*8 months and 5 days (36 weeks and 5 days) in my belly.

@ 7:15am Wednesday, November 6, 2019 – 36 weeks 2 days in my belly:

My blood pressure is taken at a routine 36 week check up with our Nurse Practitioner Valerie at UCSF Mission Bay. It is higher than my normal 120ish/70ish. Valerie knows that Bill and I bike to our appointments and asked if we had biked over. When I told her that I had stopped biking on Friday of the week prior, she expressed concern over the elevated number: 144/92. Since there is high blood pressure (BP) in my family history, I was always worried about my BP even though I had a very healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy until this check up. Concerned but not alarmed, Valerie sends us to Triage at the Birth Center to continue monitoring me and Zoltron for the next hour and a half or so.

At Triage, I am hooked up to a BP monitor that squeezes my arm at 10 or 15 minute intervals taking continuous readings. They also put a monitor on my finger to measure my pulse. And they hook up the antenatal testing monitors to my belly: one to monitor any contractions and one to monitor Zoltron’s heart rate. Z’s normal heart rate, like all healthy babies, fluctuates between like 130 and 150 beats per minute. During this monitoring phase, Z’s heart rates are great, but my blood pressure is not going down. But it’s not going up either… until the attending doctor comes in to tell me her recommendation: induce labor on Tuesday (after the Monday Veteran’s Day holiday) when I will be 37 weeks and 1 day along. I stress out so much at this news that I begin sobbing uncontrollably – and that’s when the BP monitor starts up again. Amazing timing. The reading of my BP is now like 170 over something else, which is crazy high and very alarming. Bill manages to calm me down, and the subsequent BP readings over the next half hour/hour go back down to my new normal of high but not alarming high as we wait for the lab results of my urine and blood. Bloodwork comes back normal as does the urine sample. With this news, and the fact that my BP spiked only that once during that moment of hysteria, the attending was fine with continuing forward with the plan to wait until 37 weeks and induce next Tuesday with an appointment for monitoring in two days on Friday. My homework was to get a BP monitor to check my numbers until I was back on Friday.

It was now 11am-ish and Bill and I were discharged and we went to gather our thoughts and get organized in the waiting room. We called my mom – who had a flight booked from where she lives in New York to San Francisco in two weeks – to ask her to change her flight to be here by Tuesday, November 11th, my official induction day. After our game planning, we had to get to work, so we leave the hospital. That day at work I finish up my Parental Leave Transition Plan so that everyone knows where to find what, or who to ask for what in my absence and email the team that I will be starting my parental leave on Tuesday after the holiday. I also tidy up my desk and label my name on my foot rest (which is an upside-down wooden slat box thing from IKEA that I found laying around the office not being used) and my desk chair. Hopefully I still have those things when I get back to work in 16 weeks.

On my walk to the ferry to go home in the evening, I stop at Walgreens and pick up a BP monitor. Bill ordered one on Amazon immediately after we were discharged because the doctor told us to, but Valerie called me during the day following up on what went down in Triage and she advised I start monitoring my BP asap, and not wait til tomorrow after work (when I would be able to pick up the Amazon Prime package).

@ 9:00pm-ish:

Over the previous weekend and evenings, Bill has been crossing off things of our “Pre-Zoltron To-Do” Wunderlist, like setting up the bassinet and other baby prep stuff. He also prepared the hospital bag, and I figured I might as well put my clothes in there right now so I could do other prep over the weekend. Things on the weekend to-do list included a very detailed and extensive deep clean of the apartment, like dusting every single surface in all rooms by removing all items on shelves, etc. and dusting underneath them with a Clorox wipe, vacuuming everywhere, Clorox wiping all handles (doors, fridge, cabinets, drawers, etc.) and general tidying up. At this point in my pregnancy such physical work – not to mention the Clorox chemical fumes – was not recommended, so instead of making Bill do it all, I hired a cleaning crew on Thumbtack. Also happening that weekend was the delivery of our new CB2 rocking chair for which we had to be present. Not a problem, since I would be home anyway overseeing the cleaners. And I wanted to finish reading the Emily Oster book Cribsheets about delivery and baby’s first year. So it was going to be a productive weekend leading up to Induction Tuesday!

