Eva Affina Kimber
April 16, 2021 @ 1:18am
9lb 2 oz
53 cm long
Leading up to Eva's delivery, I was feeling anxious, but ready. I was 40 weeks and 2 days, my body was toast, and I'd bee anticipating an early labour instead of going overdue. Part of my anxiety was around the length of labour. With Dom, from water breaking to baby born was about 14 hours. With Emilia, from first contraction to baby born was 5 hours. That's a pretty big leap! What did this mean for my third baby?! Midwives told me either it could be really quick, or because third babies tend to be a wildcard, it could be long and complicated (of course it could also fall anywhere in between because nobody has control over these things). Essentially, if my water breaks, or if I start having regular contractions, get to the hospital to be safe.
Eva's due date came and went, with no signs of labour. No lost mucous plug, no bloody show, no regular cramping, etc. At first I was impatient, but after her due date was gone, and I realized I'd been pregnant longer than I ever have before, I sort of relinquished control. At 40 +2 in the morning, I had a midwife appointment with Nushin. I intended on getting a sweep to get things moving, but after talking with my Doula, Jackie, the night before, I came to the conclusion that maybe baby isn't just ready yet. The reason I wanted the sweep was because all of this was out of my control, and I wanted some sort of control! I can only drink so many cups of cervical ripening tea and go for so many walks!! Anyway, we didn't do the sweep, but Nushin did check me. We found me to be 2-3cm dilated, and my cervix was down to about 1cm in effacement and my cervix was way out front, so things were looking primed and ready to go. Nushin confirmed that baby was head down, and in Left Occiput Transverse position. (That means her head was down, back was long my left side, and feet were kicking out to my right). Not a bad position to go into labour in - could be worse! I was also reminded that third babies like to be tricksy and there were no guarantees she'd stay there.
My weight at this midwife appointment was 150 lb. This means I gained a total of 31 lb with this pregnancy. A lot of the gain happened the last month or two, and was mostly baby and water weight. Nushin felt around my belly and checked on baby. Baby is measuring right on track, heart rate is good, and she's guessing baby will be between 7 and 8 lb. *Thank you, Nushin for this guess... I feel like I would have been a lot more scared going into labour if I'd known the real number haha*.
Dom was at preschool, so after the appointment I hiked up a big hill to meet Dave and Emilia at a park. Get walking, Renee! Get this baby to drop! We spent almost the entire day outside as it was so beautiful, and like 25 degrees. We went for walks, we played hockey, we went to the playground, and we even ordered pizza and had a pizza picnic out front. We never order takeout as a family, so this was a fun little treat! We got the kids to bed, and sat down to watch some Love it or List it Vancouver. Every night leading up to this, I'd set a time in my head, and if labour hadn't started by that time I'd decide it wasn't happening that day. My time was 8:30pm every day. I think this is because that's when things started with Emilia, so I figured obviously labour never starts past 8:30pm...
This evening, we're watching our show, and I'm sitting in front of Dave and at 9:18pm I get a sharp cramp. It was a little different than other cramps I'd been having, but figure meh. I'm sitting in an awkward position and have been on my feet all day. Probably dehydrated. I didn't say anything to Dave.
At 9:45pm I have a more painful contraction. I tell Dave about the previous one half an hour earlier, and say man... that kind of hurt... maybe I have to go pee. Often if I had to pee I'd get more contractions, which would go away as soon as I drained the bladder.
At 9:45pm I have a more painful contraction. I tell Dave about the previous one half an hour earlier, and say man... that kind of hurt... maybe I have to go pee. Often if I had to pee I'd get more contractions, which would go away as soon as I drained the bladder.
I stood up to go to the bathroom, and pop... there it goes! Warm water gushing down my leg. I tell Dave, rush off to the bathroom, and cue anxiety! When I went into labour with Dom my water broke first, while with Emilia they broke it right at the end. Labour with Dom was a much more intense pain throughout, and I was anxious the whole pregnancy about my water breaking first. Baby's head is directly on your cervix pushing, instead of the softer amniotic sac buffering some of the pressure if the water hasn't broken. Also, I was warned that if my water broke first, things could progress very quickly given how ripe my cervix was.
