This is a warning that 1) It’s gonna be a looong entry, and 2) I’m not sure I’d want to read this if I was pregnant… At least now you were warned.

So, as I blogged about before, we got an appointment at the hospital for inducing labour on Dec 29th. My blood pressure was very high so the doctors were worried, but I didn’t have any subjective symptoms. So we met up at 9 AM and I got pills (I guess they were prostaglandins) in my you-know-what at 9:30 AM, 1:30 PM and 4:30 PM to induce labour. As nothing really happened, we decided to just sleep through the night and see how I was in the morning as I needed the sleep. At 10 PM I was starting to have contractions, and I was getting a last checkup before the night when I told the midwife that if the contractions didn’t slow down or got less painful I’d need something to help me sleep through the night. She told me I’d need a new checkup if she was going to give me anything, and it turned out that I now had a dilated cervix of 4 cm, plus a sky high blood pressure, so she needed to break my water. She told me to take a shower and get ready to go to the delivery room.

Christian was timing my contractions, and I remember thinking that if they hurt this much now, then I wasn’t sure if I could do without any pain medication. So I went to the bathroom to pee, and while sitting there, my water broke. This was at 11:30 PM. I managed to take a shower, which is supposed to give some pain relief, but I didn’t feel any difference, really. And then the contractions was lasting about one minute with intervals of 25 seconds. If you were wondering: NOT GOOD. I hardly had any time to breathe between two contractions and all I could do was squeeze Christian’s hand. I was almost crawling to the delivery room, and I’m not sure how long we were there, breathing through the contractions like I’d learned at preggie yoga, when the midwife, who had been asking me several times if I wanted an epidural (and I had told her no every time), grabbed my hand and told me that she was now calling the anaesthetist to get me one, cause I couldn’t go on with the high blood pressure and the close contractions too long. I just nodded my head as I didn’t feel like talking at all, and all I could do was whisper: “Oh, here comes another one…” to Christian who probably was pretty numb from me squeezing him.

The anaesthetist had to give me the epidural during contractions as they came so close, and I was terrified that it would hurt or that she’d do it wrong if I flinched, but I could hardly feel it. I remember wondering why she was yelling at me asking if I was a hemophiliac or had any allergies, but I was only whispering through the contractions so she probably thought I was in my own world. Which I almost was. But still. Anyway, the epidural worked wonders, and soon I was feeling normal again. The downside was, of course, that it slowed down eeeverything. So we were awake during the entire night, chatting, trying to sleep, eating an apple, drinking lots and lots of fluids, vomiting it all up again. I had checkups at least every hour, and my cervix slowly dilated up to 8-9 cm, until about 10 AM when they decided the baby had to get out because my blood pressure continued to rise.

So the midwife called on a doctor to check the position of the baby, and of course she was a stargazer, meaning that if I lie on my back, she’d be looking up, which means that her head will be harder to push out. Great. They tried to get an ultrasound to confirm it, but it was hard since her head was in my pelvic area So they decided to try to push her out if my blood pressure could handle it. So I tried. I first tried standing up as I remembered a colleague saying she’d refuse to do it any other way with her next child, but then the baby’s heart rate dropped, so I had to try lying down. Better for the baby, worse for me, cause we weren’t going anywhere. So after 35 minutes of pushing (and because of the epidural, I didn’t have any urges to push, I could only slightly feel a change in the contractions even though they gave me less epidural and more i.v. fluids to get contractions) the doctor came in to use a ventouse. Oh lord. The ventouse cup was too large (too much information, you say?) for me so they had to do an episiotomy to get it on the head. I looked at Christian, terrified, as I realized what they were doing, and said: “They’re cutting me!” and Christian looked pale and answered: “I know.” It didn’t hurt though, because of the epidural, plus they gave me local anaesthetics too, but I was horrified.

