laila coral

Laila. arabic origin, means "night beauty", usually refers to dark hair or dark complexion. yes, yes, and yes. Laila Coral arrived at night, is absolutely beautiful - if i do say so myself, and has a load of dark hair. here's the whole spiel on how she arrived. like all birth stories, its long, so grab your glasses bc your eyes might get tired.
*********disclaimer: if you're super pregnant and are planning on having a vaginal birth, you might want to postpone reading this post. its certainly not the worst story ever, but there were a few unexpected turns for me, which i document pretty explicitly.  i will put a line of stars at the end of the story, if you want to skip the text and just get a peak at our newest addition. *********************************************

monday morning, Gma arrived on time to watch big sister to be Sofia, and lovedove and i were out the door on time. i had been instructed not to eat - in the event that they do induce, and in the event that i need a c-section, my stomach needs to be empty. for the record, the last thing i ate was chocolate chip cookies and milk at 9:30pm the night before. we arrived to my appointment on time and were greeted by a very comical labor and delivery nurse. i got into a fashionable hospital gown, and got on the uncomfortable labor and delivery triage table/recliner and started to wait. luckily there was a tv with some morning news show on to pass the time, and lovedove and i just chatted about whatever, our anxiety about the day, etc.

the waiting wasn't terrible, the next part was. i got "checked" aka fiste.d by a l&d pa named Jenna, sorry bitch, but there's a right way and a wrong way to "check" someone. however it does seem to be a rare skill that not many practitioners have learned to do well. i just dont understand. i mean as a lesbian, i can find a cervix. if that was part of my job, i dont think i'd be rushing through the task and being as forceful as many medical professionals seem to be. sorry to get sidelined, but its worth saying. so i get checked by Jenna, she confirms im about 1cm and says that my cervix is soft, i guess to give a silver lining to her aggressive exam, and then i recover for a while. i'm soon joined by a resident who is part of my dr's team, we do some medical history stuff, blah blah blah, my dr pops in to say good morning which i love, and gives me hope that she'll be present here and there throughout the day. (spoiler: she's not.).

a few more staff members roll in, a dr from anesthesiology, etc, jane the sono tech (meh) with debbie the sono tech (the pro who had given me the gummy bear sono pic of baby at 9ish weeks) bc they will be the sonographers guiding the amnio, and eventually one of my dr's colleages comes in with his team and goes through all of the risks. risk assessment is always fun, but i understand why they need to - not everyone is as google proficient and educated as we all are lol. anyway i was thrilled that there were so many familiar faces in the room, it really helped to keep my anxiety down about the procedure. it was not terrible, but certainly not fun, but it was moderately fast. the dr said that the amnio went as smoothly as it could have, and said that the amniotic fluid looked good/clear with a little cloudiness, which usually is a sign of lung maturity, or maturity overall, something like that. he tells us that if the results signal a strong positive that the lungs are mature we should know very quickly, within an hour or so. if they are questionable, the samples would need to be sent out to another lab for further testing, and we'd be contacted by phone after several hours with the results/instruction. well, about a half hour later the doctor returns with our good news, her lungs are mature, and they're going to admit me for induction. lovedove asks if i can eat, mr nice dr says yes, he expects "a lot of boring" for the most part, as this is my first delivery, i'm getting induced, etc.

i get to stroll through l&d in my gown, with my sexy IV pole, and i get into the huge labor/delivery/recovery room. my brain thinks about how many people could fit into that room. i have no idea of my brain's ironic foreshadowing. we wait around for a while, my dr pops in again, says we'll start the cyto.tec to try to ripen my cervix. fine. its 2:30, i get fiste.d to a lesser degree by another young medical professional, and she inserts the tiny quarter of a pill to get the ball rolling. i can't get up for 2 hours now, not easy for a very pregnant woman. oh, and i get my answer about food. its a no. i bitch about the answer and ask to speak to dr. noyoucanteat, but i only speak with a few nurses and other doctors who tell me that the hospitalists don't like to allow laboring moms to eat due to the possibility of food in the stomach if a c-section is needed. the first dr., who told me yet later came in to apologize, but since he's not there as a "delivering ob" and just a high risk, mfm dr there's not much he can do. i appreciated the conversation though. clearly i voice my gripes about being a diabetic, unable to eat, having not eaten, facing a difficult road to managing my blood sugar levels via a glucose drip in my IV in conjunction with my insulin pump. sidenote, i'm not going to go further into my diabetes management in this post, but i did go low twice in the boring/early stages of my labor, which is physically exhausting on its own and very frustrating when you can't just treat a low by drinking some juice. end sidenote. oh yea, and my general complaint about not allowing laboring women nourishment before the most amazing physical task of their lives. i lose the battle and start to ration ice chips so i don't have to pee in 5 minutes. ps, i love ice and chewing ice, and ice chips are awesome, so i'm only half complaining. so like i said, i cant get up for the first 2 hours, but the meds have the ability to be productive for up to 4 hours. so i lay in the bed, watch tv, watch my fetal monitors, the ones i've become so familiar with due to all of my non stress tests, and try not to watch the clock.

