From: lisa@icase.icase.edu (Lisa A. Leutenegger)
Subject: Birth Story & moving with a newborn
Organization: ICASE/NASA Langley
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 00:04:04 GMT

I posted Alexander Ivan Leutenegger's birth announcement in August with
a short description of the labor.  People asked me for more details so
I thought I would post them along with a few words about our move from
New York to Virginia when he was only 2 1/2 weeks old.

Alex was born on August 14th (1 day after his due date) and 
weighed 8 lbs and 14 oz (the midwives were predicting 7 lbs) and
was 21" long.

Here is his birth story:

I woke up at 3:30 am when my water broke.  August 13th was the full moon
so we had asked one of our midwives if she thought there was some connection
between the full moon and birth.  Her opinion was that more women come in
with their water already broke during a full moon - so I'm just another
statistic for her.  Our midwives didn't want us to call them until morning
if the water was clear since they don't have a time limit for birth after
the water breaks so I went back to bed.

My first contraction was 10 minutes later.  I stayed in bed and tried to 
sleep for an hour but of course I couldn't so around 4:30-5:00 I got up.  
I decided that if I was going to be bringing a new baby home in a few days
I had better get our 4 cats ready so I got the nail clipper and clipped their
claws so they wouldn't be sharp.  I was getting bored so I woke up my husband,
Scott, to keep me company.  The first thing I had him do was change the cat's 
litter boxes. 

When he finished with the cats he then had to go out and buy me some sanitary
pads.  I kept meaning to buy some beforehand but never got around to it - since
my water had broke I really needed some.  The problem was we had no idea 
where there was a close store open at 6:00 am.  We searched through the phone 
book but couldn't find anything so Scott guessed where there might be a place 
close by and took off.  He was back in 15 minutes with a box in hand.  He was
relived to find me sitting in the same spot trying to time my contractions.

When he got back I took a shower and then I decided I would like scott to give
me a back rub and start coaching me through the contractions.  I had eaten a 
few glasses of juice and some cereal earlier which my body must not have liked 
because I started to throw up.  We decided to call our midwive to see if she
thought I should try to eat something or just drink juice.  She suggested toast,
which I also threw up.  Based on what we learned in our Bradley classes we were
still clearly in the early stages of labor so we stayed at home.  I don't recall
how far apart the contractions were maybe 6 or 7 minutes and 40 seconds long,
but I was still pretty happy and the contractions really weren't too bad yet.

Around 8:00 am the contractions started getting more intense, they were maybe 
about 5 minutes apart.  I started getting more serious and had to just 
concentrate on relaxing so according to the Bradley method emotional road
map we were heading into the working contractions and it was looking like
this would be a relatively short labor.  Around 8:30 am we called the midwive 
again and she suggested that we head to the hospital, which Scott had no 
problem doing since he was starting to worry since we lived an hour from the 
hospital.  We lived in the suburbs north of NYC - the hospital, Albert Einstein,
is in the Bronx.

It took us a while to get the car packed and ready to go but around 9:00 am
we left.  We figured we would miss most of the rush hour traffic since
it was so late.  Well, we weren't so lucky.  About 15 minutes from home
traffic was at a complete standstill due to construction.  Up until
this point I was having a hard time relaxing through the contractions in the 
car but when I saw the traffic I must have just resigned myself to hours in the
car because suddenly I was able to concentrate and relax.  The traffic
had the opposite effect on Scott - he got really panicy and drove
on the shoulder to get around the cars - of course people pulled over
and tried to stop us from driving on the shoulder so he basically drove
into the ditch and we are now sporting a big scratch down the side of
the car where the bushes scraped it.  We drove on the shoulder to the
next exit, took a few side roads around the traffic jam and actually made 
it down to the hospital in less than an hour.  

When we got to the hospital no one was in the admitting office - typical
New York.  We had to wait about 5 minutes.  When we made it to the labor
floor the nurse took us to a birthing room where some guy was buffing the
floor - we had to wait again while he finished! 

