Baby Stories

Well, everyone, it has been a very busy three weeks at the Coutsoftides house. Our daughter, Catherine Starling Coutsoftides, was born on March 4th at 10:27 p.m. She weighed 7 lbs 4 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. And she was three weeks early.

We have come to refer to her as our unexpected baby. We got pregnant unexpectedly last summer. We assumed she'd be late because all my mom's babies were late and that just felt like the right thing. We planned an unmedicated birth. We were going to name her Vivienne. None of that happened. Here's why:

I ended up with high blood pressure. After months of worrying about gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia started to creep in. In the last week before she was born, I gained seven pounds - a pound a day. I checked my blood pressure at home, only to find out it was dangerously high. After several trips to the midwives and one trip to the hospital for observation, we decided to go ahead and induce to prevent me from getting any more swollen, hypertensive or pre-eclamptic. We checked into the hospital on the 3rd at 8 p.m. to start the process because I was exactly 0 centimeters dilated. Fun!

After spending the night getting the medication to dilate me and not sleeping at all (I should have slept - it was my last chance) the good news was that I was 3 cm dilated and ready to head to the labor and delivery ward to start the real induction. Keep in mind that Tony and I spent hundreds of dollars and 10 weeks taking a natural childbirth class that made us believe that all of these interventions were going to make me miserable during labor and strip me of the "natural" experience I was after. You see, when you are being induced for medical reasons, none of that matters. You just want to not stroke out on the delivery table and leave a husband and baby behind.

At 7 p.m., after five hours of laboring on the pitocin, I was not progressing at all. The contractions really weren't bad - they were totally manageable at that point - but the exams to find out how far along I was were excruciating. Turns out the medication they use to dilate you makes every cervical check feel like someone is stabbing you repeatedly with a garden weasel. In the delicate bits. I've never experienced pain like that. And my blood pressure was starting to creep up again. After several episodes of me climbing the walls only to hear that I was still 3 cm, we made a group decision to get the epidural. BEST DECISION EVER. Ten minutes later, my water broke. Two and half hours of napping later, and I was ready to push. Twenty minutes of pushing and I had a baby in my arms.

During the two and half hours of napping, I also decided that Vivienne was no longer the right name for this little girl. I woke up and said to myself, "We should name her Catherine!" When I told Mom and Tony this, Mom said she'd been thinking all day that Catherine was a really nice name, but she didn't want to say anything because we'd already decided on Vivienne. I'm so happy we changed our minds. Catherine is the sweetest, most good-natured baby in the world, and her name fits her perfectly. This is why I never referred to her by any name when I was pregnant. I wanted to keep my options open and not confuse her or myself. I still mostly call her "Baby Girl" to be honest.

The takeaways from all this? Life is never what we plan. I thought having a "medicated" birth would rob me of the experience of giving birth. Turns out, I still had to do the work and I still got a beautiful baby girl at the end of the night. And I didn't have to suffer through the incredible pain and fear I was experiencing every time the midwife approached me to see how I was doing. I certainly tried a natural birth and it just didn't work for me. But the hypnobirthing classes did teach me about baby yoga and belly dancing and lots of other fun things, so I don't regret doing that. I also learned to say the word cervix without wanting to vomit, which I feel is a real accomplishment.

I can only imagine that this is the beginning of a long journey of unexpected things (For instance, breastfeeding has been miserable. Who knew?) in Catherine's life. But I wouldn't change anything about her, or her birth, or her life. She's absolutely perfect.