At least with the ventouse I felt where I was supposed to push, because before all I had to work with was the midwife who told me to push almost like when you poop. Well, okay, what’s almost? And when I did she’d go: “Yes, just like that!” Anyway, I think I pushed about 12 times until they got the little wonder out. The doctor was almost in a horizontal position pulling the baby out. At this time I was exhausted, and I fell half asleep every second. I got little Emeline, covered in blood, on my chest for about 5 seconds until the midwife told us that she was a little bit weak and she needed to take her. I noticed that she didn’t scream, but was told earlier by others who had had a baby that it takes some time before they scream, and I shouldn’t be afraid if my baby didn’t scream the second she got out.

Well, it turned out that she didn’t breathe on her own. She had a heartbeat, but was given oxygen for several minutes to help her breathe. I remember either going in and out of consciousness or sleep, still don’t know which, when they came in with her again and gave her to Christian. By that time I had lost more than a liter blood, my fingertips were turning blue and my blood pressure was dropping from 180/90-ish to 70/50, which is kind of, ehm, bad. I remember that I was shaking, but had also been told by a co-worker that she was shaking after she had had the baby, but a woman was trying to insert a venous catheter in my other arm and was telling me to keep still. And there were about 10 people in the room, running around, asking me questions like: “Can you feel this?”, “How do you feel?” (the answer being: “Cold.”) and “Hanna, can you hear me?”, and I remember Christian crying, and I thought it was tears of joy, but he later told me he was afraid I would die.

I was sent to post-op observation for an hour or so, while Christian was with Emeline. And each time someone asked me how I was feeling I answered: “Thirsty.” And I must have asked that poor nurse a hundred times after something to drink, cause when I was awake and she came in and I was trying to wet my tongue in my non-existing saliva, she just said: “I’m sorry, but you can’t have anything to drink, yet.”

At least this story ends well, I got a visit from the proud dad and my daughter until he had to go home to take Aurora for a walk, and I had to rest for another two hours until I could see them again, but Emeline is well, and I had given birth without pain, so it was Christian who had the worst experience. He now doesn’t want me to give birth the normal way, but I’m opposed to cesarean sections if it’s not medically indicated, but we’ll have a while to figure that out What I do know is that I want more children

You normally spend 3 days at the hospital here before you go home, but since it was New Years Eve the day after, I tried to convince the midwife to let me go earlier, but they wanted to take blood samples and monitor my blood pressure. New Years Eve was quiet. We were looking at the fireworks from our room, which had huuuge windows, while I was breastfeeding Emeline. Quite special for us

I hugged Christian for a long time today. You kinda forget to take time for your husband when you have a one-week-old demanding all your time. He didn’t hug me right back, just held his arms around me, and whispered: “I’m afraid you’ll break.” It broke my heart. He must have been through hell that morning.

Emeline, 4 days old

5 days after I got vaccinated against the new influenza, it was actually on the way home from one of our date nights, I started having problems breathing properly, and I felt like shit. Yes, I said it: Shit. I crawled to bed shivering while trying not to get hysterical that it felt like I was gonna pass out from lack of oxygen. So I managed to take some pain killers and get some sleep.

The next day I called in sick, and then I read on the Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s website that pregnant women need to call their doctors if they get sick. A week back they were wondering if Norway had a different strain of the virus since there are more sick people here than in other countries, but let me tell you this: I know why! When I called my doctor’s office and told them who I was and that I had flu-like symptoms I was told that: “Well, then you just need to stay in bed until you get better!” I was a bit put off by the reply and said a little quiter that I had read that I was supposed to call since I was pregnant. And then she just said: “Oh, but then you need to get an appointment today!” So I did. But the doctor didn’t think I had the flu, but gave me sick leave for 11 days.

So here I am. My lungs hurt like hell when I cough, but the fever is gone, and if I don’t walk outside I have no problems breathing. I’m not welcome at work for another week cause they are afraid of getting sick too (which I don’t blame them for), so I sit here, playing FarmVille on Facebook, browsing the Internet for calendars and other things cute, and eat clementines. Could be worse.

