Kaiser Walnut Creek

Now that the dust has settled from our first couple weeks since bringing Mio home, I wanted to share her birth story here. It’s more for my own purpose of penning the whole experience down so that I can look back on it years from now, when I have forgotten all the details. This is going to be a long post and there may be some TMI moments — you have been warned!

I’ll start this story from the morning of the day I went into labor, when I got my first inkling that the baby might be coming soon. I was one day short of being 39 weeks pregnant and I had barely slept the night before, having to take a dozen trips to the bathroom throughout the night. It’s normal to have to get up a few times during the night to use the bathroom and not be able to sleep comfortably that late in the pregnancy, but that night was particularly uncomfortable and I was literally getting up every half hour, preventing me from achieving any deep, restful sleep. Right before the time I typically wake up to get ready to go to work, I was jolted awake by a sharp, prolonged pain and tightening in my lower abdomen — what was my first true contraction. (I had experienced Braxton Hicks contractions on and off since a couple months before, but they were not nearly as painful so I knew those were false contractions.) I woke up to use the bathroom, and was shocked to find that I had passed my “bloody show.” (This is the TMI portion. For those who don’t know what a “bloody show” is, it’s a small amount of blood-tinged mucus, resulting from the baby’s head descending into the pelvic cavity and prelabor contractions thinning the cervix to cause an “uncorking” of the mucus plug that previously sealed the cervix.)

I panicked in typical Misono fashion and shook Dan awake, called my mother, and texted my boss. I remembered from all my pregnancy books and childbirth preparation class that while passing the mucus plug alone could still mean labor was a couple weeks away, the “bloody show” was usually a sign that the baby could come anytime within the next three days, as early as within 24 hours, although there are some rare cases where the baby still didn’t arrive until a week later. I was at the same time excited and scared, but after an hour had passed with no recurring contractions or anything happening, I knew there was no point in just sitting there waiting for labor that may or may not commence, so I got ready as I did any other day and went into work. My boss, alarmed by my text, had already wrapped my office chair in plastic by the time I arrived at the studio… just in case my water broke while I was sitting in it. While she reminded me that the baby could still be days away, she asked me to try to wrap up as much of my unfinished projects and training as possible within that day, although I technically had one more day at work before I was scheduled to go on maternity leave. (Thank goodness for that, since as it turned out, I never made it into work for that last day!) My physical discomfort was worse than usual at work, and it was exacerbated by sleep deprivation from not being able to catch enough Z’s the night before, but I did not feel any contractions and had begun to think that the baby was going to continue to bake for a few more days.

That night, however, around 9pm, I started feeling the same sharp pain in my abdomen that I had felt in the morning. They were initially few and far between, but by 10pm, they had begun to be consistent and regular, approximately 15 minutes apart. This is when I suspected that I was going into early labor. We got ready for bed to get as much rest as possible, and while Dan fell asleep immediately, I could not sleep — partially because of the pain of the contractions, but also because I was timing the contractions to track how long and far apart they were. (For expectant mothers with smartphones, I highly recommend downloading an app that tracks your contractions! I would have lost my mind trying to keep track with a clock and pen and paper while bearing through the pain. I used the Labor and Contraction Timer for the iPhone, and it was incredibly helpful — you just press a button for when the contraction starts and ends.)

By close to 2am, they had been consistently five minutes apart, lasting over a minute, for over an hour — the 5-1-1 rule that most hospitals use as a standard guideline to wait until before calling the hospital and heading over. I woke Dan up and had him call Kaiser Walnut Creek, but the nurse who took the call said that they typically have first-time mothers wait it out another hour before having them head over to the hospital. And so we waited for another hour, and the contractions continued, getting even closer (at this point, they were between 3 to 4 minutes apart). I finished packing my hospital bag and when 3am rolled around, we called the hospital again and they then told us we could head on over.

We stopped by a donut shop on the way so that Dan could grab some coffee, and we drove to Walnut Creek when it was still completely dark outside because it was so early in the morning. It was April 1, and all I could think was, “Great timing… this baby is going to be born on April Fool’s Day and no one is going to believe us when we call and tell them we had the baby.” We were admitted into triage at around 4am and after waiting for what seemed like forever, the midwife eventually came to check the fetal heartbeat and how dilated I was. She noted that I was only one centimeter dilated but 80-90% effaced, and told us to walk around the hospital for a couple hours to see if we could help speed things up.

