I love the health care system here.
We have had, so far, three visits from a midwife to check on things and answer any questions which may have come up. Along with practical advice on baby care, we get the extremely important outside viewpoint about progress, not only for the baby, but also for MWF.
One of the things which we did not spend much time thinking about prior to the birth was the amount of time it would take to recover from it. There is also the issue of the body (and I am talking here about MWF's) continuing to change and adapt to the new circumstances.
Not only is there healing of the episiotomy to be done, having the milk come in has also been painful. Having the baby start to feed regularly has also been painful. We expect that this will pass (it must, I think), but it is still just stuff that didn't really occur to us as being a painful part of the normal process. Mastitis, yes, likely painful (we have it on good authority but hope never to be able to empathize). Non-mastitic, regular feeding pain? Yeowch (but improving).
Having someone come in from outside our little bubble to tell us that this is normal, and will pass - priceless.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Story
It's Wednesday, May 7, and I am at work preparing for time off. Our baby's due date is May 9 and my plan is to take a full week off when he is born. The nature of my work is such that I handle some extremely specialized work for our customers, and I need to make sure that everything gets handed over smoothly to my backup.
At about 16:45 (this is Europe, after all) my wonderful wife (MWF) called me to chat and see what my ETA was for getting home. Since her time off from work, she has been wonderful about taking care of dinner and timing it so that it is ready when I get home. I know, quite '50s, but I can't complain and, honestly, she likes cooking. MWF lets me know that she is feeling a bit uncomfortable, but I notice that she is reluctant to use the "C" word, so I let loose:
Me: Does it feel like cramps? 'Cuz that's what A said contractions feel like.
Her: Sort of, I don't know. I guess.
Me: Dude, you're having contractions. You need to start timing them.
Her: We don't have a timer.
Me: Use the one on the stove.
Her: Alright, I guess.
I wrapped up as fast as I could, did some last minute training on some urgent work, then headed out about 17:30. 20 minutes, or so, later I was home and MWF was busy finishing off dinner that night, a salad with chicken.
Me: So, have you been timing the contractions?
Her: It's about every ten minutes.
Me: Are you OK?
I ask this because every so often MWF will stop, intake her breath sharply and bend over with her hands on her hips, hold for a bit, then straighten up.
Her: I'm fine.
We served up dinner, set up the dog with her dog food, rice, and quark (you can Google what this is, but there is not a real equivalent in the US), then headed to the living room to chomp and watch a movie for the night. You see, at this point, even though we are becoming more comfortable using the C word, MWF is convinced that the pain is due to the fakies (that's Braxton-Hicks, folks, MWF is all natural).
We managed to finish dinner before MWF started walking around to manage the pain. The contractions came in about every five minutes at that point.
Me: Should we keep watching the movie, or do you want to go to the hospital?
Her: We can keep watching, I'm OKeeeeeeeehhhhhhhh.
Me: OK.
We got through maybe 20 minutes of Firewall before it became clear that MWF needed to hop into the bath. The thinking at that point, as I have been told, is that the bath would prove that MWF had the fakies. You see, with the warm water and general relaxation the pain would grow erratic and go away, thus proving that, in fact, we still had some more days of "normal" life.
With the wife in the bath (as much as we could get under water, at any rate) I began to read to her between bouts of pain. I made it through about half a page in 20 minutes. At that point, the pain was not coming in longer intervals. In fact, we were at about 3 1/2 minutes between contractions when we decided to pack it in, pack up the car and head to the hospital.
We dropped off the dog at our good friend's house then headed to the hospital, elapsed time about ten minutes. We checked in at about 21:30.
MWF was set up on an exam table with some pieces of equipment stuck to her stomach. Before anything went too far we needed some data about the baby's heart rate and the time between contractions. Luckily, both were available on one printout (though I must admit to some mystification about what, exactly, was being monitored that showed the time between, and intensity of, the contractions. Thus, I hereby name it the contractiometer.)
