Birth Story

I can't believe Eleni is 2 weeks old already!! (just a little side note: its taken me so long to finish this blog post that that sentence has been changed from '1 week', to '10 days', to 'almost 2 weeks'...now we're a little past 2 weeks but lets see if I can finally finish this thing!)

Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy every minute because the time is going to fly...they weren't kidding!

So I thought I better finally tell you all about Eleni's birthday before time really flies and I start to forget the details.

First of all, here are the stats - 

Born: August 27th 2012

Time: 8:15am

Weight: 3.46kg or 7lbs 6oz

Length: 51cm or 20 inches

Estimated Due Date: August 24th (so she was only 3 days late despite what everyone around here thinks)

Natural birth, took about 9 hours, NO DRUGS (still can't believe I did that) 

Everyone is healthy and couldn't be happier

Now, here's the story....

So my family arrived on Saturday August 25th. Remember my vision of them running through the halls of the Mytilini hospital trying to find me before I had the baby, suitcases flying behind them? I sincerely thought that was going to happen. But it didn't. I was still very pregnant on the 25th....very VERY pregnant. So Mom, Dad and Kev all got to see the ginormous baby belly....if only I'd gotten a photo of their reactions when they saw me for the first time! Hilarious! 

August 26th started out like every other day...feeling huge and wondering if the baby would finally come today. At 3pm I was at the beach with my family when I felt a contraction. No big deal, I'd been getting contractions for 2 weeks so I figured it was just more Braxton Hicks (false labor) and didn't mention it.

At about 5pm we were all swimming in Eftalou, Antonis was there too, I was in the water with my Mom and Dad when I got a pretty big contraction. I couldn't hide that one, they knew right away I was in pain. But I assured them it was nothing, again because I've been having contractions for weeks with no results. My Mom wouldn't listen to me though, she kept saying "We're going to the hospital tonight!".....as much as I'd been saying it's time to have this baby, I really didn't want to hear her say it was about to happen. It made me nervous. I told her not to get excited, the baby won't be here tonight.

By the time we came home from the beach the contractions were about 25, sometimes 20 minutes apart. I still wasn't totally convinced but I was beginning to think....hmmmm, maybe this is it? Everyone else was getting over-excited and stressed about it which I didn't like at all so I just kept telling everyone it wasn't going to happen today to try to get them to shut up. It didn't really seem to work so I decided to go home to take a shower and then we planned to meet up again at my parent's house across the street to order in souvlaki for dinner.

Antonis was getting ready for work so I waited for him to finish before I took my shower...but now suddenly the contractions were about 15 minutes apart. Finally I was convinced. I told Antonis we'd be going to the hospital that night. We did a little dance.

We decided that I'd probably be in labor for a long time so it was best that he go to work and I'd just call him to come home when it was time to go. So he went to work. That was 7pm. I took my shower, got dressed, went to my parents' house, ordered souvlaki, by 9pm I had to call Antonis to come home because now the contractions were 10 minutes apart. We live an hour away from the hospital so I didn't want to wait to long (I hadn't had any nightmares about giving birth in the car on the way to the hospital but I'll admit it had existed as a tiny little thought at the back of my mind for the last couple of weeks)...but I also didn't want to go to soon just in case we get all the way there and find out it's way to early and they send us back home again.

So Antonis came home, got changed, packed a bag for himself, I ate my pita gyro (yes of course we still ordered souvlaki) and off we went to the hospital.

We must have looked like a parade leaving Molyvos (so much for my discreet exit in the night) : Antonis and I in our car leading, my family behind us in their car, Antonis' parents' behind them in their car. We stopped quickly at the restaurant just to grab a bottle of water and Antonis' cell phone charger....the whole restaurant was yelling and cheering for us! Not just our friends but even people we'd never met before just having dinner there for the first time...it was weird but sweet...how do people hear about these things so fast around here?!?! So weird!

And finally we were off! We had to make sure my parents were directly behind us the whole way because they hadn't had a chance to figure out how to drive to the hospital yet and we didnt' have a map. Our plan was to take them with us to our doctor's appointment on Monday so they could see the way to the hospital and then they'd be able to drive themselves when I went into labour...but I went into labour a day too soon for that to happen.

Antonis chose the music: Carlos Santana for most of the trip and then some hardcore gangster rap from about 1996...turned up obscenely loud...it was perfect!