Anxiety for me manifested in shaking. Shaking legs, shaking voice, shaking hands, etc. I called our Doula to let her know what happened, and she told me to tell her if/when I start getting contractions. We figured we might have some time since I had only had 2, 30 minutes apart. When my water broke with Dom it took a couple hours for contractions to start coming. I also called the midwife to let her know my water had broken, and she said something similar. She told me the hospital is on diversion, which means that if we go right now, we will be turned away and sent to another hospital. Okay. I'll just sit here on the toilet, leaking, barking orders at Dave for what needs to be prepped for the hospital bag.
We jumped the gun a little bit and called my parents right away too. We knew there was a chance this could happen quickly, and we wanted to be prepared! My parents were there by 10:15pm. Since my water broke, I'd had one contraction at 9:55, and one at 10:02. If I was up moving around, they came more frequently and were quite a bit more painful. When my parents got there we realized it could still be quite a while before we actually needed to go to the hospital when I went almost 20 minutes between contractions, and they were quite minor... Oops... They grabbed a glass of wine, and we had a snack while I puttered around the kitchen and Dave continued running around grabbing last second things.
Dad and I sent this to my family to let them know the "game is afoot!" Not a good look for me haha!!
At around 10:35 or so I had a couple that were a bit closer together (like 5-7 minutes apart), and were getting a bit more painful. I was already having a hard time talking through some of them which was a bit concerning to me. I thought to myself that this should normally be happening later, like in active labour... not early labour.
At 10:45 I had a contraction that was quite intense and I had to come sit down. It was painful, and it lasted over 2 minutes. Ermmm... okay this is making me anxious! The Midwife told me to come to the hospital when my contractions were coming every 5 minutes, for at least an hour. Mine were coming every 5-7 minutes, but only for 15 minutes, but I could tell they were getting more intense and I was getting nervous. I was also nervous to get in the car on the way to the hospital, have contractions stop, and be diverted.
However, with convincing from my cheerleaders at home, we packed up and got in the car to go to the hospital at 11:05pm (1 hr and 20 minutes after my water broke). We updated Jackie, and she assured us she'd meet us at the hospital. I figured I was more comfortable being there, walking around for 4 hours to get things going and avoid being diverted, than being at home wondering how quickly this was going to progress and how much more uncomfortable it was going to get. My labours are cut out for home births, my brain is not!
On the way to the hospital my contractions just kept coming every 3-5 minutes in the car. It sucks being strapped into a seatbelt and having contractions. It was very reminiscent of being in labour with Dom and going to the hospital. I estimated I'd be about 4-5cm by now, and was probably in active labour, but was scared to say it out loud just in case I was really just being a wuss. (Classic Renee!). We called the midwife again as we were leaving our neighbourhood, and she told us to turn around and go home (due to the diversions), and come back when contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour. I said, "Okay, we'll do that, thanks." I hung up, turned to Dave, and said, "We most definitely are not doing that. Let's go." And off we went haha!
At 11:25 we arrived at the hospital, and decided to wait in the car until Jackie got there. Have I mentioned before how much I HATE the feeling of my water being broken? I hate the lack of control I have, and the fact that it just gushes and soaks everything randomly and unpredictably. At 11:30 Jackie arrived and we got out of the car and made a game plan. We left my purse, labour bag, and everything except our phones and my blanket in the car. Our plan was to leave the parkade, squatting at every pole, and walk around to the front entrance of the hospital, inside, up the stairs to FBU (Family Birthing Unit) and see if they'd be willing to check me at triage. From there, we'd go and do more laps to get to a point where they couldn't turn me away and divert me to another hospital. It was still like 15-20 degrees outside and beautiful, so it was quite a pleasant middle of the night walk... or it would have been if I wasn't in heavy active labour the whole time.
When Jackie got there, it meant I was up moving around. contractions RAPIDLY went from every 5 minutes, to every 2 minutes, lasting a minute. This means one minute on, one minute off. I sometimes had a hard time differentiating between them already and commented that they were feeling constant. Thank goodness Jackie was there to keep me (and Dave) calm, because I would have been rushing off to FBU by this point. It took less than 2 hours to get here from my water breaking, whereas it was already feeling familiar to the last 30-45 minutes of labour with Emilia.