On the way to the hospital I had joked about how once the midwife did the exam, she would find that MWF was, ta-da!, at 12 cm of dilation. 30 minutes after we got there and had some initial data, the exam was done and MWF sailed in at 7 cm. Not 12, but over 50%. Full disclosure: I have, and had at that moment, completely forgotten what maximum opening was. 7 may have been about it, and likely was, given the speed of what happened next.
One of the excellent things which happened straight off was extremely lucky coincidence. MWF's eyes are pretty bad. One of the things which scared her going into the birth process was the claim that, during labor, pushing too hard might cause her to go blind. Somehow, the pressure associated with her giving birth and pushing might cause corneal detachment. We had decided prior to going to the hospital that MWF would first try to have as natural a birth as possible, but that if it looked like there would be any kind of complications for her or the baby, that a C section would have to be dealt with. Excellently, the second we started explaining this to the midwife, she let us know that her husband is an eye doctor, and that the idea that something could happen to MWF because of pushing was "Quatsch" (that's German for BS). This eased both of our concerns in a way that no amount of lack of results from the interweb could have (and MWF looked, believe me).
I was sent off at that point to go and register. MWF went into the birthing room (more on that later). First, let me describe the registration process, in its entirety. MWF had given me her insurance card. I took this to the front desk (maybe it was just the night desk, as it was past normal business hours, if such a thing exists at a hospital) and gave the lady on duty the card. She scanned it, asked to verify my address, admonished me that MWF needed to get the address corrected, then sent me back upstairs with a printout of some stickers with our information. That was it. I love the health system here.
Meanwhile, back at the birth staging area, MWF had been walking around a bit and trying to find a comfortable position to ease the pain.
Some words about the room. There are three separate rooms for giving birth at this hospital. Two are for "normal" birth, and one for C sections (not that this isn't normal, but this one is, of course, sterile, and looks more like the operating room that it is). The other two are set up with light yellow walls and muted lighting. There are multiple options for the position in which to give birth. In the room we were assigned, there is a huge, huge MacGyver chair/bed. There was basically one huge circle that was horizontal to the floor and a large oval as a backrest. The back was adjustable, of course, and the whole chair could be moved up and down. There were also several attachments. On one side, there was a padded bench thing, for the pregnant lady to kneel on, if she so desired. There was a trapezoidal thing that rotated around the periphery of the horizontal seat, to offer more support in whatever position the pregnant lady chose to lie.
Additionally, there were other things available in the room. There were two exercise balls. These could be used to help during labor, but could also be used for support during birth. Most interesting to me was a heavy rope loop which was hanging from the ceiling. Needless to say, there were many, many options available to help make the mother to be as comfortable as possible.
MWF ended up on her side, on the bed. This was just the most comfortable position. As the contractions became worse, MWF got up for about ten minutes to lean on me. Otherwise, I was at her side, letting her hold on to my arm and squeeze as much as she needed to until the pain abated. Then we would wait, there was about a minute between the pain, and start over again. My big job, and I knew this going into it, was really just to help MWF remember to breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I am not convinced that that technique, in and of itself, was of any particular benefit, but it was a good thing for the two of us to concentrate on.
Going into the birth, back when we were talking about our hopes, expectations, etc., I was pretty clear that I didn't want to see very much of what was going on down in the business end. The image in my mind from TV and movies, with me behind the wife, her feet in stirrups, and a nice curtain blocking off all the action, seemed pretty good. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Like I said earlier, I was at MWF's side, sitting on a stool while she had the contractions, pushed, held up one of her legs, etc. Once it became clear that we were just minutes away from pushing out our new bundle of joy I couldn't help but start looking at what was going on. I could see the midwife starting to get everything ready for our new, squalling babby. This included getting the heater set up, putting blankets on the balance, and getting the other implements ready for once the babby was out. MWF was going through more and more pain, and the pressure was building as he moved down the birth canal. MWF seemed to be stuck; she was pushing and pushing, and the midwife could see the baby, but when MWF stopped pushing, he would move back up. Still, he was close. To try and help motivate MWF, that was when I started looking.