@ 8:40am Thursday, November 7, 2019 – 36 weeks 3 days in my belly:

After taking my BP (still in the new normal high-ish range), I take the later 8:40am ferry to work since (a) I had wrapped up most of my projects; (b) clients moved in to their new offices on November 1st; and (c) I handed off projects to colleagues and didn’t have much left to do. (There is always so much to do, but everything was nicely tied up at this point.) Also, today was our Design Team Offsite starting at noon: a brainstorming session / year in review / look ahead to 2020 to establish goals and initiatives, etc., and I really wanted to contribute to the discussions. We eat lunch during this session and then pack up to go to our team building activity of spinning pottery!

@ 2:30pm:

I arrive, along with my Design Team members, to the pottery place in the Mission District in San Francisco. I hadn’t taken my BP since the morning, so I was anxious to take the measurement. We pile out of the Uber and into the art space, and there’s lots of commotion as we all start getting ready to spin some bowls. I take my BP really quickly, so I can join back in on the fun. Well, it was probably user error and the fact that I hadn’t sat down to relax and catch my breath, but my numbers were spiked even higher than yesterday and eerily close to the threshold number above which I was informed to call triage at the hospital asap. This stresses me out, so without waiting, I take my BP again, and this time the number is even higher, and now over the threshold. I call Bill with this news to get his opinion if I should call the hospital or if I should just go home to rest. We decide to call the hospital, and they tell me to come to triage right now for monitoring. I call Bill back, and we plan to meet at the hospital right away. I bid adieu to my design team colleagues and jump in an Uber.

@ 4pm:

Bill biked over from his office, and he is already at the hospital when I get dropped off. We go up to Triage together to check in, and we are led to a room for more of the same monitoring like yesterday: blood drawn, pee taken, finger pulse monitoring, blood pressure monitoring, and Zoltron heart rate monitoring. All labs come back normal, but the attending doc is worried about the BP escalating and turning into preeclampsia and tells us that she recommends we get admitted and begin inducing now. I had mentally prepared myself for this possibility and was not caught off guard like I was the day before. In fact I sort of suspected it would happen because just that morning my pre-natal vitamins ran out, I blow dried my hair which is not something I have done for like a year and my hair was going to look good for at least the rest of the day if not all of labor, and I wore my comfy sneaker shoes instead of the ones that would better suit my outfit that day. My only regret was my outfit: I was glad I wore my pregnancy leggings under this black dress, but I was kicking myself for wearing this dress that was uncomfortable in my armpits after a full day of wearing it. I requested a hospital gown immediately which was so super comfy that it didn’t even matter what I wore that day.

@ 5:30-ish pm:

Bill and I are escorted over to the Labor and Delivery unit of the hospital. The entire Birth Center is on the 3rd floor, and Labor and Delivery is just down the hall from Triage. When we found out I was pregnant, we obviously researched all hospitals in the Bay Area, and UCSF was far and away the best hospital. For proof, watch this virtual tour of the Birth Center. We are put in room 6, and we start making a new plan while doctors and nurses come in and out of the room to prep for all that is to come. The new plan had Bill heading home later in the evening to get our stuff – since all we had with us were our work backpacks, Bill’s bike, and nothing else. We brainstorm other things needed from home that we hadn’t yet put in the go bag, like my crocs, my travel-sized shower stuff, and red zip-up ultimate hoodie for comfort. We also get a lay of the land from our nurse. She shows us the food menu and old school phone to call in our food orders (and that we are limited to 2 trays at a time unless we want to pay $9 for an extra tray), she shows us how to work the fancy adjustable bed with the nurse call button, she shows us how to convert the lounge table and chair into a bed for support person Bill, she gets us linens for Bill’s bed, and she shows us how to work the fancy TV. She also gives us an approximate timeline of potential events that take place during induction.