The 4 minutes apart were on the way to the hospital. Then I got out of the car at 11:29, and started walking after that contraction. You can see how they jumped to 2 minutes apart all of a sudden.
Boom! Hardcore active labour.
As soon as we started walking and squatting and stuff I could no longer talk through contractions at all. I was in a complete fog from this point on, so I'm not sure what kind of birth story you're going to get out of me! As mentioned above, I wasn't sure if there was a break between my contractions. Pain went from a 7/10 to a 4/10, so it was hard for me to tell when one was starting because it was already painful! I remembered more of a break between with the other two.
We walked out of the parking garage and towards the emergency entrance. For some reason it was very smoky out there. We're guessing someone was in the bushes out front and had started a fire, but it was gross. Every so often Jackie would ask me to stop and do 5 squats. She warned me I may hate her shortly, but I'm a rule follower and like clear instructions, so it worked for me! With each contraction I had to hold on to something and be reminded to sway my hips. Sway sway sway. I really just wanted to drop to the ground (another thing I remember from the last hour of labour with Emilia). We finally got into the building, and I went pee. Jackie came in to keep an eye on me and make sure my waters were still clear. All good... She encouraged me to ride out a contraction on the toilet and I was very afraid of baby falling out into the toilet haha. I kept that fear to myself though.
Then we got to the huge staircase at SMH. If you've been in their main entrance, you know the one. Jackie had me going up sideways, two steps at a time to open my pelvis. Halfway up we switched sides. I stopped frequently for contractions. By the time we got to the top of the stairs we were just a hallway away from FBU. Like probably less than 100 metres. It's this long hallway with chair spaced out for COVID reasons. I still had contractions coming every 2 minutes or more, and they were I-N-T-E-N-S-E. I was roaring in a way only a woman who's about to have a baby can roar. I felt so bad for the innocent people walking by or trying to enjoy their break, having to listen to me. I was starting to realize that I was getting very. very. close.
I had lost all track of time, but we made our way down the hallway stopping for squats and contractions at every chair, and contractions in between. I finally asked what time it was, and I think it was like 12:40 or something. We were close to triage, and I asked for the time because I was trying to figure out how I could be in so much pain after only 3 hours, and only just over an hour of walking. We were supposed to be doing laps of the hospital, but I already knew I wasn't going to make it. Not long after this, we were approaching the doors to the birthing unit, and Jackie asked me, "Did you have any pain meds with your other births?" *Crap... this is not a good question right now*. I answered, "No... I asked for an epidural both times, but both times it was too late. And I got fentanyl with Dom, but asked for that too late with Emilia too." Her response... "Okay, so you KNOW you can do this without intervention for the pain!" *Crap. Crap Crapitty Crap*. I know exactly why she's saying this. It's already too late. It feels like it's too late, and it's nice to have some sort of confirmation that I'm getting close, but I was definitely going to ask for something the moment we got to the room.
We got into the FBU and had to wait for triage. It felt like an eternity while we waited. There were other nice couples labouring in there, but I was clearly a lot farther along than they were. I'm sorry to them for scaring them... THIS IS WHAT TRANSITION LOOKS/SOUNDS LIKE!! I was contracting constantly, and not managing the pain well (in my opinion - Dave and the other practitioners feel otherwise). We still didn't have my purse or labour bag with the tens machine and other comfort items because we didn't make more than the one "lap" of the hospital. I was feeling like I am CLOSE. I am borderline having pushing contractions, but Jackie was so calm I was second-guessing myself. Why is no one as urgent about this as I am?! I felt like I could sense Jackie & Dave exchanging glances over my shoulder like, "okay... we need to get her in there!" But also thought maybe I was making it up. I didn't dare ask. They did a COVID screening and check-in, and I couldn't answer any of the questions. Thank goodness Dave was there to speak for me.
I had noted in my phone that in FBU people kept asking me questions like, "How are you feeling? What do you need? Is anything changing? I don't know! I can't answer questions and I can't talk! My pain was at a constant 8/10, with bouts of 10/10. Not great conditions for thinking about how I'm feeling. It hurts. That's how I'm feeling!