Anyway - the nurse handed me a cup to pee in, a hospital gown and told
me when I was done they would hook me up to the monitor.  As some of
you may recall we didn't want to have the monitor hooked up - so I
told Scott to go get the midwife, Sue, and I stayed in the bathroom until
she showed up.  We were fully expecting to have to sign a waiver form
since we refused the monitoring but the midwive was great she basically
told the nurse to go away and that the baby was fine.  We wanted her to
use a fetoscope to monitor the baby but they didn't have one - so she
used the EFM to do intermittent monitoring every 15 minutes or so.

My first exam was around 10:00 am and I was only 4cm.  I was really
depressed.  I figured all that stuff in the Bradley book was wrong and
that I was in for a really long labor in the hospital - something we
really didn't want.  Sue thought I should get up and walk around but I only
got as far as the rocking chair.  The contractions were getting pretty
intense.  After a few contractions Scott had to leave to go park the
car so Sue coached me through the contractions.  It was pretty amusing,
she would watch TV in between contractions and then when a contraction
would start she would pay attention to me again.  She did this the entire
time - even during the pushing!  This didn't bother me - I found it nice 
that she basically ignored us unless she was needed.

Anyway around 11:00 am I started thinking to myself "if this goes on much 
longer I'm going to go crazy!".  Then I started thinking "I can't be to the 
3rd emotional signpost - self doubt - yet.  This is just wishful thinking".
I must have verbalized enough of these doubts to Scott because he saw it as 
a sign that I was in transition and he called Sue back in.  Sue did another 
exam around 11:15 and I was at 9 cm!   So it turns out all the stuff we
learned in the Bradley class on figuring out how far along I was in labor
based on my emotional state worked great for us.  I was thrilled when Sue
announced I could push any time.

At 11:30 am I started pushing and at 12:05 pm "little" Alexander Ivan was born.

There was no episiotomy but I tore just a bit and had 1 stitch, which was
put in without a local.

I was originally going to have loads of antibiotics pumped into my arm because
of my mitral value prolapse but Sue had my echo-cardiogram results faxed to
her and after consulting with an OB they decided that since there is no
regurgitation that it was unnecessary.  Yea! 

When we were leaving for the hospital we called my mom, who lives north
of Philadelphia about 2 1/2 from our hospital, because she was to be my 
second support person.  Unfortunately she ran into a traffic jam crossing the
Hudson and she made it to the birthing room 3 minutes after Alex was born.

My mom described her 3 births as painless - I think she is crazy - I
would hardly describe mine that way.  But while it was probably the
most painful experience of my life I never once wanted drugs.  The Bradley
method worked quite well for me once I figured out that I didn't have to
wait until it hurt to let Scott know a contraction was starting.  I would
just relax from the start and he would guess when they started and stopped.
That's why we can only guess how far apart the contractions were.  We
spent a lot of time asking people (midwives, Bradley instructors) when we 
should leave for the hospital since it was such a long drive.  I'm glad
we spent a lot of time discussing the emotional sign posts.  I highly
recommend Bradley classes for those that are interested in this type of
thing.


We are now living in Williamsburg, VA with our 8 week old football player.
He is really tall - 24 1/2" long and 12 pounds 1 ounce.  My arms and neck 
are wiped out from carrying him around.

The move down to Virginia when he was 2 1/2 weeks old was pretty uneventful.
We had so much help that I just sat around.  We are almost completely unpacked
thanks to some very helpful mother-in-laws.  So my suggestion to anyone 
looking to move with a newborn - get LOTS of help and it really is no big deal.
The only problem we ran into was diaper rash from the heat & plastic diapers & 
plastic car seat for 8 hours.  Now that Alex is in cotton diapers his butt is 
much happier.

We have been really lucky that he is a good sleeper.  He has slept 6-9 hours
at night since we've had him home.  We had a few nights where Scott has had
to walk around with him for 30-60 minutes in the middle of the night but
very few.  He has already slept through the night 3 times now!  There was
a discussion a while back about when women felt "normal" again after giving
birth.  For me it was about 2 weeks - I attribute this to getting lots of
sleep at night and no episiotomy.  I have a few more pounds to lose and then
I will be back into my blue jeans!  Yea!

---lisa leutenegger

   mom to Alex - 8 weeks old
   and
   4 extremely unhappy cats - they don't like alex, they hated the move and 
			      they really hate it when alex screams.