@ 6:00-ish pm:

Step one is to get my IV in. A young nurse finds a big vein on my left wrist and attempts over and over in multiple locations on my left wrist to put the IV catheter in to no avail and much pain. She apologizes and calls in a more experienced nurse who tells me my veins are big with big valves which apparently makes it harder to put in this darn thing. The second nurse has success, but she has to put it on my right wrist, and it was super painful. And once it is in, it is really painful and uncomfortable and I have to ice it. It is right at the bend in my wrist so I can’t even move my right hand really, and I am right handed! All this pain just from inserting the IV made me and Bill very concerned about the rest of labor because we haven’t even actually started! Once the IV is in, the nurses get the normal IV hydrating fluids and a magnesium drip going. The magnesium is to get my blood pressure down (and reduce the risk of the 1% chance I had of having a seizure) and will need to be continuously flowing until 24 hours after I give birth. From now until then, I will be hooked up to the IV making trips to the bathroom a bit cumbersome, as I have to bring the whole IV pole with me.

Apparently my chart said that I had preeclampsia as that’s what the nurses and doctors said. But I (and Bill) really don’t think I did. What I really had was gestational hypertension. My only symptom was high blood pressure. If I had preeclampsia, I would also have either some sort of protein in my urine (which I never had) and / or something come up in my bloodwork (which never did as all my enzymes were always in the normal range). I would also have one or all of these symptoms which I didn’t have: blurry vision, pain under my right rib where my liver is, and a headache that doesn’t go away with headache medicine. I only sometimes had a headache, which could have been due to the magnesium which has an effect to make a person “loopy” as described by the nurse, but it would go away almost all the way with pain killers. Anyway, the only cure for both gestational hypertension and preeclampsia is to give birth (specifically of the placenta). And there is no known prevention. So from now on, all nurses and doctors talked about my pre-e, but I really honestly think it was so all the interventions could be justified for insurance reasons. And every time a new nurse, doctor, midwife, anyone came in to talk to me, they always asked if I had blurry vision / pain under my right rib / a headache. It got to be exhausting and repetitive because there is basically someone coming in every 30 minutes or so to check this, replace that, ask me this, so I could never really rest or sleep for longer stretches.

@ 8:00-ish pm:

This was the perfect time for Bill to go back home to pick up our hospital bag. He had his bike, so he bikes home after a quick stop at his office to pack up his desk: a small complication in that his company was moving offices the next week when he would already be on parental leave, so he had to go back quickly to throw stuff in a box. Then he goes home, packs a few more things, and brings a few surprises as well!

@ 9:30-ish pm:

Bill is back! He also grabs the 2 cozy blankets from our couch and it really made a HUGE difference in making the hospital room feel even more comfortable. The labor and delivery rooms at UCSF are actually really comfortable and very well designed. Every room has a window that has plants and greenery beyond, there are multiple lighting options so that you can have that soft white light glow, the colors and materials used reflect that of nature, not a sterile hospital environment. I commented on the great room design often to Bill, every time I noticed something else. His last minute blanket grab was the best move and kept us both warm. Bill is so smart. He also grabbed a photo of us up at the top of Kilimanjaro, as motivation for when labor gets rough so that I remember I can do really hard physical accomplishments. It was a very sweet gesture that I appreciated. But maybe next time he’ll grab a less stress inducing photo of us, maybe one from a day on which I showered.  😉

Induction has officially started as I take another oral misoprostol pill, which is a pill I am given every 2 hours over the course of 8 hours to soften, or ripen, my cervix. This whole first part with the miso pill is really just waiting for it to take effect over the next many hours. It is during this pain free waiting period that Bill and I talk names. We thought we were going to have 3 more weeks to pick a name for Zoltron, and now was the perfect time to discuss our top candidates. We had already agreed on a boy name, and partly because of that, I guessed that we are probably having a girl. We both kept coming back to the name Kalliszta (pronounced like Calista Flockhart, minus the Flockhart: like Ka-list-uh, not Ka-least-uh) because we love that it was not a made up name but a rare name. We liked that it means “most beautiful” and we love the Hungarian spelling of it because it can still be phonetically sounded out in English by Americans. We love how it is a “K” name with an “sz” like my name, and it has two “L”s like Bill’s name. While we plan to always call her by her whole name, if she insists on a nickname, Kalli is cute too. She was born in California after all.