4 hours later, its about 6:30, and i've been having some mild contractions. i get checked again, am told im 1-2cm, 60% effaced, -3, which means that baby is still wayyyy up there and not really down in the birth canal at all. i'm a little discouraged, but i've been contacting a little so i try to stay positive. my body is reacting at least a little to the meds, so thats a good thing. they tell me they want to see if i continue to progress without a second dose for the next hour or two. fine. i continue with some little contractions, nothing major.

they give me the second dose of cyto.tec. it's 8:30. my contractions seem to start to pick up, im moderately uncomfortable but i'm not seeing my contractions on the monitor. i talk to my nurse, she says that its just an external monitor so sometimes the things just aren't placed right to pick everything up. i'm frustrated that i can't see them on the screen/print out bc i feel like now the signs of discomfort i'm beginning to exhibit seem phony/unwarranted. whatever. i start to have to breathe through the pain a bit during contractions and i begin to use the arms of the bed, by trying to break them off or pull myself up on them, to try to get through the beginning phases of my labor. the nurse had brought up stadol, which i took her up on around 9 or 10. i was thankfully able to sleep-ish for the two hours that it took effect. it made me really dizzy so i kept my eyes closed but it definitely helped me rest more than i had all day.

at 12:30, i get checked. the words i hear: 2, 70, -3. cue my emotional breakdown. im angry that i have been working through contractions that i have no visual proof of, and my body isn't giving the medical people any proof either. i'm angry because i haven't eaten in 27 hours. i'm devastated bc i feel like this is going to take forever. lovedove and my 7pm-7am nurse Belkis, yes she deserves to be named but for a positive reason, not like our friend Jenna, try to reassure me that it's a good thing that im contracting, remind me that inductions can take a really long time, and try to validate my feelings of frustration. i kind of just keep bitching to lovedove and my contractions keep getting worse. they wait on the 3rd dose bc im still contracting. emotional breakdown continues, so do contractions.

at 1:30 i'm starting to lose my shit from my pain, so they check me again. i'm now 4cm, and i dont remember the other details. a few minutes after i get checked, i feel something that seems like a punch to my cervix from baby, i say "ow" and the nurse and lovedove ask whats up. i think that my water just broke, but i don't say that, bc i dont feel any gush. i say that i think she punched me. 2 minutes later i do mention about my water, and now i feel my contractions start to kick into high gear. oh boy. lovedove gets the nurse to tell her about my water, and to tell the nurse to start tracking down whoever can get me an epidural.

the next hour is complete hell, i beg for an epidural, which i wanted since i was 2cm. i continue to try to dismantle the arms of the bed, which i kind of think i might be able to break off, but i'm unsuccessful, thankfully bc it gives me a challenge other than getting through the pain. supposedly the anestesiologist is busy with another laboring mom, and now i'm doing my best to stay calm and just get through the contractions. i know that i tried to control my vocalizations when they started to get bad, but eventually i'm pretty sure i was kind of yelling through them. lovedove says i began to curse a lot, and i told her that i was going to "fucking kill someone" if i didn't get the epidural soon. i have no memory of that statement, but she says she knew that shit was going down with words like that. every time i looked at her while i was having a contraction. she looked petrified of me. lovedove says she just didn't know what to do to help, there was nothing she could do. i didn't want to be touched by anyone at all, unless it was the anesthesiologist.

its now 2:30am and im losing my mind from the pain. i get checked, i'm 7cm dilated. my nurse can hardly believe how fast i'm progressing, as the typical cytote.c induction takes 4 doses/16ish hours before they introduce another drug to kick up the contractions. i know that 7 is often the cutoff for being able to get one and i beg to be given one before i lose my opportunity. for non-math wizards, let me remind you that i've gone from 4cm to 7cm in approximately 1 hour. yes, i had constant atrocious contractions. back to back to back, with very little resting time in between. my contractions continue to get worse and faster and more intense, and now at the end of the really bad contractions i feel my body start to bear down on it's own. i know this can't happen yet, at only 7cm, and i do what i can to fight it. i tell lovedove and my nurse what i'm feeling and my nurse knows how serious things are getting. the anesthesiologist finally get there, simultaneously goes over the risks, sets up, and gives me instructions. i tell her to please just do it, as i try not to lose my manners while i dig my fingers into my calves to get through a few contractions without moving. she completes the epidural and i begin to get some relief. i can still feel the contractions but i know that i'll need to when it comes to pushing time. i'm relieved and my contractions are manageable again.

