The story of Story

Story Brooke Pumplin was born on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 in a set of bizarre and zany circumstances. Could you expect anything less from our girl? Here's the, ahem, story...

I woke up at 5:45 ish on Thursday morning with false labor contractions. I didn't know they were false at the time, but when they continued to be erratic and didn't intensify, I figured they were bunk. Tim said to me, "I know this is going to come back to kick me in the ass, but I don't think these are the real deal. She isn't coming today."

This is the point in which it is important to note that you should never NEVER engage yourself in a battle of wits against me. I will seriously win every time. I looked at him and said, "oh no. No she's coming out TODAY."

So, Tim left for work and I decided to stay home and wait things out. My contractions felt really hard and all, but all of a sudden petered off. Even though it felt like the time was past and that she was destined to be in there until Monday's ultimate induction eviction, I still was determined in my mind to get her out.

In order to do this, I decided to take a walk up to Starbucks for a hot cocoa. I grabbed my iPod and headed out the door, wrapped in my favorite shawl against the new bite in the air. All along the way, I looked like a crazy person as I talked at my belly, giving Story the pep talk.

"dear Story. You are coming out TODAY, here me. Today. You've had long enough in there and mommy is really ready to meet you. I want you to come into this world safely, but I want you out today. AND if you come out today, well I'll spoil you extra, because it would mean that mommy would beat daddy in a battle of wits, which is very very important." I changed my destination en-route, deciding that going to the library to check out a book for reading while in the hospital was certain to add more weight behind my "this kid is coming today" determination.

When I got home, I began getting very intense contractions that were only about 6 minutes apart. I decided to drink some water and lay down on the couch (for those not preggo/who haven't been there before, a lot of false labor is chalked up to dehydration... so they tell you to drink a lot of water and lie down when you start having contractions.) About forty five minutes later, I feel a swift kick (which puzzled me, b/c it should have been a head-butt... get to that soon) to my cervix and a POP! as my water breaks. I immediately stood up and felt warm gushes of fluid soak my yoga pants. I ran upstairs, started a shower to clean myself up (now certain we were in long-haul city) and called Timmers. I said to him, "my water just broke. GET HERE," and hung up.

I then took one of the longest and hottest showers of my life, scrubbing myself silly and using every frilly, girly potion I could find. I had heard from my friend Casey that she did this and it was a good idea. Because once you go in for a delivery, you're there for at least a day or so without being able to really shower. And I like being clean!

I also went into extremely focused "get stuff done" mode. I packed blankets, pillows, grabbed my amniotic fluid soaked pants in case they wanted to test them in L&D to confirm a rupture and grabbed other essential items I might need that weren't already packed in the car. The intensity and focus was amazing, as I went on auto-pilot prepping for delivery. The only annoying thing were the starving kitties who kept flanking me and meowing at the top of their lungs, usually during contractions. I warned the kitties that pestering a woman having intense contractions was NOT the way to prolong their kitty lives, but they weren't having it. I called Tim again to say, "where are you. I can't find the extra cat food. I am going to KILL these cats if you don't get here soon, Ow OW OWWW!"

Then Tim got home and we rushed out to Labor and Delivery, calling the doctor on call as well as my mom/sister on the way. I told Tim to call his parents, but we totally got wrapped in the moment and didn't call them until Story was here. SIGH. Anyways, back to it, we arrived at L&D to find my friend Miss Helen working the desk. Oddly enough, her first words to me were, "did you get my email, honey?" (I was redesigning the birth certificates for her, LOL) I told her I was in labor, then continuted to have an intense contraction at the desk and they took me to check my rupture. This means taking a litmas swap and using it on your wet panties, very very classy. It came up blue, meaning I was a rupture, so they prepped a room for me. I then had another really crazy contraction right as a tour full of expectant parents rolled through. I'd be lying if I said I didn't LOVE looking at their horror-filled faces as I yelled/OMed in pain.

Then we got put in our room and met up with Nisleen, our doula. I stripped down and put on my gown, getting ready for delivery. They called in my doc to have her do a pelvic exam and we all settled into what we were sure would be hours of long labor/delivery. Then, the doc comes in to check my cervix for progress and says,"hmm... that doesn't feel right. I need to do an ultrasound on you." She comes back and lo and behold, our girl is breech. She then says,"I'm suggesting you have a C Section." In a split second I agreed, because I couldn't dream of putting Story in harm. Thus started the cokctail of drugs to stop my contractions, pain meds to help me wait for an OR to open up and everything feeling like it was whirring past me, out of control.

I know it's cheesy as hell, but all I could think of was yoga, the yoke, the way. Sometimes you have to just surrender yourself to the way and go where it takes you, without question. My mind just said, "this is how it's going to be done and you're gonna be fine. Just let go." So I did.

I went from having a natural childbirth to a C-Section with a spinal block. I was taken to the OR, tim in scrubs, and given a spinal block that made me numb from the chest down. I was laid back Jesus-style and strapped down at three points- across my legs and each arm. A sheet was pulled up so I couldn't see the procedure, though I was wide awake. The awesome staff played Motown music and I cracked jokes about the whole situation- "If you guys are gonna have this sheet up, shouldn't you put on a puppet show or SOMETHING???!" I went from what I felt would be an intimate, serene setting birth to a whole team operating to get the daughterling out safely. It was odd, but it's just the way it had to be.

So, what IS it like to have a baby cut out of you? Fascinating, frightening and funny. I could feel all this pulling and pressure as they cut into my fat layer, spread aside my abdominals (yes I could feel that act via pressure) and then cut into my uterus. I could literally feel them shimmy her out of the womb, even the POP sensation as the got her unstuck from up under my ribs. I could feel the shuffling as they put me back together. It was so odd.

One other odd thing I should mention is that I had a case of ventricular tachycardia after I saw Story for the first time. It was really freaky at the time and made me feel all sorts of scary. The anesthesiologist gave me some drugs that counteracted it and all ended well. I've since had a battery of vascualr tests, all of which have come out just fine. They think this was a one time, random incident, probably brought on by the stress of the situation. But it was WAY scary.

Well, the rest is history, as they say. They pulled her out, tim got to go while they cleaned her up and did her Apgar tests and, after my weird cross with a potentially fatal case of ventricular tachycardia, I was brought to recovery with Tim and Story. One weird fact- most women shake for a while after pregnancy on account of the stress of the situation. My body temp was down to 95.5, I shook like crazy and I was all sorts of out of it. They gave me some demerol to stop the shaking and finally I started to feel a little more human.

Since then, I have gone through lots of pain, moments of decreased dignity, feeling defeated and terrible as a parent b/c I'm so limited in what I can do b/c of the C Section and worrying about my heart scare. But in the past day I've gotten a lot more comfy and have been told that my heart tests came back fine, so hopefully all is well from here on out as far as things go.

I have to take one moment to shout out how wonderful Tim is as a parent. Beyond wonderful, astounding. He has this amazing way with Story and is such a good soother. Also, he has fearlessly stepped up and taken on all of the major baby tasks I can't help him with yet due to my c section- he changes her dirty diapers, burps her, walks her around, swaddles her. He's just fabulous. Little by little I can do more and more, but I'm so glad to have married the best person ever. Good job, me.

And as for Story, she is the greatest and best thing I and Tim have ever done together. She is beautiful, funny, surprising, thoughtful, affectionate and joyful. She is just too amazing to believe. She is more than I ever thought I could hope for and just too WOW to put into words.

Ok, I have to go now as I tire of being separated from her. BYES! Updates later.