@ 11:45-ish pm:

I’m given another miso pill, and around now the anesthesiologist comes in to talk to me about my pain management options. At UCSF you don’t have a specific doctor for labor and delivery, you just have whichever nurses and doctors are on shift at that moment. Shifts are in 12 hour stretches, usually from 7-7. Because we wouldn’t know who would be in the labor and delivery room with us, I had very specifically – in our birth plan – requested for only female providers. Our birth plan was hung on the wall under the whiteboard with all our other information on there. Most nurses were aware of our plan – like we don’t know the sex of the baby, I am open to pain control, we don’t want to keep the placenta, and answers to other questions like that – and some nurses asked to double check our wants. The anesthesiologist (Dr. C) was male, but I was fine with that because he is a drug doctor, not a baby delivery doctor. In my mind, it doesn’t make sense for a man to be an OB/GYN because if a patient says to him something like “it feels like even more painful menstrual cramps” he would have no idea what that is, no frame of reference of what that pain feels like. Much like I have no idea what it feels like to be kicked in the balls, even though I grew up watching America’s Funniest Home Videos and know that it’s hilarious (at least to the people around the poor fellow). My request for only female providers in my room was otherwise honored.

Dr. C ran through the pain management options, and I said I will want an epidural. I had to sign something saying that if anything went wrong and I needed a blood transfusion that I would be ok with that. I was surprised that I had to sign something saying I wanted my life to be saved in the event of an emergency and not the other way around. Anyway, that ended up being a moot point as there was no emergency, and my life was not in danger at any point. He also talked through the epidural process and made sure to tell me that once he cleans my lower back with some sterilizing substance, I have to make sure not to touch my back. He said – in a tone of voice that was not really judge-y but more like he can’t believe this – that people always want to touch their back after it has been cleaned. Well let me tell you Mr Dr, that when you are in the throes of labor contraction pains, often that excruciating pain is felt in your lower back, and when you hurt somewhere, a very natural reaction is to hold or grab that part of you that hurts. If he were a woman who has been in labor before, that is something he would have known, which proves my earlier point.

@ 3:00-ish am Friday, November 8, 2019 – 36 weeks 4 days in my belly:

The thing about being induced and going into labor, giving birth, and postpartum recovery at the hospital is every 30 minutes to an hour you have someone coming in the room to do something: deliver food, mop the floors, take your temperature, do something on the computer, talk to you about your pain, etc. At 3am, a team of nurses, doctors, and a midwife came in to talk about the next step: the Foley balloon. Since Bill and I had been given a big picture overview of what my induction and labor could potentially look like, and I knew this was the step before Pitocin (more on that in a bit). The Foley balloon, which I also knew about from the UCSF labor prep classes Bill and I took, is a long skinny balloon, like a clown/balloon artist uses to make balloon animals only way thicker, that is placed inside my cervix, and filled to a certain size with water. Now that the miso pill has ripened, or softened, my cervix, it was ready to begin opening. The balloon gets this opening going by falling out when my cervix reaches 3cm dilated. I was ok with this happening, and so the resident doctor did the first attempt at placing the balloon. She did not have success, so the attending doctor stepped in and very swiftly and quickly got it set up in place. Now it is time for more waiting.

@ 4:00-ish am:

My blood is drawn again, and my liver enzymes are still completely normal. I have a headache, and since there is nothing to do but wait for the balloon to do its opening of my cervix, I take Tylenol for my head and Benadryl to make me drowsy to help me sleep. This was going to be the last time I really got this opportunity – or so it felt. We turn on Netflix and watch that holiday movie about Charlotte from Sex and the City going to Africa where she works at an elephant orphanage and meets Rob Lowe. I slept through much of the second half.

