Zoe Ann Nalder was born on Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 3:27am. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 20 and 1/4 inches long. Here is the story of her birth:
Zoe was due Sunday, May 29th, 2011. On Thursday, May 19th, I went for my normal weekly visit to the doctor. He checked me and seemed surprised that I was already dilated to a 3. He said that could mean that I could go into labor in 6 hours or in 2 weeks. Basically, it's difficult to predict when a woman will go into labor based on how dilated she is. He did say, however, that he would be surprised if I made it another week. I was hoping for sooner rather than later because I was so uncomfortable. Also, I did not want to be induced. I wanted to go into labor on my own, and my doctor had already told me he would induce me no later than a few days after my due date.
The next day I stayed home from work because I was having really bad cramps that morning. The only thing that made me feel better was lying down, so I called into work, decided I would try to go back to sleep and if the cramps woke me up, I knew things were getting started. They didn't wake me up. I slept for about 4 hours and when I woke up I felt like a new woman. No more cramps. I was confused and disappointed. As scared as I was to go into labor (for a million different reasons), I was physically ready to get the show on the road. I was over being pregnant. Friday I went about my usual business and figured labor was still a ways away.
Saturday morning I didn't have any cramps and hadn't noticed any changes... until I went to use the restroom and lost my mucous plug. Gross, I know, but it's all part of the miraculous process. I knew that for some women this was an indicator that labor was very near, while for others labor was still weeks away. I was excited to be one step closer to labor and delivery nonetheless. My dear friend and very experienced mother of four, Millisa, had a feeling I might go into labor that night and suggested I spend the night at her house since she lived much closer to the hospital than me. I thought it was a good idea, and since they were having a barbecue with some mutual friends, it sounded like fun. I left to go to her house around 5pm Saturday night. On the 45 minute drive to her house, I started having contractions. They were stronger than the braxton hicks contractions I had been experiencing for weeks before. I had three very strong contractions within the 45 minutes it took me to get her house. As the night went on, the contractions kept coming. They weren't really anything to write home about until about 8pm. By this time they were getting much stronger and closer together. Millisa and I started keeping track of my contractions by using an app on her iphone. It monitored how long they lasted and how far apart they were. They were really starting to hurt. My doctor told me that it was time to go to the hospital when contractions got to 5-10 minutes apart, my water broke, or if I began to bleed. By about 9:45 my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart and very painful. Millisa and I decided it was time to get to the hospital.
We got to the hospital at about 10pm. The contractions were getting even MORE painful and closer together. When they checked me, I was dilated to a 5-6! Within minutes the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and the pain was becoming unbearable. It was time for the epidural. I was upset to learn that I would have to wait until an entire IV bag had gone through my body and blood was drawn and results received. I labored until midnight in a lot of pain, when finally the anesthesiologist arrived. One of my fears about the epidural was that it would only numb one side of my body, and guess what? That's exactly what happened. Luckily, the anesthesiologist was able to finagle it some and roll me on my side and eventually it started working properly. I was so relieved. Just then I felt a strange sensation. I notified the nurses that I had either just peed on myself, or my water had broken. Thank God, it was my water that broke. I would have been embarrassed if I had just peed all over myself. Turns out they had given me a catheter to avoid that very thing. Looking back, I find it comical that I was worried about peeing on myself when what seemed like 4,679,321 people were about to see me spread eagle in the center of the room with all eyes directly on my vagina. It's amazing how quickly all insecurity and modesty goes right out the window with childbirth. Anyway, I digress. Although I couldn't feel any more pain and I was so happy for that, I was very freaked out by the sensation the epidural gave me. I felt paralyzed from the waist down and it was a very unsettling feeling. My blood pressure shot through the roof and I began to panic a bit. Once I got used to the feeling, the nurses encouraged me to take a nap to prepare for the pushing I'd be doing in a while. It was midnight and at this point I was dilated to a 7. My mom asked the nurses at what time we could expect to have a baby and they said they expected me to dilate about 1 centimeter every hour. Their prediction was that I would be complete (dilated to a 10) by about 3am and then pushing could take anywhere from minutes to 3 hours. So certainly by 6am, Zoe would be here.
We (myself, my mom, Millisa, and Danica) had just settled in to take a snooze when the nurses thought it appeared I had stopped contracting. Another fear of mine was that getting an epidural would stall labor. They came in at about 1am and determined that the external monitor had just stopped picking up my contractions so they wanted to put in an internal monitor that attached to the baby's head to continue to monitor my contractions. Bev (my favorite nurse) went to put in the monitor and to her surprise found that I was already complete! Dilated to a 10! We were all shocked and excited. I had progressed so quickly! It was almost time to push! I didn't feel any desire or need to push yet and Bev said that the baby still needed to make her way down the birth canal a bit more, so we decided to just hang out a little while longer and let the contractions and gravity do their work.
At around 2am Bev decided to go ahead and have me do a few practice pushes to see how well I did. She seemed impressed so she decided to go ahead and keep them coming. I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. That part of the labor was the most difficult part for me, hands down. Eventually I had pushed enough that it was time to call my doctor (and wake him up) to get him to the hospital to deliver my baby. Within 10-15 minutes Dr. Lopez arrived and it was time to welcome Zoe to the world. I kept pushing and it felt like a - 1 step forward 2 steps back - process. Dr. Lopez, my mom, Millisa, Danica, and 5 or 6 nurses were all there cheering me on. When I would give a good push they would all get excited and start screaming and cheering because they could see the head emerging, but I'd stop pushing and her head would go back in. Too much info? Sorry. I would push with ALL my might, and after doing it over and over and over again and her head still not coming out, I was ready to throw in the towel. I was ready to say "Just cut her out! I don't care what you have to do, just get her out!!!" I felt like I was getting nowhere and I was EXHAUSTED. Everyone would keep saying "You're so close! She's almost out! You're doing great!" Eventually I thought they were all lying just to keep me going. At one point my mom said "You're so close, Nichole! She's right there!" and I replied with a scream "No she's NOT! Mom!" The nurse offered a mirror so that I could see they were telling the truth. I declined with an attitude. After just a few more pushes, her head was out! A few seconds later she was placed on my belly while the nurses cleaned her off and I got to touch her and say hello.
A few seconds later she was whisked away to the baby warmer to be weighed, measured, cleaned, poked, prodded, etc.
There was a concern though. She would NOT cry. Apparently it's important that they do that because it gets the mucous and other nasty things out of their lungs. She was breathing and she had great color but she wouldn't cry. They had to use tubes to suction out her nose and throat. They worked on her for a LONG time and at one point told me she might need to go to the NICU. Eventually they had a nurse from the NICU come up and take a look at her. She concluded that she was okay, she was just being stubborn. Even after 2 shots and a bath, they could not get her to cry. While all of this was happening, my doctor was busy stitching me up. I had some pretty bad tears that needed to be repaired. It took an hour for him to stitch me up, and an hour for the nurses to finish working on her. Finally, I got to hold my baby. She was so beautiful and precious. She was wide awake, alert, and content just being in my arms. We spent the next hour nursing and getting acquainted with one another while everyone else in the room finally fell asleep. It was a precious moment that I will never forget. I was in awe. Of her. Of what had just happened. Of myself and what I had accomplished. All I knew was that I didn't want us to ever be apart from that day forward.
Here's a photo of Zoe taken the next day in the hospital:
It's now been 3 and 1/2 weeks and I swear I fall more in love with her with each day that passes. Here's a photo of us taken yesterday:
I'm a very proud mama and I cannot wait to document more of her and our adventures together. My life is all about her now. It's just me and her from this point forward, and I am more than content with that.
