Anjali's Arrival - The (Not So) Gory Details

Disclaimer: This post will probably only interest those who either have been pregnant, will be pregnant, or are currently pregnant.

Here's how it all went down. At 6pm on Tuesday June 12th, Swami and I went out for a last hurrah of a dinner to Amber Indian Restaraunt in Mountain View. I indulged in Vegetable Biryani, Malai Kofta, and some very nice tandoori paneer. The GD diet went out the window, but with less than 24 hours to go in utero, I figured my baby could handle it. We checked into the hospital around 8pm. The labor and delivery room at Stanford was much nicer than I had expected. They gave me the Cervadil (which thins out the cervix), popped me an Ambien, and asked me to get some sleep. When I arriveed at the hospital, I was 60% effaced and 1cm dilated, but I wasn't having any contractions. Interestingly enough, my glucose levels were fine, despite my rice and kofta binge at Amber! I sent Swami home after watching some Colbert Report so he could get a decent night's sleep and to make sure Sasha didn't get lonely.

At about 2:45am I started to feel some mild contractions. They didn't hurt, I just felt the tightening of the uterus. I dozed on and off from then on. It was surreal to be trying to grab some zzzs knowing you were about to push a baby out of your womb in a few hours! Your mind doesn't really let you rest. At 5:30am a nurse came in to check my vitals. Everything was fine. At 7pm, they started the Pitocin drip. Swami came back to the hospital around then, drinking his Starbucks and chomping on donuts. I was jealous, no food for me! I couldn't eat until I had finished delivering the baby. Around this time we met our labor/delivery nurse, Judy. Judy was great. She had been a L/D nurse for over 25 years. We told her that we had taken childbirth classes, but we just realized they never told us how to push the baby out. We told her how displeased we were with the classes, and she appropriately started referring to them as the 'Mother Earth' childbirth classes, which made us laugh. She gave us a crash course in pushing, and we felt much better. We knew we'd like her when she said 'everybody wants to count out loud to 10 when they do the pushing. I've heard enough people count to 10 - we're just going to count it in out heads, okay?' Brilliant.

Around 8am the contractions were starting to become uncomfortable. I would have to stop our conversation to breathe through them. Judy noticed my discomfort and suggested perhaps it was time for the epidural. I thought I had to be at 4cm, and the last check only put me at 3cm, but Judy was not a stickler on this topic and called in the anesthesiologist for me. Another reason why we loved Judy!

The epidural procedure was uneventful. I had some mild discomfort as the anesthesiolgoist numbed the area where the needle would go in. It stung pretty bad, but you couldn't say it really hurt. It was just like a bad bee sting. But you know its just going to sting for a few seconds, and then it will all be over, so you can definitely get through the sting. After that, the drugs start to kick in and you don't feel any pain whatsoever.

From 8:30 to Noon, Nurse Judy hung out with me and Swami. We chatted about loads of things (can't remember what anymore!) At one point Swami went out to Stanford Shopping Center. He came back with a book and as I would find out later, a very nice gift for his wife. This period of time was also very surreal. You could see the contractions happening on the monitors, but I didn't feel much and we were just all hanging out in the L&D room, chatting away as if we were pals meeting for a chat over a cup of coffee. The only discomfort I felt was from the awkward positioning of the hospital bed. I could never get comfortable on it.

Dr. McNee had been calling to check in on me since 9:45 the night before, which I was impressed with. He arrived at the hospital around 11am or 11:30am on Wednesday, and he said we were ready to start pushing at noon. I was hoping it would go quickly and joked I'd try to get the baby out so we could all enjoy some lunch. Unfortunately, I wasn't a good pusher! I kept asking, 'is anything happening?' between my pushes. The major downfall of the epidural is that you can't feel the progress you're making when you push. Swami and Judy assured me there was progress being made, albeit slow. The one remark they kept making is that they could see how much hair the baby had!

So Judy, Swami, and I kept up our chatter, taking a break every so often so I could push while we all counted to 10 in our heads. This went on for over two hours. Finally Dr. McNee started to put on a paper apron. He said the only time he puts it on is when the baby is ready to come out! Thank goodness. I was starting to tire of all the pushing business. Dr. McNee moved in, I pushed real hard, grunted/screamed a bit because I think the epidural started to wear off, and her head came out. She was unfortunately covered in merconium. Swami says she was a rainbow of colors - yellow, green, brown, purple. Okay, maybe not purple. But he verified it was pretty disgusting. I thought I was done. Afterall, the head was out. But I remember Dr. McNee yelling 'Anne, focus on me. Listen to me. We're not done yet.' Oh crap. I gotta push more? Okay....dig deep. Puuuuuush. Puuuuuush. Puuuuuuuuuuuush. Ahhh. Relief. The shoulders had come out, and McNee had pulled the rest of her out.

Because of the merconium, McNee cut the cord and the team of pediatricians (seriously, it was a team of 4! More pediatricians for our baby than there were attending my delivery!). I caught a glimpse of her, and I thought she was really dark....turns out it was just the merconium. A few minutes later we were holding our beautiful daughter, Anjali.

We spent some time cooing over her. She was alert! Such large eyes. Remarkably long eyelashes. A perfectly shaped head. And indeed, she had a nest of hair. She was beautiful.
We were elated.

Unfortunately, our coffee chat was coming to an end. Nurse Judy had some paperwork to do on us, and then she had to send us packing to the recovery ward. As I was wheeled out on the guerney, holding my new baby, we passed through the 'early birthing' room and I caught a glimpse of 5 or 6 very pregnant women holding their bellies. They had been waiting for Anjali to come as much as we were! They needed our room!

My recovery experience at Stanford is the exact opposite of my L&D experience. I was so disgusted, uncomfortable and unable to rest that we discharged ourselves 28 hours after delivery. Most recovery rooms at Stanford are shared rooms (including a shared bathroom! Gross!) My 'roommate' and her new baby came barreling in at 1:30am, turned on the lights, TV, and were still chatting (in arabic) about their delivery experience. Its not their fault we had to share a room, but you can't help but blame them for what seems like such inconsiderate behavior. I tried not to get upset, afterall, they too had just delivered a precious child of their own and were riding their own adrenaline high. But seriously, I was exhausted. I again sent Swami home so he could get some sleep. I had a horrible night, to say the least, and was so happy when Swami came back (with Starbucks and Donuts for me!!!) in the morning. We had a visit from the on call pediatrician around 7am. He must be used to moms asking for early discharge because he asked if we would be leaving that same day. I said we'd like to, so he prepared Anjali's paperwork as if we were leaving that day. Unfortunately we had to wait at least 24 hours after her birth because they had to check her bilirubin (jaundice). After what seemed like an eternity, we were finally discharged at 6:30pm.

They wheeled me out of the hospital, we tucked Anju into her carseat, and Swami drove us all home. He was the most cautious and careful driver in rush hour traffic that day! It was soooo good to be home. I took a shower AND a bath to get the hospital ick off of me. We tried putting Anju in her bassinet, but she wasn't going for it. Once we tucked her into bed with us, we all dozed off to sleep, a family of three.