@ 8:00-ish am:

Last, or second to last miso pill. I get up to pee and notice a lot more blood than what has become normal with the Foley balloon. I call the nurse.

@ 9:40-ish am:

The blood was because the balloon had fallen out of my cervix (yay) but not my vagina and got stuck (boo). The nurse, or midwife, took it out and was happy to announce that my cervix was now 3cm dilated. She also notes that Zoltron is still a bit high up and does an ultrasound to confirm Z’s position (head down per usual).

Bill and I order breakfast. The thing about hospital food is that, as expected, it is not great, but also it is very inconsistent. We were in the hospital so long that I found my “favorites”, and they were always different. The stack of pancakes never came with the same amount of pancakes. Neither did the hashbrowns nor bacon, and if you wanted syrup with your pancakes, you had to specify that.

@ 11:30-ish am:

Now it’s time to add a small, regular dosage of Pitocin drip to my IV. Pitocin is a labor induction synthetic drug that simulates oxytocin, the body’s hormone that naturally induces contractions. Every hour and a half, the dosage, which is measured as milliunits per minute, is increased slightly. 30 is the max, and I am started at 6. With the Pitocin, we now have to consistently monitor Zoltron’s heart rate, so the two monitors are placed on my belly and secured by elastic bands.

@ 2:30-ish pm:

Emily comes to visit! She works across the street at the newly built Dropbox offices, and she brings some snacks for us. We hang out for an hour or less (it is a work day after all). Pitocin is now upped to 8, and it’s more waiting and chilling, as contractions are barely felt at this point.

@ 6:00-ish pm:

Every hour the Pitocin is upped by 2 so I am now at 16 milliunits. A team of a resident doctor, a midwife, and a resident midwife come in to manually break my water. While the doctors seem as though they want want to hurry me along, I want to delay for as long as possible for two reasons: my mom lands tomorrow evening around 7pm and I want my mommy here, and I think the longer Zoltron stays inside me, the better it must be for Zoltron’s development even though the doctors say that is worse for me. I disliked the bedside manner of the head resident doctor who basically was telling me what to do instead giving me a recommendation of what to do and told her I wanted to see and talk to the attending doctor. And, no, I did not want my water broken right now.

@ 6:45-ish pm:

Pitocin is at 18 milliunits per minute.

@ 11:00-ish pm:

The head attending doctor comes in to share her outlook and perspective and further convinces me that breaking the bag of waters is the right next step. Bill and I discuss it and decide to follow the doctors recommendation. She says she will send the team back in later in the evening. I am also given campazine for my headache and nausea.

@ 11:30-ish pm:

Pitocin is at 20 milliunits per minute. Remember, the max limit is 30. Bill and I take a couple of slow walking laps around the labor and delivery unit.

@ 2:00-ish am Saturday, November 9, 2019 – 36 weeks 5 days in my belly:

Zoltron’s heart rate dropped, so the nurse dropped the Pitocin all the way down to 12. I was put on oxygen for an hour. I mostly slept during this hour but since I had grown used to the sound of Zoltron’s fast normal heartbeat, I asked the nurse to keep the volume up and the monitor showing the fluctuations on a graph on, so that I can also keep an eye on it. Over the course of my induction and labor, I had the monitoring devices on me and I would jolt awake at the sound of Zoltron’s heart rate dropping. This happened only a few of times, but it felt good to know I was so instinctually connected and in tune with Zoltron. When that happened, I would change my position to help Zoltron be more comfortable, and this always worked.

@ 3:45-ish am:

The doctor manually breaks my water. You know what a crocheting needle looks like? That’s basically what they use to to break my bag of waters. It didn’t really hurt but just felt uncomfortable, and then sort of nice with all that warm water and blood rushing out of me.