My contractions were still consistently around 3 minutes apart and were getting more painful and all I wanted to do was sit down, but I stayed on my feet and walked all over the damn hospital, hoping that there would be some significant progress as long as I toughed it out and kept myself mobile. Dan was really helpful, keeping me hydrated with water and tea, and holding my arm to support me as I waddled uncomfortably from one hospital corridor to another. Around 8:30am, we returned to triage to see if there had been any progress. The nurse checked and found that I was still only a centimeter dilated, and told me that there wasn’t much they could do except to send me home and have me wait it out until I was in more active labor, which they noted could be as early as later that day, or as late as a few days later.

I was crushed. Tears spilled down my cheeks in frustration. I was in a lot of pain, and had just finished continuously walking around the hospital for two hours straight without rest, and they were sending me home. My contractions were still continuing as strong as ever, 3 minutes apart, and I felt like I was in active labor — if this didn’t qualify as labor, then how was I supposed to know when to come back without being sent home? It’s not like I could check how dilated I was myself. How could they send me home? I could not believe it.

The nurse tried to cheer me up and told us to go grab some breakfast in the area and just take it easy for the rest of the day. She took note that I had a regular appointment with my OB in Richmond scheduled for that afternoon, and she urged me to keep the appointment and still go, in case I had progressed more by that time. Dan took me to Millie’s Kitchen in Lafayette, a breakfast place that the nurse had recommended, and the food was good but I was barely able to enjoy it because I was such a wreck and still bearing through the contractions.

We drove back home, and then Dan decided to go into work in San Francisco as long as there was not much else we could do, since he had a lot to take care of at his office. I suffered through the rest of the morning and early afternoon in what felt like hell — the pain from the contractions were becoming so unbearable that I could not properly walk, and on top of how upset I was about being sent home, I was angry and resentful that Dan had abandoned me to go to work at a time like this. I tried everything to ease the pain — from taking a shower, to soaking in a bath, but it only provided slight relief. Dan called me in the afternoon to check up on me, and ultimately ended up coming back from work so that he could drive me to my OB appointment, since by that point, I was in no shape to make it there on my own.

At the Kaiser Richmond clinic, I drew stares. I was visibly in a lot of pain as I made my way to the Women’s Health department, and I kept getting stopped by staff members who asked if I was okay. When the nurse took my blood pressure and weight, she saw that I was doubling over from the contractions and told me, “You’re definitely going to have this baby today or tomorrow” and had the OB come see me immediately. I told my OB about the ordeal of being sent home from Walnut Creek, and she assured me that she was almost certain that I was more dilated since this morning just from seeing the state I was in. Sure enough, when she checked me, she said I was 3-4 cm dilated at this point, and that I could go back to the hospital immediately — she made the call to Walnut Creek so that they would know to expect me again.

By this time, it was 5pm on a Friday, and we hit rush hour traffic as we made our way to Walnut Creek for the second time that day. It took us almost an hour to get to the hospital, and Dan almost fell asleep at the wheel a couple times because he was so exhausted. We trudged up to Labor & Delivery again, and this time, they admitted us immediately into the laboring room instead of triage. They plugged me into a machine which monitored the baby’s heartbeat as well as my contractions and gave me a saline plug for when I needed an IV, but gave me the option of unplugging myself so I could walk around as I wished. Dan’s mother arrived shortly afterward, to be there for moral support. For the next six hours, I bore through the contractions with the breathing patterns I’d learned from childbirth preparation class, and paced back and forth around the laboring room to try to take my mind off of the pain of the contractions, which were getting longer, closer together, and more painful than ever. Dan helped support me and reminded me to breathe every time I found myself holding my breath and doubling over from the pain.

After all the research I’d done during pregnancy, I had gone into labor with my mind made up that I would have a natural, unmedicated birth — I told myself that I would be able to endure the pain of childbirth naturally, and that I would refuse the epidural, Pitocin, and any other drugs they offered me. But when midnight came and it became April 2, I had been in labor for over 24 hours but was still only 6 cm dilated, and hadn’t really gotten any sleep the previous two nights — and was about to go on a third sleepless night. I was utterly exhausted, and felt like I was hitting a physical limitation with how slowly my labor was progressing and how intense the pain of my contractions had become. After being offered the epidural a number of times earlier that evening, I finally broke down and accepted it at that point. It was actually not as bad as I expected it to be — I didn’t even see the needle, and the only thing that hurt was when they numbed my back before administering the actual epidural. I felt guilty that I had betrayed my resolution to have a natural birth, but at that point, I was so tired that I didn’t really care anymore. The epidural kicked in within fifteen minutes and I was completely numb in the lower half of my body, and couldn’t feel the contractions anymore but could see that they were still steadily occurring from the computer screen I was plugged into. Thanks to the relief the epidural provided me, I was able to sleep soundly for two hours — the first restful sleep I’d gotten in two days. Dan was also able to finally get some sleep, too.

