred from the Birth Center to Dr. Cookse's care at Christiana and I'd be induced.  Mom superstitiously believed that I was waiting for Dorinda to be on call before I'd have the baby and would ask if she was on after each visit.  Sunday, the 21st, I got the stomach bug that had already struck down most of the house.  I woke up and was immediately ill.  After having a boo hoo in the shower, I called Jeff upstairs and told him that he needed to make everyone leave the house for the day.  I basically wanted to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself all day, without anyone observing the puddle of depressed pregnant woman I was going to become. 

Monday the 22 was it, the deadline.  At 9AM, I had an appointment to have my water broken, a non-pharmaceutical induction method.  We showed up only to be told the baby was still too high to break my water.  (If you break your water and the baby is high, the umbilical cord can come out first and that's a big problem)  After a little discussion, Dorinda suggested that I try castor oil again.  Okay, sure, why not.  So she goes and gets the biggest dose of castor oil I have ever seen in my life.  It was a dixie cup FULL.  In case that doesn't sound like much, go get a dixie cup, fill it with Wesson Oil and drink it.  I made if halfway through the dose, gagged, but rallied to finish it.  I tried to imagine it was Jagermeister.  After a chaser of cranberry juice and a spoonful of peanut butter to kill the taste, we were sent to go eat some breakfast and walk for a couple hours, with orders to return around 1.  The last thing Dorinda told me on the way out the door was that if I wasn't having contractions by then, or the baby hadn't moved down at all, I would be going to the hospital that night to be induced. 

To Cosmo's Diner we went, where Jeff's mom joined us.  After breakfast, we went to Babies R Us, cause seriously, where else can a woman that pregnant go without drawing alot of attention to herself?  I started feeling some crampiness, but chalked it up to the castor oil.  We bought some binkies for Jack and headed back to the Birth Center, where I was now completely certain I would find out what time my induction was scheduled.  On the way, I told Jeff that I had gotten right with the idea of going to the hospital.  Jeff asked me what I wanted at the hospital - drugs or no drugs?  I said DRUGS.  Absolutely.  If I was going to the hospital to get a pitocin drip, I was getting the full court press.  Drugs, a couple days in the hospital, the whole works. 

We got back to the Birth Center and I had just gotten the words, "I'm feeling a little something" out of my mouth when a contraction like a freight train hit me.  Suddenly, I was in full "labor song".  My mom burst into tears.  That morning, I was 2-3 cm.  When they checked me now, I was 5.  Hooray castor oil.  The old wives know of what they speak.  Sarah, the midwife, began filling the water birth tub and now contractions were coming every three minutes or so and they were getting more intense.  I kept looking at the level of the water in the tub, thinking when can I get in?  Everyone had told me that the water would really help ease the pain and relax me, and I was ready to be eased and relaxed.  Finally it was ready and things started really rocking and rolling.  Kristen arrived to be my photojournalist and Johna came in for moral support.

The whole time I was in the tub, I was trying to concentrate on the things that my friend Michelle Uy had told me about hypnobirthing - each contraction is one closer to the baby, my body is doing the things it needs to do, etc.  It was now around 2 and we all took bets on when the baby would make it's arrival - 3PM was the general consensus.  Great, I can do this for an hour, I thought, I can do anything for an hour.  I was fully dialated except for a "lip" of cervix by 2:45 and was definitely feeling the urge to push.  Sarah did some midwife magic and we thought we got the lip out of the way.  Out of the tub I came and onto the bed, which hurt like a son of a bitch.  So we tried the birth stool, which is basically a chair with the middle cut out.  Strangely enough, contractions on the birth stool were not particularly painful, but they also weren't effective.  I was pushing and pushing and pushing, and nothing was happening.  Now the crazy voices in my head began to take over.  Every person who had told me a c-section story had a moment in my head.  It was 3:30 and I said to Sarah, "This isn't right.  I don't push for hours."  I only pushed for 8 minutes with Jack for crying out loud.  Sarah kept assuring me that things were fine, but I wasn't believing her.  I totally lost my head and at one point told Jeff that he needed to do something cause no one was listening to me.  Sarah went to go get Dorinda for a consultation. 

Now, let me tell you about Dorinda.  Jeff and I joke that when she's not delivering babies, she's busy changing the seasons, cause she's actually Mother Nature.  Dorinda Dove is EXACTLY what you think a midwife is going to be like.  She's capable, confident, and caring without being schmaltzy.  She delivered both Maggie and Jack, and in both cases, she came in at the end of my labors to do it.  She swept in the room this time and the whole energy of the room changed.  Up to then, it had been very quiet, except for the beepclick of Kristen's camera.  Sarah is an excellent midwife, but the quiet confidence of Dorinda seemed to open up all my support people.  I know that my mom was relieved to see her, it made it feel like if something was wrong, Dorinda would fix it, or know when to call it. 

Dorinda checked me and found the cervix was still there.  She pushed it out of the way, and then moved to let Sarah take back over.  She didn't leave though, she stayed with us, and for that I will always be grateful.  She sat by my head and told me what to do.  If she had told me I could push for five more hours, I probably would have believed her.  The other thing that changed was Kristen and Johna began to cheer me on.  Because they could now see the progress I was making, and because they're good enough friends that I know they would bullshit me, I knew if they were excited, I really was making progress.  I can still hear Kristen's excited voice telling me I was doing it.  They probably don't realize how much that really helped me.  People think it's weird that I have a lot of people at my births, but it works for me.  I thrive on that kind of energy. 

Finally, the baby made it's way into the world.... and it's a BOY!  William Jeffrey Lacey.  He was completely grayish blue though and didn't cry when they put him on my chest.  After a couple scary seconds, with oxygen and much rubbing by the midwife and nurse, he began to cry and pink up.  Everyone was immediately taken with how BIG this child was.  My first thought was, Thank GOD That's over!, but my second was "Holy crap, look at his cheeks!"  Turns out that he was "sunny side up" or upside down in the birth canal.  What this means is that A) his head didn't put equal pressure on my cervix which is probably why I didn't go into labor earlier and B) that I had to push the widest part of his ENORMOUS head out.  Babies' heads are like little transformers and when they're born the right way, the head compresses to be born.  Not my boys, cause Jack was the same way.  Stinkers.

Normally, the staff of the Birth Center is in no hurry to take your baby away from you to measure him, but this time, you could tell they wanted a weight on this kid.  So when I was getting myself taken care of, Colleen, the nurse, weighed the monster baby... 11 pounds 3 ounces... just like the damned ultrasound said. 

In the end, we have a beautiful baby boy to complete our family.  Three boys and three girls, including Jeff and me.  Joey is the deciding vote, but he's neutered so he can go either way.  We couldn't feel more blessed and I now feel like our family is complete.  Each girl has a little brother to bother her, each brother has a sister to introduce him to cute girls.  Life at the Lacey's is good. 

People keep asking me how I feel, am I having baby blues, etc.  I think I got all my baby blues out in the last two weeks of pregnancy and now I'm just so happy to not be the endlessly pregnant woman that I can't imagine being anything but all smiles. 

Thank you again to everyone who supported me during this journey... from the beginning to the LONG awaited end.  Every joke, every FB post, every phone call or babysitting duty, they were all appreciated.  I have to especially thank Jeff, my patient and wonderful husband, who dealt with all the ups and downs of this pregnancy.  I joke all the time that I got a deluxe model husband, but it's times like this when a man's quality really shows!  Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more craziness to come, just not pregnant crazy!