This marks the beginning of the most intense pain I have ever felt. At this point I was only 4 centimeters or so dilated, and so I still had a long way to go. The contractions were getting more and more intense to the point where I felt we had left our cozy labor room for another room that was a sterile dungeon of torture. I remember laying on my right side, squeezing Bill’s hand, and writhing in pain clutching my lower back and screaming. I remember my nurse, a jaded yet experience Jamaican lady, kept trying to ask me questions and talk to me during a contraction and I couldn’t answer her and also didn’t want to because I was annoyed at the rude timing of the question. She recommended I try a small does of Fentanyl, and after she assured us there were no real side effects for the baby, I agreed. Well, either the dose was so small or my contractions were so intense that the narcotic helped for maybe 5 contractions and then stopped working. I was upset I let myself be talked into it, and it didn’t even do anything. It didn’t actually make the pain feel lessened, but made the pain free moments between contractions feel like a more intense calm. Bill makes a hilarious joke that was meant to be serious and helpful comparing the pain I was feeling to bike riding up Hawk Hill, to which I reply unamused and a little peeved “it’s nothing like that.” Bill laughed really hard at my response and tone. In hind sight it was funny. But seriously, active labor contractions are nothing like riding a bike up a hill. Bill and I both enjoy Type 2 Fun* like biking up hills, but childbirth is like Type Infinity Fun.

“(*Type I Fun is enjoyable while it’s happening. Also known as, simply, fun.
Type II Fun is miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect.
Type III Fun is not fun at all. Not even in retrospect.)”

My nurse then told us it was time for an epidural. This was music to my ears, and I was thankful for her recommendation because I really didn’t know about the optimal timing for it. The pain during these two hours was so intense, and the nurse apparently told Bill I wasn’t going to make it. I very much appreciated her experience at this point.

The same anesthesiologist comes in, and in between contractions I follow his directions. Sit up, hunch shoulders, don’t touch my back – then a contraction came and my arm had to be held down so I wouldn’t touch my back. He puts the catheter in my back and administers the epidural. It feels a little bit like a cold drop of water sliding up and down in one line on your back near your spine. It is almost instant relief. Afterwards, he and the other anesthesiologist are having a friendly debate about how to apply the bandages to my back in the most aesthetically pleasing way. At first I don’t know what they are going back and forth about and why they are messing around on my back which was a bit scary, so I was relieved to know it was something so trivial.

The thing with epidurals is that you are basically numb from the waist down. It feels a little bit like when a limb falls asleep, but less tingly and uncomfortable. And since you can’t feel your legs, you are bed ridden until you are unplugged from the epidural IV. This means no going to the bathroom, so a catheter is placed inside me for my pee. Up until now, I would drag my IV pole with me to the bathroom to pee, and I peed into a little “hat” in the toilet to measure how much I was going. I would leave the pee and blood mixture in there for the nurse to record and dump out. Fun job. Catheter peeing is way easier. And for some other medical reason I don’t know, you can no longer eat solid foods after an epidural, only clear liquids like Gatorade, apple juice, water, and popsicles. The popsicles were a hit with me, and I was super pumped to eat them. However since I was also on that magnesium drip, my fluid intake had to be monitored and kept below a certain level. After the epidural, we sleep during a movie, and things are basically calm for the next few hours. It was glorious.

@ 7:00-ish am:

5 centimeters dilated and a blood draw.

@ 8:30-ish am:

Bloodwork comes back and is in the normal range. Not sure why the doctors are still saying I have preeclampsia when my blood and urine are normal. But whatever, anyway, it’s fine.

@ 9:00-ish am:

Zoltron’s heart rate dipped. I was put on oxygen again and changed positions as the Pitocin was dropped to 10. Until I give birth the Pitocin levels were constantly being adjusted up and down, from about 8 to 11.

@ 10:00-ish am:

9 centimeters dilated. The midwife says maybe a couple more hours until 10.