As she was busy squeezing my arm, and pushing her hardest, I started taking a look to see what was going on. There was definitely something quite large that was starting to bulge out. Even now, with some time to reflect, I don't think that I can say, exactly, that it was his head. That is to say that, even while I was sure it was his head, I had no idea what part of his head it was.
Though it seemed much longer, after a couple of tries with him at this point in the birth canal, I saw the midwife go to her tool cabinet and bring over some scissors. By that time a doctor had come in and I had picked up that they were pretty sure that an episiotomy would be necessary. I couldn't bring myself to watch that part, and spent that time concentrating on MWF. As I undertand what happened, the idea is to wait until the mother is pushing to do the actual cut. The pressure of the baby on the wall of the perineum helps to numb the nerves momentarily. Thus, that is when the cut is made. With huge safety scissors, the kind that are also used to cut off the tape from ankles after sporting events (though not, I am sure, the exact same pair of scissors).
Having shielded my eyes from that part, I did start looking again once the scissors had been set aside, and I can't be more glad. Seconds after the cut was done, the head came out and then, fwoop!, the rest of the baby. Though there was a little bit of blood from the episiotomy, I was amazed at just how clean he was. I had imagined he would be covered in goop. The midwife and doctor clamped up the umbilical cord then asked me if I wanted to cut the cord. Again, going into things, I was apparently (I have no recollection of this) sure that I didn't want to do it. It seemed pretty gross to me. At the moment, however, tears on my cheeks, there was no question for me that, yes, I wanted to cut the umbilical cord.
At about 16:45 (this is Europe, after all) my wonderful wife (MWF) called me to chat and see what my ETA was for getting home. Since her time off from work, she has been wonderful about taking care of dinner and timing it so that it is ready when I get home. I know, quite '50s, but I can't complain and, honestly, she likes cooking. MWF lets me know that she is feeling a bit uncomfortable, but I notice that she is reluctant to use the "C" word, so I let loose:
Me: Does it feel like cramps? 'Cuz that's what A said contractions feel like.
Her: Sort of, I don't know. I guess.
Me: Dude, you're having contractions. You need to start timing them.
Her: We don't have a timer.
Me: Use the one on the stove.
Her: Alright, I guess.
I wrapped up as fast as I could, did some last minute training on some urgent work, then headed out about 17:30. 20 minutes, or so, later I was home and MWF was busy finishing off dinner that night, a salad with chicken.
Me: So, have you been timing the contractions?
Her: It's about every ten minutes.
Me: Are you OK?
I ask this because every so often MWF will stop, intake her breath sharply and bend over with her hands on her hips, hold for a bit, then straighten up.
Her: I'm fine.
We served up dinner, set up the dog with her dog food, rice, and quark (you can Google what this is, but there is not a real equivalent in the US), then headed to the living room to chomp and watch a movie for the night. You see, at this point, even though we are becoming more comfortable using the C word, MWF is convinced that the pain is due to the fakies (that's Braxton-Hicks, folks, MWF is all natural).
We managed to finish dinner before MWF started walking around to manage the pain. The contractions came in about every five minutes at that point.
Me: Should we keep watching the movie, or do you want to go to the hospital?
Her: We can keep watching, I'm OKeeeeeeeehhhhhhhh.
Me: OK.
We got through maybe 20 minutes of Firewall before it became clear that MWF needed to hop into the bath. The thinking at that point, as I have been told, is that the bath would prove that MWF had the fakies. You see, with the warm water and general relaxation the pain would grow erratic and go away, thus proving that, in fact, we still had some more days of "normal" life.