We got the hospital at about 11:00pm. The nurses brought me into the delivery room to check me. I didn't really understand what was about to happen and I was having a contraction when suddenly the nurse was checking my cervix.....holy shiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!! That hurt! My contractions were uncomfortable but not super painful at that point, I could talk through them and no one knew anything was happening so I didn't think to say "just wait a minute before you do that because I'm having a contraction" So that was a lesson quickly learned: don't let anyone touch your cervix when you're having a contraction. Ever!

Then they hooked me up to a machine to measure the contractions. It was the same machine that they used to do Eleni's non stress test earlier that week....the one where the idiot male nurse told me the box on the bottom measured uterine contractions and that it will measure at about 98 or 99 when I'm in REAL pain, and then he laughed....remember that guy? Well yeah, so I was back on that machine. The contractions were measuring around 85 but I was still talking through them just fine. That made me think labour was actually going to be easy and I had nothing to worry about.....hmmmm....

Next, Dr. Provenzas arrived and he took me in to do an ultrasound. His assistant was there too...actually he might be a medical student doing a practicum but I'm not sure, anyway his name was Stamatsis...later on Stamatsis was going to be my angel but right then I hated him. He was telling me to prepare myself mentally, that I was about to experience a lot of pain, the worst pain of my life but that I was going to be fine, I would survive, but be prepared. "Pain is going to be your best friend tonight".....
Yes.
He said that.
I hated Stamatsis.
Then.

So Dr. Provenza told us that I was only 1cm dilated (you have to get to 10cm before you start pushing) and that it was going to be a very long night but that I had to stay. So it was good that we didn't get sent home but not so good that it was going to be a very long night. Then I got cranky. Really really cranky. My parents and Antonis' parents were all just looking at me and I could tell everyone was nervous and excited and I was just feeding off of their energy which I really didn't like so I got pissed off thinking this was how it was going to be all night, and started pacing up and down the hall. The nurses didn't want our families to be there because it was late and the other women who had already delivered were trying to sleep. So turned into bitch mode I sent everyone home. No one wanted to leave but I think they also didn't want to argue with me so they all left.

The nurses gave me my room. It was a big room but there were 3 other women inside already with their new born babies. Antonis was allowed to stay with me. The contractions were about 10 minutes apart now and slightly more painful but not bad, so I was able to just breath through them and not bother the other ladies.

Very soon after that the contractions started coming every 5 minutes and slightly stronger again. I was still ok though. We told the nurses I was every 5 minutes, they checked my cervix again but this time it wasn't during a contraction and it was a very small sweet girl named Rhea...she was gentle and the exam didn't hurt at all. I was still only 1cm dilated. I came back to the room feeling down and slightly worried that this was going to take longer than I'd thought.

Around 3am I sent Antonis out to the car to get something out of my suitcase...we hadn't brought it in yet because we thought we'd have tons of time to get it later....I don't even remember what I wanted out of it now...anyway, at 3am I felt and heard a popping sound in my lower stomach. I sat up right away and thought "what the hell was that?!" It didn't hurt, it was just a weird feeling and a weird sound.

Then it happened again.

Then I felt some liquid leaking out so I figured it must have been my water breaking. I stood up beside my bed...more water came out....I started running to the bathroom, more and more water came out...I got into the bathroom and I flooded the heck out of that place! It was crazy! Typhoon Tara! After a minute it seemed like there wasn't any water left (oh the naive first time mom) so I started to walk to the nurses station to tell them my water had broken....before I got there I flooded the hallway. Then I flooded the nurses station....then I flooded the hallway again on the way to the delivery room (they wanted to check my cervix again to see how many centimeters dilated I was now)....and then I flooded the delivery room. I was like a freakin' walking tsunami! Poor little nurse Rhea, she nearly drowned!

So 3am, my water has broken (massively) and I was now 3cm dilated. Still 7 cm more to go.

I walked out of the delivery room to go back to bed and found Antonis in the hallway. The other nurse had told him what happened (and warned him not to slip in the water). We were laughing about how he'd missed all the action but that maybe it was a good thing since we only brought 1 pair of shoes for him.

The nurses told me that labour would start to get more intense now.

WARNING: if you're about to give birth or are planning to have a baby in the near future....just skip over this part ok?

Oh.My.God.....intense does not even begin to describe what that felt like. I can't even describe what that felt like. I don't actually want to think about because it's still a bit fresh and a little traumatic so I'll just confirm what everyone else says....it's the worst pain you'll ever feel in your entire life.