@ 12:00-ish pm:

My cervix is almost completely dilated. There are a couple of numbers or measurements the doctors are looking for before pushing can begin: how much your cervix is dilated and your baby’s station. Station is how low the baby is in the pelvis, and goes from 3 to -3. At -3 baby is ready to come out. Zoltron is still at 0 station or so. My nurse Mulva went on a quick lunch break, and her relief nurse came in to introduce herself in case I need anything in this next hour. Her name was Courtney, and it turned out she is best friends with my nurse practitioner Valerie! This made me happy in that it felt like I had someone I know in my corner. She had a great positive energy I appreciated.

@ 2:00-ish pm:

It is time to start pushing!

The attending midwife teaches me how to push: big breath in, then hold it for 10 seconds as I push (like imagine a push like I’m pooping except not), then repeat 2 more times, and that counts as one push. So one push lasts about 35 seconds. But 35 very intense seconds. The midwife, my nurse Mulva, and Bill all cheer me on. Courtney even comes in to support me. They all help me time the pushing to coincide with my contractions, which are monitored along with Zoltron’s heart rate. We try a variety of positions to help Zoltron come out. We try a bar, we try a sitting up squatting position (the birthing bed can bend and flip into crazy positions to support lots of labor positions), and a couple of others. The best one for me was laying back at a 45 degree angle, with my feet pushing against the poles of the bar with my knees up and bent holding on under my knees and pulling up against them during a push. It was a full body workout: legs, core, arms.

Now, keep in mind that I had an epidural about 8 hours ago and therefore hadn’t eaten anything since. I only had 4 popsicles, some small sips of a nasty Gatorade, and water. Remember, since I am on the Magnesium drip, I have to limit my water intake for some reason. Imagine doing 2 hours of very intense repetitive physical work on barely any energy from food and feeling dehydrated. It is incredibly exhausting.

Z was almost in the correct position, Z’s head was down but Z’s body was sort of sideways. The midwife did a quick ultrasound to confirm this position. On some pushes the midwife would grab Z’s head and twist while pushing Z from my belly. Some pushes are more successful and some are not. The midwife suggests that I should see what I am doing in a mirror, and it was a great suggestion. It was crazy seeing the top of Zoltron’s head inside me and watching me push and my muscles contract in the mirror and Zoltron getting lower was so helpful. I was able to visualize my pushing when we took the mirror down. And the faces of the ladies around me, nodding and smiling and cheers of “go go go push push push yeah yeah yeah that’s it” was also very helpful for me. I respond very well to that kind of positive encouragement (thanks to years of ultimate)! The medical team comments on what a great partner Bill is because he is so encouraging and helpful, cheering me on and telling me how great I was doing. He really is the best.

@ 3:30ish pm:

The attending doctor Tushani comes in to assess, as I have been pushing for 2 hours and Zoltron’s heart rate would drop during some of the pushes. She tells me that babies are resilient to this, but only for so long. I really should only be pushing a few more times because Zoltron really needs to be out now. She lays out options and her recommendations. The options are vaginal assisted delivery with either forceps or vacuum. Forceps were out because of the shape of my pelvis or something like that, so vacuum it was. Bill and I had learned about this during our labor and delivery classes, and I wasn’t too nervous. Tushani was awesome, and I really trusted her. She said that if the vacuum doesn’t work, we will have to do an emergency C-section, so we will have to move my bed across the hall to the operating room (OR) just in case. Tushani allows me to push for another 30 minutes, and because I knew Zoltron could be in trouble, I worked harder than I ever had in my life. I gave everything I had those last 30 minutes of pushing. All my providers comment on how strong and good of a pusher I am. This made me feel good about myself. Even Tushani later commented on how much of a difference those last 30 minutes of my really hard pushing made. The medical team here see births all day every day and for them to comment on this must mean I really was doing a good job. Zoltron was *almost* out, but it was time for the next and last intervention.