With the wife in the bath (as much as we could get under water, at any rate) I began to read to her between bouts of pain. I made it through about half a page in 20 minutes. At that point, the pain was not coming in longer intervals. In fact, we were at about 3 1/2 minutes between contractions when we decided to pack it in, pack up the car and head to the hospital.
We dropped off the dog at our good friend's house then headed to the hospital, elapsed time about ten minutes. We checked in at about 21:30.
MWF was set up on an exam table with some pieces of equipment stuck to her stomach. Before anything went too far we needed some data about the baby's heart rate and the time between contractions. Luckily, both were available on one printout (though I must admit to some mystification about what, exactly, was being monitored that showed the time between, and intensity of, the contractions. Thus, I hereby name it the contractiometer.)
On the way to the hospital I had joked about how once the midwife did the exam, she would find that MWF was, ta-da!, at 12 cm of dilation. 30 minutes after we got there and had some initial data, the exam was done and MWF sailed in at 7 cm. Not 12, but over 50%. Full disclosure: I have, and had at that moment, completely forgotten what maximum opening was. 7 may have been about it, and likely was, given the speed of what happened next.
One of the excellent things which happened straight off was extremely lucky coincidence. MWF's eyes are pretty bad. One of the things which scared her going into the birth process was the claim that, during labor, pushing too hard might cause her to go blind. Somehow, the pressure associated with her giving birth and pushing might cause corneal detachment. We had decided prior to going to the hospital that MWF would first try to have as natural a birth as possible, but that if it looked like there would be any kind of complications for her or the baby, that a C section would have to be dealt with. Excellently, the second we started explaining this to the midwife, she let us know that her husband is an eye doctor, and that the idea that something could happen to MWF because of pushing was "Quatsch" (that's German for BS). This eased both of our concerns in a way that no amount of lack of results from the interweb could have (and MWF looked, believe me).
I was sent off at that point to go and register. MWF went into the birthing room (more on that later). First, let me describe the registration process, in its entirety. MWF had given me her insurance card. I took this to the front desk (maybe it was just the night desk, as it was past normal business hours, if such a thing exists at a hospital) and gave the lady on duty the card. She scanned it, asked to verify my address, admonished me that MWF needed to get the address corrected, then sent me back upstairs with a printout of some stickers with our information. That was it. I love the health system here.
Meanwhile, back at the birth staging area, MWF had been walking around a bit and trying to find a comfortable position to ease the pain.
Some words about the room. There are three separate rooms for giving birth at this hospital. Two are for "normal" birth, and one for C sections (not that this isn't normal, but this one is, of course, sterile, and looks more like the operating room that it is). The other two are set up with light yellow walls and muted lighting. There are multiple options for the position in which to give birth. In the room we were assigned, there is a huge, huge MacGyver chair/bed. There was basically one huge circle that was horizontal to the floor and a large oval as a backrest. The back was adjustable, of course, and the whole chair could be moved up and down. There were also several attachments. On one side, there was a padded bench thing, for the pregnant lady to kneel on, if she so desired. There was a trapezoidal thing that rotated around the periphery of the horizontal seat, to offer more support in whatever position the pregnant lady chose to lie.
Additionally, there were other things available in the room. There were two exercise balls. These could be used to help during labor, but could also be used for support during birth. Most interesting to me was a heavy rope loop which was hanging from the ceiling. Needless to say, there were many, many options available to help make the mother to be as comfortable as possible.
MWF ended up on her side, on the bed. This was just the most comfortable position. As the contractions became worse, MWF got up for about ten minutes to lean on me. Otherwise, I was at her side, letting her hold on to my arm and squeeze as much as she needed to until the pain abated. Then we would wait, there was about a minute between the pain, and start over again. My big job, and I knew this going into it, was really just to help MWF remember to breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I am not convinced that that technique, in and of itself, was of any particular benefit, but it was a good thing for the two of us to concentrate on.