This is where things got difficult. The contractions were coming every 2 - 4 minutes now and they were so strong. I didn't know what to do to escape the pain but I kept trying to think of ways to get through it. Visualization, breathing, basically all the techniques I had read about over the last 9 months but nothing was working. I was lying in my bed with my head hanging over the edge, gripping Antonis' leg so tight he probably still has bruises. He massaged my back for what felt like hours which really helped a lot. I felt bad because I was moaning with the contractions now and I didn't want to keep the other girls in the room awake, so I kept apologizing. They were so sweet though, they told me not to worry about a thing and just do what I needed to do.

The pain kept getting worse and at some point I lost confidence in myself that I could make it through the night. I told Antonis I really needed my Mom there and would he please call her. He went outside, then suddenly the phone was at my ear and my brother was asking me if I was ok. I could hardly talk. I told him it hurt so much and could he wake Mom up and come back to the hospital. So they were on their way back.

The nurses kept checking on me to see how I was doing. At one point I was crying and asked if there was anything they could give me for the pain. She just looked at me sympathetically...she said she'd check, but I knew she wasn't going to give me anything. I was ok with that though and I told her that, I didn't really want to take anything, I wanted to do this without drugs. She told me I was doing well and she suggested I get into the shower. That sounded amazing, so I did.

I sent Antonis back to car to get my towel......why didn't I have this stuff with me???!!! Next time I'll know!....so I got into the shower and just kept the warm water on my lower back and lower stomach, where all the pain was happening. Thankfully this really helped a lot but I think it was helping more by keeping me calm through the contractions because the pain was so intense now that I was screaming with every contraction. I have no idea how long I was in there for, it seemed like forever, and I kept checking to see if Antonis was back with my towel because I was sure it was almost time to push. The contractions were right on top of each other and it felt like I only had seconds of relief before another one would start. I was also starting to feel like I wanted to push a little bit.

Finally Antonis came back, I dried off and asked him to get the nurses to come and check me. They came in and asked me to walk down to the delivery room again. I said I couldn't walk down the hallway anymore, asked if they could check me in my bed. They were fine with that.

Now it's 7am and I was 7cm dilated. They said it was time to go the delivery room.

Somehow I walked all the way down that hallway but I must have had 10 contractions before I got there. The poor women in the maternity wing didn't get any sleep that night because of me! I actually wanted to crawl down the hallway on my hands and knees but I thought that would look over dramatic so I decided not to....yes, I seriously had this discussion with myself and cared about looking like a wuss.

So now I'm in the delivery room. My little nurse Rhea was there, the nurse that checked my cervix the first time (that made me scream bloody murder because I was having a contraction) was there, her name is Mirisini, And Stamatsis was there. I was pretty nervous at this point because I knew we were getting close to finishing, I was going to be pushing soon which seemed scary, they didn't let Antonis come in with me and my Mom still wasn't there which I couldn't understand because Antonis had called them about 2 hours ago. Also I wasn't a big fan of either Mirisini or Stamatsis at this point.

Suddenly it was just Stamatsis and I. He told me that soon my body would start to push by itself, but that I couldn't let myself push with it. He said that when I felt the urge to push I had to breath like I was blowing out candles on my birthday cake. Just after he said that I had a massive contraction and it felt like Eleni was on her way out....it was exactly like he said, my body was pushing by itself and it was like I couldn't control it. But I did the breathing, Stamatsis did the breathing with me and I made it through. The involuntary pushing was the strangest feeling I've ever experienced. For such a strong response to come from your own body, but you had nothing to do with causing that response to happen....I'm going to have to use the word 'intense' again because I just don't know how else to describe it.

Dr. Provenza finally arrived (I say finally because I kept thinking he'd never get there and the nurses would be delivering my baby....of course that wasn't going to happen but I think you all know how my imagination works by now). It was foggy outside that morning, for the first time in months, so he made a joke about how it looked like Canada outside. The wall opposite where I was lying was just one big giant window and this was the first time I looked outside...he was right, it looked like an October morning in Canada. Then I had a contraction. I screamed through the whole thing (as I'd been doing for a couple of hours now) and Provenza said "Bravo! They can hear you all the way in Holland!" For some reason that made me laugh.

I was still feeling a little afraid so I asked Stamatsis to hold my hand when I was about to have a really big contraction. He did, and he breathed with me again. He told me I was doing really well and that I'd be holding my daughter really soon. I asked him how soon. He said it would probably be less than an hour from now. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Suddenly my mood changed completely. I was having a baby!! I was SO excited, and I just couldn't wait to meet her. So I got my game face on and decided I wasn't going to be scared anymore. I'd made it through so much already that nothing was going to stop me in the next hour from finally meeting Eleni.