I have a flash of memory before triage of Jackie trying to do some hip squeezes or counter pressure in my back and she kept commenting on how tiny my body was. "My hands take up your whole back! Haha!" I heard you, but I couldn't respond! Jackie was so calm this whole time. I'm certain she knew where my body was at. I think we all knew, but no one was saying anything. It was a lot of encouraging me to just trust my body.
FINALLY (in reality probably just 10 minutes later, but 10 minutes of transition feels like an hour) we were allowed into triage. They had me get changed into a gown and go to triage to get checked by the midwife. Inna came in and I was just having constant contractions. I couldn't handle it. I was done. I kept saying, "I can't do this. I'm done. I just want to be done." Inna finally got me still enough to check my cervix and said, "Good! 6-7 cm!" "THAT'S IT?!?!" I exclaimed in disbelief. Everyone else was shocked that I was shocked, but I thought with the pain I was in I HAD to be at 10. Inna said, "This next part could be very quick okay! They're setting up your room right now and we'll get you over there." After another couple contractions people started bustling. I realized later that they didn't have time to do my COVID test! That was supposed to be my first one! (I got my first real COVID test 4 days later when I went back to the hospital for secondary postpartum hemorrhaging)
I remember Inna asking David if he wanted to catch the baby. Dave probably turned white as he said, "No... No. no." That's that then! Haha
We left the triage bed and I noticed some blood on the bed. Finally the bloody show I'd been waiting for for days! All it took was hours of labour, water breaking, and a cervical exam at 6-7 cm haha. They were offering me a wheelchair to get to the room, but Inna and Jackie insisted I walk. Noooo whyyyy?! It's a short walk, but I barely make it. I am having pushing contractions in the hallway, but I'm so determined to make it to the room that I half jog between contractions, holding my belly. I don't understand why everyone is just letting me walk around right now! This feeling is familiar! I know what's happening, and I'm scared. The pain is unreal, the sounds coming out of me are unimaginable and LOUD, and I am in a fog with very little awareness of what's happening around me. Finally we get to the room (I say finally a lot, but it seems like finally when you're trying to close your knees to keep a baby in). I didn't really believe these were pushing contractions though because nobody else was saying so. Anyway, yes, we finally get to the room and I notice that there are a lot of people in there, and I also notice that the baby bed is already in there and the warmer and everything. Maybe this is imminent?
Inna told me, "Just do whatever you want. You can squat, walk, sway, go on the bed, kneel, whatever you think is best." Trust your body. Trust your body. Whenever you feel the need to push, then push.
I did not want to trust my body. I wanted instruction! It's such a scary feeling! However, I made my way to the bed. I knew if I was going to be pushing, I wanted to be on the bed. I don't know who suggested it, but Dave climbed up behind me to support me. Inna repeated, "Just push when you feel the need to push. Listen to your body." This was confusing to me. Like am I supposed to be pushing now? Or are you saying it'll be another hour or so and then you'll probably be pushing?
After riding out a few contractions I decided to start trying to push to see if anyone told me to stop. Eventually I felt like I had to poop. I was like either I'm about to poop or have a baby... let's find out! I pushed, and Inna noticed the change and grabbed some warm cloths. She was so casual (which was great in hindsight). I had all these voices around me whispering/speaking words of encouragement and rooting me on, but everything except for me was so calm. I swear Inna could have been flipping through a magazine as she sat at the end of the bed with warm compress on my nether regions waiting me to decide it's time.
I did another pushing contraction and saw her move the cloth to peek. So... I guess this means I really should be pushing pushing now eh? Alrighty then! With the next contraction I gave it my all. Our baby started crowning. Inna said, "This is going to sting!" YES NO FREAKING KIDDING IT IS! RING OF FIRE! When baby's head was halfway out they all said, "Okay time to pant!" So I am there panting like a freaking maniac trying not to rip my body in half. Then came the crazy scream and her head was out. My body took over and had that baby whether I wanted to or not. It's so freaking primal. Hard to describe. After the head was out, we had to do the shoulders. I tried to push, and they said, "open your legs more!" As I did the pushing was way easier and baby came out "easily".