Going into the birth, back when we were talking about our hopes, expectations, etc., I was pretty clear that I didn't want to see very much of what was going on down in the business end. The image in my mind from TV and movies, with me behind the wife, her feet in stirrups, and a nice curtain blocking off all the action, seemed pretty good. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Like I said earlier, I was at MWF's side, sitting on a stool while she had the contractions, pushed, held up one of her legs, etc. Once it became clear that we were just minutes away from pushing out our new bundle of joy I couldn't help but start looking at what was going on. I could see the midwife starting to get everything ready for our new, squalling babby. This included getting the heater set up, putting blankets on the balance, and getting the other implements ready for once the babby was out. MWF was going through more and more pain, and the pressure was building as he moved down the birth canal. MWF seemed to be stuck; she was pushing and pushing, and the midwife could see the baby, but when MWF stopped pushing, he would move back up. Still, he was close. To try and help motivate MWF, that was when I started looking.
As she was busy squeezing my arm, and pushing her hardest, I started taking a look to see what was going on. There was definitely something quite large that was starting to bulge out. Even now, with some time to reflect, I don't think that I can say, exactly, that it was his head. That is to say that, even while I was sure it was his head, I had no idea what part of his head it was.
Though it seemed much longer, after a couple of tries with him at this point in the birth canal, I saw the midwife go to her tool cabinet and bring over some scissors. By that time a doctor had come in and I had picked up that they were pretty sure that an episiotomy would be necessary. I couldn't bring myself to watch that part, and spent that time concentrating on MWF. As I undertand what happened, the idea is to wait until the mother is pushing to do the actual cut. The pressure of the baby on the wall of the perineum helps to numb the nerves momentarily. Thus, that is when the cut is made. With huge safety scissors, the kind that are also used to cut off the tape from ankles after sporting events (though not, I am sure, the exact same pair of scissors).
Having shielded my eyes from that part, I did start looking again once the scissors had been set aside, and I can't be more glad. Seconds after the cut was done, the head came out and then, fwoop!, the rest of the baby. Though there was a little bit of blood from the episiotomy, I was amazed at just how clean he was. I had imagined he would be covered in goop. The midwife and doctor clamped up the umbilical cord then asked me if I wanted to cut the cord. Again, going into things, I was apparently (I have no recollection of this) sure that I didn't want to do it. It seemed pretty gross to me. At the moment, however, tears on my cheeks, there was no question for me that, yes, I wanted to cut the umbilical cord.
I am pleased and proud to present you William Owen Whitener.
Time of birth, ten minutes after midnight, May 8, 2008, in Dresden, Germany.
Update:
MWF has reviewed this post and remarked on two things which I did not get right.
First, the issue with the eyes was retinal detachment, not corneal detachment.
Second, I omitted a whole section where I went shopping prior to going home. This actually ended up being crucial, since I was looking for a replacement O ring for the stopper for our tub. I was actually at the shopping center because the DVD drive on my computer went kaput, but so long as I was there and there was a hardware store next door, I figured that I should pop in and see about the O ring.
This being Germany, one can't just pop in to the hardware store and get a replacement part. No, no, no, that just won't suffice. There is a system, you see. So after searching fruitlessly for a while I gathered my nerve enough to, you know, actually ask an employee for help. She understood immediately what I was looking for, which was good (and not always the norm, especially given the paucity of such specialized words in my German vocabulary). However, I soon received the news that I would probably need to bring in the old part, to see exactly the part number which would need to be replaced. I thanked her, and kept looking for other ways to fix the problem.
Thus it was that I ended up in the toilet area of the store, looking at O rings of various sizes. This is actually where we had the contraction time conversation. Being on a cell phone, in the middle of large metal shelves supporting various ceramic and metal parts for toilets and plumbing, the conversation went something like this:
Me: Okay, what size is the O ring?
Her: ---
Me: MWF, what size is the O ring?
Her: What?
Me: Can you not hear me?
Her: What was that? I can't hear you.
Me: F***.
Her: I heard that.
Me: Oh, well what size is the O ring?
