On Friday January 7th at 9:31 AM Amber Mackenzie Nelson entered this world weighing in at 6 lbs 8 oz and measuring 19 inches long. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or girl but the surprise was even greater considering that our due date wasn't until January 23rd.
Kristy, although asymptomatic, had been having high blood pressure (pregnancy induced hypertension) and had been going in for weekly tests. Thursday around 2:30 she headed out for what she thought was going to be a routine blood pressure check. Once again, it was too high for chance so they sent her to Women's/Children's hospital to have some blood work done. After a few stressful (for me) phone calls, Kristy told me to come to the hospital. As we are currently a 1 car family I headed out on the bus to the hospital not knowing what to expect.
At 10:30 PM Thursday they gave Kristy a drug to induce labour. The plan was that we were to return the following morning at 9:30 AM for the 2nd dose. We were told that most women need 2 doses and that likely we'd again be sent home the next day but that the baby was coming within a couple days and maybe a week.
Well Kristy progressed WAY faster than the average woman. All night she was having horrible cramps as well as contractions. The contractions kept getting stronger and closer together. By 5:30 AM her water broke and we knew "it was on". We had a Dhula visit us by 7:00 AM and I explained that she really was in active labour. Nobody believed us until the Dhula saw her in person (had paged a midwife a few times through the night), but once a woman has 3 minute-long contractions inside of 10 minutes then she meets the medical definition for "active labour". By about 7:15 AM we were out the door but not moving very fast as Kristy had 3 huge contractions before we could get her down to the car in the parkade.
It was surreal but I still thought we had a long day ahead of us. We drove to the hospital in rush hour and likely didn't break 30 km/hr the whole way there (I always dreamed of driving like a maniac at breakneck speeds). We got to the hospital at 7:45 AM and fairly quickly found ourselves in a delivery room.
Poor Kristy was in severe pain. The quality of care was phenomenal, but as they deliver thousands of babies they tend to provide care as though the woman is the "statistical average". My interpretation is that they really didn't believe how much pain she was in and although nobody ever said it, they were basically telling her to "suck it up". Upon initial assessment they were all amazed to learn that she was already 4 cm dilated (40% of the way there).
To try and handle the pain, we got Kristy in the bathtub. The midwife explained that she would have to just deal with the pain for awhile (with laughing gas during contractions) and that they would check her again after enough time had passed for there to be a significant change. Well less than an hour later after Kristy was clearly in a TON of pain they checked her again and we were all amazed to learn that she was now FULLY dilated and thus it was too late to administer anything for the pain.
So I guess that's when the all the kickboxing toughness really helped out. We had considered having a water birth but weren't positive. As it turned out she had progressed so fast that we didn't have time to get her out of the tub and so a water birth it was going to be.
After several painful contractions, the nurses and midwife noticed that Kristy wasn't pushing during the contractions as this was her way of minimizing the pain which was more intense than I could ever imagine. I felt so helpless seeing her in that condition.
After Kristy figured out that while the pain would be worse, if she held her breath and pushed with the contractions, the process would be over with faster. I've lost track but I really don't think it took more than 3 additional contractions of her actually pushing "with" them before our baby was first under water and then on her chest. After all, Kristy is a black belt and tough as nails so in hindsight perhaps it wasn't all that surprising.
"The baby" was on her chest with eyes wide open and not even crying just staring at all of us with a bewildered look which I interpreted to be "What in the ____ is going on here?". It was probably another minute before one of the nurses said "check to see if it's a boy or girl". Hard to explain but I truly didn't care and after inspection, indeed it was a girl.
Nobody in the hospital could believe how fast Kristy progressed nor how well she did considering it was her first baby and that her labour was induced. She's a real statistical outlier and several nurses came in to tell her how much of a champion she was.
So it ended up being 11 hours from when Kristy was induced to when she gave birth, 4 hours from when her water broke, and less than 2 hours from when we arrived at the hospital. As mentioned, we drove to the hospital in rush hour, but amazingly found ourselves discharged and driving home, again in rush hour, but this time with a new member of the family.
As I pulled into the parkade I was suddenly hit with the thought, "OK what now?".
So far so good. Amber is a "textbook baby" who only seems to cry for a reason. Kristy is already an amazing mom and I'm doing everything I can to help her out. This new chapter of life has begun.