I am wheeled over in the bed to the OR. Bill is given head-to-toe scrubs, including over his hair and feet. Over the course of 2 minutes, the room goes from 4 people to about 15. My sweet nurse Mulva, Courtney, the midwife, Tushani, and a bunch of other people: another doctor, more nurses, 3 pediatricians, 2 anesthesiologists, probably another doctor or surgeon or 2 in case the C-section happens, and me and Bill. Tushani stops everyone and reviews what is about to happen: vacuum assisted delivery and other medical words and checks. Everyone jumps into action and as they prep whatever they are in charge of prepping. Bill and I hold hands and look and smile at each other, despite me being very nervous. Bill tells me I can do it and that we are ready and I have been doing so great. I am a little scared but mostly ready, and the adrenaline has me forgetting how physically tired I am.

@ 4:36 pm Saturday, November 9, 2019 – 36 weeks 5 days in my belly – 48 HOURS AFTER ARRIVING TO THE HOSPITAL:

Everyone is ready to go and with the vacuum on Zoltron’s noggin, Tushani tells me that when I feel another contraction and am ready to push to let her know. I say I’m ready and take a huge deep breath and Courtney and team yells “Push!”. I start pushing for 10 seconds, take another breath, push for 10 seconds, take one more deep breath and as I push, Kalliszta makes her debut into the world. Tushani announces excitedly “it’s a girl!” and everyone is cheering and smiling and so happy. She is immediately placed on my chest, and we hear her make a crying sound, and Bill and I look at her and each other, and he says that is the greatest sound he has ever heard. With tears in his eyes, we nod to each other that Kalliszta is her name because she is the most beautiful. After the quick rest on my chest, the pediatricians rush Kalliszta 10 feet away to the newborn table to check her vitals and clear her passageways. Bill goes with her and watches all this. She is now screaming wailing, and we are so relieved at that sound. I barely remember the clean up and aftermath of the birth, and, moments after her arrival, the room clears as fast as it filled. Courtney says you want that – if all the medical staff had to stay in the room that would mean something was wrong.

Kalliszta is placed back on my chest, and I am wheeled back over to our labor room #6 where we spent the past 2 days. She and I lay skin-to-skin for an hour, and nurse Mulva reminds us to order dinner because in 2 hours we will have to move to another room in the Recovery wing. She also does her assessments of Kalliszta, shots and vaccines, and everything else. The next hour she lays skin-to-skin with Bill while I eat dinner. We are so happy and relieved and overwhelmed and excited and in a daze really. We send an update to our family WhatsApp group with the happy news and pictures. My mom, who was on a JetBlue flight, had in-flight wi-fi and could follow along with all of our updates. Her flight attendant congratulated her and was very excited for her to become a grandma!! While it would have been amazing to have my mom present for my labor and delivery, she would have had to wait while Bill and I went to the operating room, and that would have been so incredibly nerve-wracking that it actually worked out best this way because as soon as we were moved to our recovery room she arrived at the hospital, so the timing was perfect!

Kalliszta is here, and all seems right with the world. The next 3 nights are spent in Recovery, which in itself is another blog post as long as this one. While I do plan on writing it because so much happened —

• jaundice: it was treated with in-room “biliblanket” therapy, where Kalliszta was swaddled with a blue light underneath her. Since Kalliszta is “late pre-term” and was very small and skinny at 5lbs 6oz at birth, and because she and I have different blood types, she was very susceptible to jaundice. In addition to the blanket, we had to pump her full of food to poop out the biliruben, with those black tar-like brand new baby poops. Her jaundice eventually went away and she is all healthy!
• an ultrasound for a back dimple scare but all was normal,
• two very satisfying poops for me with the help of a stool softener (thanks to both Bill and my mom for helping wipe my butt each time #truelove),
• a world changing shower for me,
• learning how to feed Kalliszta,
• 4 people in one room (luckily there was a very comfortable nursing recliner my mom slept on and Bill on the pull out bed)
• my body in lots of pain with the normal lots of blood
• so much more

— I have a beautiful wonderful newborn I have to attend to, so that blog post and other posts about the joys and struggles of first few days and weeks, will just have to wait.