Her: ---
Me: F***.
Her: I heard that.
There was more of that, with me trying to get the size of the O ring and making sure that she started timing the contractions.
While I was a bit pissed that my DVD drive had died (and even then, it's not that it died fully, which is what really yanks my chain, it's that it won't write anything), it ended up serendipitously helping us out. Otherwise, we never would have had the "proof" that the contractions were for real.
Time of birth, ten minutes after midnight, May 8, 2008, in Dresden, Germany.
Update:
MWF has reviewed this post and remarked on two things which I did not get right.
First, the issue with the eyes was retinal detachment, not corneal detachment.
Second, I omitted a whole section where I went shopping prior to going home. This actually ended up being crucial, since I was looking for a replacement O ring for the stopper for our tub. I was actually at the shopping center because the DVD drive on my computer went kaput, but so long as I was there and there was a hardware store next door, I figured that I should pop in and see about the O ring.
This being Germany, one can't just pop in to the hardware store and get a replacement part. No, no, no, that just won't suffice. There is a system, you see. So after searching fruitlessly for a while I gathered my nerve enough to, you know, actually ask an employee for help. She understood immediately what I was looking for, which was good (and not always the norm, especially given the paucity of such specialized words in my German vocabulary). However, I soon received the news that I would probably need to bring in the old part, to see exactly the part number which would need to be replaced. I thanked her, and kept looking for other ways to fix the problem.
Thus it was that I ended up in the toilet area of the store, looking at O rings of various sizes. This is actually where we had the contraction time conversation. Being on a cell phone, in the middle of large metal shelves supporting various ceramic and metal parts for toilets and plumbing, the conversation went something like this:
Me: Okay, what size is the O ring?
Her: ---
Me: MWF, what size is the O ring?
Her: What?
Me: Can you not hear me?
Her: What was that? I can't hear you.
Me: F***.
Her: I heard that.
Me: Oh, well what size is the O ring?
Her: ---
Me: F***.
Her: I heard that.
There was more of that, with me trying to get the size of the O ring and making sure that she started timing the contractions.
While I was a bit pissed that my DVD drive had died (and even then, it's not that it died fully, which is what really yanks my chain, it's that it won't write anything), it ended up serendipitously helping us out. Otherwise, we never would have had the "proof" that the contractions were for real.
Opening Day
I have thought about this for quite a while, and with my wonderful wife's urging on, have taken the plunge into casting our (somewhat) personal information into the ether.
I have some hopes for this undertaking. First, being a fairly lazy communicator, I hope to provide a central point where I can let all the people that are important to me know what is going on in my life. Second, I hope that being somewhat beholden to this blog encourages me to better document the important happenings. Third, I hope that I use this as an opportunity to improve my writing.
Finally, the most important thing right now is to use this as a space to try and get rid of all the baby news that I will inevitably want to talk about, endlessly. This is something the wife and I have talked about quite a bit and we are united in the desire to maintain our ability to converse about things other than the color of our new baby's poop. We couldn't resist the temptation when we first got our dog. We will do it with our baby, unless we have an outlet.
Welcome! I hope you find something you like here. I hope not to bore you too much with senseless blather and look forward to hearing from you.
I have some hopes for this undertaking. First, being a fairly lazy communicator, I hope to provide a central point where I can let all the people that are important to me know what is going on in my life. Second, I hope that being somewhat beholden to this blog encourages me to better document the important happenings. Third, I hope that I use this as an opportunity to improve my writing.
Finally, the most important thing right now is to use this as a space to try and get rid of all the baby news that I will inevitably want to talk about, endlessly. This is something the wife and I have talked about quite a bit and we are united in the desire to maintain our ability to converse about things other than the color of our new baby's poop. We couldn't resist the temptation when we first got our dog. We will do it with our baby, unless we have an outlet.
Welcome! I hope you find something you like here. I hope not to bore you too much with senseless blather and look forward to hearing from you.
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