Our little baby girl is having a blast though. Since I’m not moving too much nowadays, she’s awake more often than she usually is, so she’s kicking and squirming like there’s no tomorrow. I usually sleep through the night without having to get up to pee, but the past nights I’ve woken up cause she’s tossing and turning, and there’s a moving lump showing on my belly. I groan, cause, well, it hurts, so Christian wakes up. His response is always a cheerful: “Oh, hahaha, would you look at that!” Then he gently strokes the foot or whatever it is she’s using to try to make a way out of the womb with (I always imagine one of the aliens in the, uhm, Alien movies, when she does that), until she stops.

After several fights/discussions with Christian I decided to take the vaccine. I’ve just been so afraid of adverse effects on the baby since it hasn’t been tried out yet. Anyway, I called the doctor’s office, but they told me to call back on Thursday as they started vaccinating people at risk of complications from the new influenza on Monday. And I knew that I could get the vaccine at the midwife’s office from the same day. A couple of days later I discovered that the midwife’s office got the vaccine from Friday, so I called the doctor’s office again to hear if I could get an earlier appointment there instead. And I was told that I could come on Monday 9th. Whaa? That’s a week later than everybody else! I mean, if I’m gonna have this vaccine, then I’m at least gonna get early…

So I called a private clinic and was told to just come today, so I did. And I waited for an hour, went in for about 2 minutes, got the vaccine and waited 20 minutes to see if I got any side effects. And all that made me 2.5 hours late for work, but at least I got a needle in my arm. I was sure it would hurt, but I hardly felt it.

Well, I can feel it now. My arm is really sore, and I can’t understand why they injected it in my right arm. Oh well. Just hoping I won’t be spending this weekend in bed with sore muscles and a fever.

And I’m crossing my finger that I did the right thing. It’s all for you, my precious.

Dear Baby Doe,

This week has been a lot for your mom. Tuesday was our second doctor’s appointment and it was just “how are you doing” and “how’s your blood pressure”, which is lower than last time and “good” according to the doctor.

I had a breakdown on Thursday because I can’t believe that I could be so lucky that you’re healthy. Your dad sat by my side while I cried my eyes out cause I was afraid we’ll get bad news at the ultrasound on Friday. He’s been really good to me, your dad, and managed to calm me down.

Well, we did get some bad news, but it was about the doctor, who was sick, and we had to reschedule to Monday.

So, today… I think I was pretty calm at the doctor’s office, but I can’t really remember. I held my breath when we out the probe on my tummy, but I saw you instantly, and you were kicking your legs and waving your arms, so your old mom got tears in her eyes. Your dad got pretty emotional too, smiling from ear to ear. The doctor said that everything was okay with you, and he was 96% sure you’re a girl! And you’re big. Not too happy about that… Please don’t have a huge head when you decide to come out! The due date got set to Dec 21

And with that said, I’m making all the previous belly letters public

I took a pregnancy test Tuesday morning since I hadn’t had my period yet, and I was supposed to get it on Monday. It was negative. When I didn’t get my period on Friday, I called the doctor’s office to ask about my situation, but the lady just said that I should wait cause it was probably delayed since I was stressed. I told her I wasn’t, and I’ve never been this late before, but she told me to wait another week. When I told her that I needed to know cause of my job working with anaesthetic gases she told me to come to a drop in appointment on Monday or Tuesday. I asked her if I maybe should take another test, and she said that yeeaah, well, maybe that’s an idea. So much for that help. At least she told me about the apparantly top secret appointments at the start of each day.

So today, as I still hadn’t gotten my period yet, I took a new test. And I wasn’t done peeing yet when I saw that second purple bar.

Wow! I’m actually pregnant!!

I’m going to the doctor tomorrow, to double check. And I’ve already told my mom (who started to cry instantly) and my dad and sister. I figured since everyone at work will know by tomorrow anyway, I’d like my family to know first. It’s freaking me out that it’s super early to tell anyone, but what can I do?

Christian was thrilled and couldn’t stop smiling all day. He even kept saying: “We did it!” or the other version: “I did it!” and I told him if he was going to say that for another 9 months, I would have to hit him.