We were going through our evening like most other recent evenings, except that we were a little late in considering what to have for dinner. We were watching some detective drama show at about 7:30 when Ari made the observation that she was “leaking” a little bit. We dove into the “What to expect when you’re expecting…” books and somewhat confirmed that her water bag had maybe sprung a little leak. Shortly thereafter she started to get some mild occasional contractions. I started to track them with an iPhone app, and they pointed towards early labor. By 8:30 we thought it a good idea to call the birth center. The attendant urged her to come in right away. Ari told the her that her contractions weren’t really uncomfortable. “Yet…,” replied the attendant.
We gathered everything up, took our dog Pua to Ari’s Mom’s house, said our goodbyes and got on the road to the birth center about 9:00. We laughed about beating the Polynesian Cultural Center return traffic and made it from Kaaawa to Kailua by 9:30.
The good folks at the birth center got us a room right away and started going through the obligatory prep. We gave them our birth plan that generally said that except for a low-dose epidural, we generally wanted a pretty natural childbirth. I was entering intensities for the contractions in the app as she progressed, and we were getting into the consistent 2’s and 3’s with an occasional 5.
She was hooked up to a monitor for the baby’s heartbeat and the onset of her contractions. I tried to distract her from watching the readout so she wouldn’t freak as the contraction peaks got more consistent, steeper, and higher. She didn’t need to see the screen to know that the contractions were strengthening. We started in with the breathing exercises, and she requested the epidural. The nurses said that we needed to wait for some laboratory bloodwork to come back before the epidural could be administered. They checked her and she was still at the same levels as what we had seen at the doctor’s office earlier in the day: 2-3 centimeters dilated, and 80% effaced.
At about 11:00, we had her hooked up to wireless telemetry so that she could soak in the jacuzzi tub while we waited for the lab work to come back. Messing with the contraction timing app had lost all purpose. The contractions strengthened and after a little while, she started to get the urge to push as well. We were well into business mode, varying breathing techniques and she requested the epidural again. I told her that we had progressed into Thursday, and she was dazed enough hearing that news that I could tell that her time perception was dwindling. They let us know that they had paged the anesthesiologist and he was on his way. So we got her out of the tub and back to the bed some time after midnight.
They checked her again when we got back to the bed. In the hour or so that she was in the tub, she had gone from 2.5 centimeters to 9.5 cm. The nurses discreetly cancelled the anesthesiologist and called the doctor. Ari was a little disconcerted that Dr. Feelgood was not going to make it. But we reassured her that the baby would be her within the hour, arriving shortly after the doctor. I heard the nurses wagering on how many red lights the doctor would be running this time…
The worst part was waiting for the doctor. They had her lay on her side, a position that would hopefully hold off the baby’s arrival just a bit longer.
The doctor made her rock star entry just before 1:00 am, and the nurses helped her quickly into all her gear while we rolled Ari onto her back and adjusted the bed to birthing configuration. Assistance switched immediately from coaching breathing to coaching pushing. She did about 30 seconds of pushing with every contraction. She would later say that the pushing felt REALLY good at that stage.
About seven contractions later at 1:14am on Thursday May 7, 2009 little Ayla Irene ‘Awapuhi Kaluhea Hylton made her way out into the world and up to Ari’s chest.
Vital Stats: 7 pounds, 15.2 ounces; 19 1/2 inches
Ari and Ayla
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