Labor and Delivery: Zia's Dramatic Entrance Into the World

1:26am. Monday, June 16th, 2003.

A beautiful, healthy, 9 lb 0 oz, 22 inch long GIRL came out with eyes wide open to greet her Mommy and Daddy.

After that hallway picture, things took a turn for the worse. Dr. Lee broke Andee's waters to help the labor progress and after an hour of really painful contractions (actually, Andee was screaming at this point) in the tub, there was no change. Dr. Lee managed to stretch Andee to about 9 cm during another contraction and she made it into the pushing stage. She had to push for 2 1/2 hours (the average is 30-45 mins for most women). After an hour and a half, Dr. Lee said she could only let Andee push for 20 more mins. At that point, she offered an epidural since Andee's back pains were almost too horrible to bear. But since she only had 20 more mins to make something happen, she declined the epidural. Dr. Lee stepped out for a moment and Cynthia made Andee get up and try every position possible to see if anything felt better during the pushing. Nothing felt better, but when Dr. Lee checked her again, there had been some progress. Dr. Lee kept on letting her push for a little bit longer since something was happening, albeit only a tiny something. We were all afraid that a c-section was looming just around the corner. Everyone was afraid the size of the baby was keeping it from getting out. With the progression and the "just a little bit longer," Andee ended up pushing for another hour. By the end, when they were wheeling stuff in and getting ready for something to happen, Andee looked at Cynthia who said they were getting ready for the baby. Andee didn't believe her. But sure enough, as Michael held her hand and encouraged her, and everyone said PUSH and another doctor pressed down on her belly, she pushed some more and out came a head. A head with a cord wrapped around it. Twice. A-ha - now we all discovered that it wasn't the size of the baby that was causing the problems. The cord ensured that every movement forward was actually a movement back since it kept on pulling the baby back in.

The body came out very quickly after that. But the baby had a hand up around the neck and succeeded in ripping Andee all the way to the rectum. Ouch! (Actually, she didn't feel that.)

Honestly, Andee doubted that she could do it. Which was pretty disheartening since she felt her bellydancing and yoga and swimming and all that should have made for a very easy labor. Michael thought we were headed for a c-section, too. But at least he didn't show it. Andee remembers looking at him and Cynthia when the threat of a c-section was looming over our heads and neither one of them seemed to think that that was an option, so she hunkered down and tried some more - pushing her heart out and feeling more and more exhausted. By the time Zia arrived, she actually was so tired, she just wanted to take a nap.

Oh - and the placenta was HUGE. It was like a four pound piece of liver. Since she had an anterior placenta, it was no wonder she didn't feel a lot of the kicks from Zia - that was a mighty big cushion plastered across her front.

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