Mirisini came back into the room and told me that Antonis had left the hospital because my parents had gotten lost so he was going to meet them and guide them there. Luckily I had already changed my attitude at this point or else this probably would have been a lot more devastating. I remember thinking "they're totally not going to make it back in time, they're going to miss hearing her cry for the first time" but I just said ok and got back to focusing on Eleni.

Next Mirisini asked me if I'd taken any birth classes. I told her no. Luckily she runs the birth classes at the hospital so she said we'd do a crash course on how to push a baby out. She told me what to do, I started having a contraction so I immediately did what she said to do and I pushed for the first time. Let me tell you, pushing felt amazing! Suddenly there was less pain (whether that was psychological or not I don't know) and I had some control over the contractions. Not to mention that I was so focused and motivated on the end result now. I wish I'd been able to have this kind of focus throughout the whole labour, things probably would have been much easier.

I kept pushing and with each push the nurses were so supportive and congratulating me on how well I was doing. Between pushes we were joking when I needed to laugh, they were supportive when I needed the encouragement, they were helpful and kind everything I needed and more during that time. They understood what I wanted and needed without me having to say anything. I couldn't have asked for a better team.

Finally we were about to move to the birthing chair......but suddenly the door burst open. It was my Mom! I saw her and I actually said "Mommy!" Some of the nurses were trying to kick her out, Mirisini told them not too but that she could only stay for a minute. It was so nice to know that everyone had made it to the hospital. And just in time too! Then I saw Olympia's head poke through the door....that's when the nurses kicked them both out.

So we moved over to the birthing chair. I did a couple of pushes there. Then I saw Dr. Provenzas pick up a really large needle. Stamatsis was on my right so I asked him what the needle was for...he said that the doctor had to freeze me so he could make a small cut. I was getting an episiotomy. I told him a really didn't want one and could we please not do this. He told the doctor but the doctor said it was necessary....I still don't know if it was necessary or not, I never bothered to ask afterward why he made that call. I just decided to trust him, not think about it, and keep focusing on Eleni. But being completely honest this was the one thing about my whole experience that I wish never happened. Maybe it needed to happen, I don't know, but everything I've read up to this point says that episotomies are really not that necessary and can actually end up causing more damage. Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now. I had 4 stitches, which are gone now but as I'm sitting here typing this I'm very aware that that area has not quite healed yet even though the rest of me has felt completely back to normal for almost a week.

After he finished, I pushed again. Everyone told me we were almost there. "Just one more push, she's right there!" So I pushed...I needed to stop but they told me to keep going and just a little more, so somehow I gathered up every last bit of strength I had and I pushed harder than ever. She was coming, I could feel it! I sat up a little bit because for some reason I felt like I needed to catch her. And she was out! I couldn't believe it! I was looking at her!

I don't remember what I said but later my Mom told me that I sounded so surprised to see her when she was out.

Dr. Provenzas gave her to Mirisini who quickly weighed her and I'm not sure what else. She was crying so I talked to her the whole time thinking she'd recognize my voice and feel safer. A second later she was on my chest. I couldn't believe I was holding her and looking into her beautiful little face! Her eyes were so big and alert and she was looking right back at me.And then she put her hand up to touch my face.....that's when I was in tears. I just kept talking to her and telling her how beautiful she was and how much I love her...I have no idea what else was going on at this time. Hands down, that was THE number one most amazing moment in my entire life. Nothing will ever top that!

So that was that. The doctor finished up with my stitches, then the nurses helped me get to my feet and I walked back to my room.....that's right, I got up and walked myself back to my room!

Everyone was waiting for me in the hallway: Antonis, my parents, my brother, his girlfriend and Antonis' parents. We all went to my room and Eleni was brought in to me just a few minutes later. As soon as I saw her I cried again. She was hungry and started nursing immediately. By 2pm visiting hours were over and everyone was asked to leave so finally Antonis, Eleni and I got our alone time.

So that's the story! And like I said, I can't believe that was just over 2 weeks ago already! We had our first pediatrician appointment yesterday and Eleni has already gained 500 grams. The doctor was very pleased and said she was "perfect!".....but then we already knew that.

I have some new pictures to show you but it seems my little garden gnome has woken up from her nap so I'll try to put them up in the next couple of days for you guys.

Talk to you soon!