This child was born within 15 minutes of me getting into that room. Holy. Crap. That was a close one! 1:18am Eva Affina is born. 3.5 hours after my water broke. Quick labour sounds nice and romantic, but it's intense. IIIINTENSE!
A little on the blurry side, but legit the moment she got put on my chest! Now you can see how Dave was sitting behind me. CRAZY!
They threw baby on my chest with some towels, and it took a few seconds for her to cry. To me it felt like 10 seconds, but it was just long enough for me to say, "You going to cry?!" Then baby started crying and showing off those lungs. Ohhhh the relief! So incredible how your body gives you this sense of relief the moment your baby is out. Sure things still hurt down there, but the contractions stop and everything just seems so much less intense. There's your baby.
Wait a minute, we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl! I lift up the towel, and try my best to pry the legs open (stubborn, screaming baby made this difficult), and saw a little nothing-ness. DAVE! IT'S A GIRL!!! We both got a little emotional. Not because we wanted a girl more than a boy, but because we had a girl name picked out that we both loved and were very excited about. A few minutes later I decided I had to check again because I couldn't believe it. I asked Inna to confirm, and she said, "Yup! That's a girl!" Dave leaned over and said, "Hello Eva!"
One of the first things I said when she came out (after "you going to cry?") was, " She's SO BIG!" I knew right away that she was bigger than the 7-8 lb Nushin was guessing. Everyone else in the room was making the same remarks, and guessing her weight. Inna guessed 8lb 14 oz. Jackie guessed 9lb something. She weighed in at 9 lb 2 oz. The same as her cousin Phoebe!
As Eva came out and they placed her on my chest, the room got silent for a moment. Inna then said, "There's a true knot in her cord." Jackie told me later on that her heart sunk at that moment. I had no idea what the significance was, so I just took a look and said, "Huh, cool." Inna was saying how it was really rare, and it's a miracle everything is okay. Everyone kept calling Eva our miracle baby. I really didn't understand what everyone was talking about until a few days later. As it turns out, 1 in 2,000 pregnancies have a true knot in the umbilical cord. Of that 1, 11% result in a stillbirth. During labour and delivery the cord can tighten and baby loses oxygen. If baby survives, there's often (I don't have a stat) some sort of oxygen deprivation which can result in some brain damage or disabilities. Eva's knot miraculously did not affect her at all, and she was born healthy as can be. True knots are usually formed between 9-12 weeks of pregnancy. They think that Eva being such a big baby at the end, and having such a long cord prevented that knot from tightening. A few more minutes, one more twist, more pushing, etc. could have yielded a very different, tragic result of our labour and delivery. We are so blessed and grateful for our healthy baby girl. I remember it, but don't remember it being a significant moment, but Dave got to cut the cord after it pulsed out. Her cord was definitely longer than I remember the other two kids' being! Very strange. I wonder how/why that happens.
Dave cutting the cord
That, friends, is a true knot.
The placenta came out after a few minutes, but I don't recall the exact amount of time. I had a cramp and mentioned it, and so Inna gave a little pull to see if placenta was ready and out it came. Such a gross feeling. Inna commented on how healthy and "chunky" it was. Especially since I was "overdue".
I had first degree tearing, so Inna gave me some stitches. I hate the stitches part, but this time wasn't as bad as the first two times I don't think. After the stitches, I started hemorrhaging and everyone started to get concerned. I was pretty spaced out just staring at Eva, and wasn't overly concerned about the bleeding. Right after baby comes out, they always give a shot of oxytocin to get the uterus contracting to start healing the placenta-sized open wound in there. I got that shot, but then with the hemorrhaging they gave me a second shot in my other leg. That wasn't doing the trick, so I then had to be hooked up for 2 hours to an IV that was pumping more oxytocin into my body to get the uterus clamped down and stop the bleeding.