as soon as the epidural is done, i get checked again, i'm at 10cm, and its time to push. no rest for the weary here. they tell me to do a "practice push". i half ass it, but they seem happy with it, so i think im on the right track and i get ready for the real deal and to exert a real full effort for the main event. 3 sets of pushes within 5 minutes and she's out. honestly, i think that delivering her was the easiest part of all of this. i guess it helped that she was actually only 6lbs and 11ozs, as opposed to being a whole lb larger as they were estimating. Laila Coral entered the world at 3:43am and they placed her on my chest. all i could do was cry. it was unbelievable. it feels like some weird dream. i know she has to go to the nicu to be monitored for 12 hours, and i do a pretty good job of keeping it together when they roll her away.

the hospitalist and one of the girls who checked me on her team stitch me up, i have no desire to know what grade of tear i had, or how many stitches they needed to give me. the end of the stitching is uncomfortable, i'm tired and starving. i eat an apple and nutte.r. butter.s. and i try to rest. you may think the story is over, oh no my friends, there's more to come.

at around 6am, approx 2 hours after i delivered Laila, my nurse asks if i would like to use the restroom, that way they can gauge how i'm doing, and see if they can get the ball rolling on me getting to the nicu to try to nurse our brand new baby. i do well getting to the bathroom in my huge room with assistance from my nurse who instructs me to try to pee, and i close the door and sit down on the toilet. i realize that something is wrong, i feel funny, and my vision is getting spotty. from my seat on the potty i open the door and try to speak loud enough to tell lovedove that i need to check my sugar. my eyes close. they open. i'm still on the toilet, i hear my name being said a few times, i smell something strong, and when i'm able to pick up head up and focus my eyes, i see what i think is the entire nursing staff of the labor and delivery floor. they help me get back to my bed, i'm very confused, i ask where lovedove is and if she's scared bc by now i know something is wrong. they're giving me oxygen, checking my sugar, and i don't even know what else. apparently i had lost a lot of blood during my actual labor, completely unbeknownst to me but lovedove says she knew from what the convo between the doctors and nurses when i was delivering Laila, and in the bathroom i had passed a huge blood clot, which caused me to pass out. the drs and nurses provide amazing care and i stabilize and continue to get monitored really closely. i apologize to all of them, especially my poor nurse, and to lovedove. for a second i think that i might die because she's holding my hand and crying, but i'm pretty sure i wont. my poor lovedove. i put her through the ringer.

my dr rolls around in the morning, and suggests i have a blood transfusion. to significantly decrease my recovery time from everything. she declares that she has made an "executive decision" and will order me 2 units of blood. fine. after the 2 unit i actually look at myself in the bathroom and i look like a fucking zombie. i'm thankful that i didn't see myself when the shit was hitting the fan, i can't imagine how bad i looked.

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this story fortunately for us has a happy ending. we were discharged from the hospital around 2pm on thursday, like normal/healthy people and we got to go home and start our family's new normal. it's overwhelming, very emotional - these postpartum hormones are nuts, and i can not believe how happy i feel. i'm no longer a pregnant ball of anxiety and i feel like me again. i'm breastfeeding Laila, and i've finally got some milk, as being a diabetic can delay it's arrival. we're all doing great, getting used to each other, and adjusting day by day. this post has taken me all night to write, but i'm glad its done. im sure i'll have things that i forgot to say, and if they're important i'll do a post about them or amend this.

here's a few pics of our newest bundle of joy.

when they finally brought her to me after she was released from the nicu. needless to say,
i never got to the nicu to visit her

lovedove and laila

laila and her favorite part of my body during a late and lonely hospital night

laila in a crazy preemie hat from her gma that will only fit
 her tiny head through the end of this week

the little lady earlier today. we're not really headband people,
 but i wanted to throw one on for shits and giggles

i feel so happy with our family and so truly complete. i'm totally in love again. i love our life so much, and im proud of us, as we've planned and worked so hard to get to where we are today.

i'm so exhausted, and laila is squeaking like a little mouse and will most likely start yelling at me to feed her any second.

thank you all for your congratulatory wishes and your support through these crazy crazy months of my pregnancy and pregnancy planning.

she's calling me, and i love her for it.