I awoke around 2:30 am and was still only 6 cm. The midwife came and told me that they could either break my bag of waters or administer Pitocin to help things along, and after hearing the risks associated with each option and the midwife’s recommendation, I chose to go with the Pitocin, despite how much I dreaded the epidural-Pitocin cycle that I’d heard about in The Business of Being Born. I was unable to go back to sleep and just laid there, dazed for the next few hours, and at around 5am, they confirmed that I was 8 cm, and the midwife said that I was dilated enough that they could safely break my bag of waters without as much risk to the baby, so they went ahead and broke it. (I didn’t even feel anything then, because I was still numb from the epidural.)

At a quarter of 8am, when the night nurses and midwives were about to get off their shifts and get switched out by the morning shift crew, the midwife came to check me again and found that I was 10 cm, and that the baby’s head was right there. It was finally time for me to push.

At this time, the nurses had switched shifts, and my new nurse was Charity, a spirited young Jamaican lady who came on just in time to guide me through the pushing. All the midwives and nurses at Kaiser Walnut Creek were great — they were all personable, professional, very skilled and knowledgeable — but this nurse in particular was awesome! She was such a wonderful, positive cheerleader throughout the whole process, and I don’t know if I would have been able to keep trying if it weren’t for her. The midwife had told me beforehand that they usually give first-time mothers about three hours to push, since a lot of times it takes about that long — so I was prepared for a long three hours of exhaustive pushing.They placed a mirror at the foot of the labor bed, and for the first hour or so, I honestly did not see any progress despite Charity’s enthusiastic coaching and constant exclamations of “Beautiful! You’re doing so great. Keep going!” each time I pushed through a contraction. (Dan was cheering me on with similar words of encouragement, but he later confessed to me that at times he had his doubts about whether we were making any progress at all, but had just been cheering along with Charity as to not lower morale….)

At the end of the first hour, I was getting seriously winded, the blood had gone to my head, and I was having issues breathing. They put an oxygen mask on me to help with the breathing, and I continued to push into the second hour, and it was then that we started to see the crowning of the head, and we could see that the baby had a lot of hair! Looking at the hair on her head, we could see that she was shifting and rotating to get into the best position to come out. Ten more minutes of pushing with all the strength that I had left in me, and Mio’s head was halfway out. (I admit, I was a little freaked out by the sight.) I continued to push, and the midwife came rushing into the room just in time for the baby’s head to completely emerge — she helped pull the shoulders out, and at that point, Mio just tumbled out with ease. Charity immediately took a bulb syringe and quickly and repeatedly inserted it into her mouth to pull out any fluids that were in her mouth and eventually, I heard Mio’s first cry.

It was 9:12 am, and she was laid directly on my chest. Some parts of her face were red from having just made her exit, and her eyes were wide as she silently looked up into my eyes. She no longer cried and just laid there peacefully but alert, against my heart, which felt like it was going to burst. For that first hour, no one took her away to measure her or weigh her or do any tests, and we were undisturbed as we shared our first moments as a family together. At a certain point, Dan cut Mio’s umbilical cord and was offered to view the placenta that had just been pulled out by the midwife, but it was all background noise to me. I couldn’t stop gazing at this little pink person that had just come out of me, taking in her dark eyes, her little button nose, full lips, pudgy arms, and tiny hands which already had long fingernails growing over the edges of the fingers. She was so beautiful and sweet, and I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and joy, as well as renewed energy despite having just endured 35 hours of labor. I nursed her her for the first time and I was amazed at how naturally and heartily she took to the breast, all the while never taking her eyes off of mine. Eventually, Charity took her to be weighed and measured, and told us that she was a healthy 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long.

To tell the truth, I had been a little skeptical whenever other mothers had told me that you will experience a whole new realm and depth of love when you first encounter your baby, and would worry sometimes during my pregnancy that I may not so readily fall in love with my own baby when she was born. But they were right — nothing can prepare you for when you look upon the face of your child for the first time. After hours of enduring the most intense pain with the strongest desire and determination to see this birth through, I came face to face with the deepest unconditional love I had ever experienced.

Motherhood is a role that I’m still adjusting to and struggling to fit into day by day, but it is also the most extraordinary gift that I have ever been given.