All this was happening, I was trying to nurse my baby, and I got the word from Inna that they were going to have to do something more invasive. Oh dear... They were afraid I had some clots blocking my cervix so the uterus was being prevented from closing further even though I had all that oxytocin in my system (hello cramps!). Inna told me they were going to have to reach inside of me and through my cervix to try to get the clots out using her hand. Humph... That sounds terrible. Someone said to me, "This is going to be very uncomfortable." Inna then said, "Uncomfortable is an understatement. I am so sorry I have to do this." Hmm....... Okay.... Here she goes! Dave commented to me afterwards how shocking it was for him from his angle (I think he was still sitting behind me at this point; I've kind of lost track of time). Inna was suddenly elbow deep in my vagina feeling around and trying to sort out this clotting/hemorrhaging situation. Yes, uncomfortable was an understatement, especially given the fact that I had fresh wounds that had been freshly stitched up and now she was stretching all that area out as she felt around. She told me it would only be like 10 seconds, so I counted to 10... like 10 times. I told myself, "I can do anything for 10 seconds!"
I guess I handled it well. Everyone was commenting on how amazing I did with that part. I just said, "It's fine... I just had a baby and that was not worse than that." Very true, very true.
I was still going to be hooked up to the IV for a while which was really too bad. I couldn't get up and move around, and my tailbone was hurting, and I was in some shock from the blood loss, which manifested in tremors.
*I found out over a week later that I lost 700-800 cc's of blood during this. That's quite a lot. But then 4 days later I lost another litre with my secondary postpartum hemmorhaging*
Once all the bleeding was under control and I was just sitting there with the IV they were able to get Eva weighed and do her checks. Since Eva was a big baby, they also had to check her glucose levels, but everything came back in normal range. Everything looked good! She's a big, pink, healthy girl! They also got her cleaned up because she had her first poop fresh out of the womb while she was still doing skin to skin with me haha. This is when we found out she didn't really fit into newborn diapers. I then started to worry about the newborn clothes we brought for her. We'll just have to cram her in I guess! With Dom we were able to have visitors in the hospital, so we had my parents bring us a bigger outfit since he had the same problem.
Eva came out raring to go. She was already a very different baby than Emilia. Emilia was so so so calm. She hardly cried, she just sat there, very content the whole time. Eva was ferocious, she also nursed actively for almost 5 hours. The midwife told us that within an hour or two of birth she'd drift off into her recovery sleep and probably sleep for 6 hours. She took a really long time to settle before she finally drifted off to sleep. She came out huuuungry! I managed to sleep about 20-30 minutes between 5 and 545 and then she was crying again. Dave needed to rest so I took her back and she wanted to keep eating. It's okay... I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Fresh out the womb, sucking on her hand like a maniac.
The rest of the day the nurses pretty much left us alone. They came in a few times to check my vitals because of the blood loss, but everything looked okay. I asked if we could have early discharge (before 24 hours), and we were able to be cleared by that afternoon and be home at dinner time.
Just before we were discharged they did my vitals one more time though, and found my heart rate to be very low. I could feel that. I felt drained and my chest/body felt funny. It felt tired, and heavy. My heart rate was dipping into the 40's, but all my other vitals were stable. They wanted to monitor me for half an hour. A few times in that half hour the alarm went off stating my HR dipped below 50, but eventually they came in and said everything looked okay. In hindsight maybe they should have done a bloodwork checkup as they probably would have found me to have very low hemoglobin because of the blood loss. Alas, we were discharged and ready to go home.
I am so grateful for the help and support we had. My parents took the kids, Jeff & Marta took the dog, and we had meals brought to us the first few days. Eva has been a great little baby, and is a super welcome addition to our family! Dom and Emilia are totally enamored by her.
What a whirlwind day that was!! Water broke, went to the hospital, had a baby, and made it back home within 20 hours! Go us!
Another stork-bite baby! Very similar to Emilia's. On the forehead, eyelids, and back of her neck.
Tried out the soother. She wasn't a fan. She still isn't. Darn it!
I prepped and brought these snacks and honestly, best decision ever! We had a cooler with these, some gatorade, granola bars, etc. in it. But the cheese, crackers, pepperoni, veggies and hummus was clutch for me. Real food!!
Me silently resenting sleeping beauty over there. He was not comfortable, but he was sleeping haha
I look so much less rested than I did after having Emilia. I know now that's because my body wasn't feeling good yet. 4 days later it showed me why.
Gotta document this hair! For sure the most hair and darkest hair on any of my kids so far.
Crammed into this newborn onesie haha. She couldn't stretch out if she wanted to!
Let's go home!
Dominic's birth story
Emilia's Birth story
