The Giesekes: 2015

(post written 5/18/15. I was waiting to add cute, relevant pics before posting, but seems like that might never happen. Giving up perfectionism and posting as-is today)

Whenever I have a baby I always take a few minutes to write out the story of what happened and I'm always so glad I did because it takes mere days to completely forget the details. Here is the story of how Graham came into the world.

First of all we had been wanting him and trying to have time for what felt like a long time. He was the hardest of our children to get pregnant with. That was hard; that is a whole other tale. But this pregnancy was very wanted and very difficult for me emotionally and physically (31 years old feels a lot older than 26 in childbearing terms).

It's also hard to talk about his entrance into the world without talking about how we crazily bought a house and moved into it 17 days before his birth. That is a miracle and hardship I am still processing every day as I live in a beautiful new home in Redwood City that is mostly furnished, somewhat set up, and full of potential, and yet it doesn't yet feel like home. I keep saying to Dan that it feels like a nice vacation rental house. Comfortable, but not familiar. Not homey yet.

With Graham I was very unsure about how I wanted to deliver. A big part of me just wanted to plan a c-section and not even consider the hardship of labor and a potential VBAC that may not work. As the end of pregnancy approached, it seems like my body was preparing itself for labor in so many ways and my new doctor kept telling me that I was the best candidate for a VBAC she was caring for and my chances of success were near 90%. I felt like I was carrying a big baby, but the doctor assured me that he felt a 7 pounder and there was nothing to fear. My other big fear was delivering a baby in the posterior "sunnyside up" position that made my other two deliveries nearly impossible. Doctor said there were many ways we could turn him if we needed to. So I awaited the labor pains that would send me to the hospital to do a trial of labor. But as many nights as I awoke with contractions and pain, the signs soon stopped and there were days more to wait.

We reached the week before my due date when the c-section was already marked on the calendar. I was very torn about what to do and whether to wait another week or just go forward with the planned surgical birth. I felt like I "should" wait longer to see what happened, but I just couldn't wait another day. My doctor suggested that I go in as planned, but instead of the surgery, that we try to start my labor. That was a perfect compromise.

On Wednesday morning we were all set. My mother in law was here, the bags were packed, the car seats installed, even family and friends' visits ready to go for after the delivery. I got the dreaded call from L&D that they were too busy and couldn't take us that morning. My heart sank. I was ready, but the hospital was not. Call back in a few hours. I tried to relax, I napped. I called and again they said call back in a few hours. At that point I was going crazy laying around the house waiting, so Dan and I decided to go to the movies. We enjoyed Far From the Madding Crowd. We came out and I hoped to head straight to the hospital, but I called and they said, "come in at 3pm." Yeah, we were going in! But 2 minutes later I got a voicemail saying "based on your history, we'd like you to come in at 5pm." That drove me nuts! What history requires me to start labor 2 hours later? I had accepted my fate of aimlessly lingering around all day.

At 5pm we called and they said, "Great, come in at 5:30pm." Finally! As we headed to the hospital Dan was scarfing a wrap, which drove me nuts since we had waited 8-1/2 hours to go in and Dan wasn't fully prepared. I don't tend to be very accommodating or understanding in these situations and I expect others to get their act together immediately.

When we arrived at Labor and Delivery they didn't have us registered, which we were, so there was another round of delays talking to Registration, who sent us away because we were indeed already registered. Then we got to sit around answering a million questions that seem ill-timed. Like couldn't you have asked for my husband's work title and address some other time? At that point I was actually getting quiet a few of my own contractions. They were not very strong but coming every 5 minutes - a great sign.

Finally got the medical process going by placing the IV and epidural at 8:30pm. It was going to be a long night. I realized how uncomfortable and nerve-wracking all the prep and needles and pokes are when you are not in active labor and trying to survive excruciating contractions. I liked the anesthesiologist who said, "The key to a successful VBAC is being as comfortable as possible." That sounded great to me (As my friend Melody said "We've come a long way from The Business of Being Born when we were suspicious of every medical intervention." So true). As the pitocin picked up speed, I started to feel every contraction stronger and stronger. They were getting very painful and it seemed like the epidural was not doing much for me.

My friendly anesthesiologist had given me the dose of the epidural meds, but had forgotten to connect the little pump that kept it working. It took a long time to discover this problem, resulting in a lot of drama with the epidural. They cranked it up to get the pain relief we were going for, but that caused by blood pressure to drop and me to feel really dizzy. Then all of the meds were only going to my left side and so I had to keep rolling to different sides. It was hard to get much rest. Thought there were problems with the epidural, I do know that I experienced a lot less pain than I would have without it.

I was only on the pitocin a short time and they were able to turn it off as I had my own contractions. I tried to rest. Dan tried to watch the Warriors' playoff game (there might have been a Giants game too, it was hard to keep track). I progressed quickly and around 1:30am I was "complete" and ready to push.

I was the most nervous about the pushing part of the delivery. I have had some very bad experiences with this. Both of my other babies were in a "sunnyside up" position, meaning the biggest part of the head comes first. This makes it really hard to get them out. With Jackson I pushed 3 hours and needed a c-section because he was stuck. With Cosette I pushed 4 hours and only got her out with vacuum assistance. I figured I just wasn't designed for birth or I was bad at pushing.

This time the experience was 100% different. We "labored down" for a while, called my doctor out of bed, and started pushing around 3am. I was able to push very effectively and get the baby to move. The nurses also positioned me well to avoid letting the baby slip into the sunnyside up position. It was very exciting to be making quick progress. I forgot how exhausting this portion of labor is. It is such a huge physical exertion. I was on oxygen for the times my blood pressure was dipping, so I sucked on the O2 between pushes. The doctor said it was no longer doing anything for me, but physiologically it helped so I kept using it.

After only 50 minutes the baby was about to be delivered. I had to do 6 big pushes in a row and it was the hardest I ever remember working. But wow, out he came! It was so thrilling to be done and holding my new son! The first thing we all said was, "Whoa, he's big!" He looked quite large, with rolls on his arms and legs, fuzzy little auburn hair, and big cries.

It is amazing to see your baby for the first time. He was a little stranger, a face I didn't know yet, hadn't yet stared into. But I loved him right off. I loved how warm and pink he looked. I loved that we could already tell he had his Daddy's toes. I loved his big screaming mouth and sweet round ears. It is one of the best things in the world to meet your baby. I was very shaky, but still able to hold him and kiss his head.

He weighed in at 8lb 14oz. We were so surprised. The doctor had estimated that he would be about 7lb, and though those guesses are notoriously inaccurate, I wasn't expecting an almost 9lb baby! Dan and I were later thankful that we hadn't known his hefty size beforehand. I would never had tried for a VBAC with a baby that large, and yet it was probably my smoothest birth story so far. I could never have predicted these stories we ended up with: one 10 day late induction resulting in a 2 day labor and c-section, one spontanous labor with an unplanned VBAC, and one planned induction with another successful VBAC.

New lens, new angles. Dan treated me to an awesome new lens for my birthday/Christmas combo present (Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8II). I'm having a lot of fun playing with it and seeing its sharp focus and lightening speed. I spent the last year shooting 95% of the time with a 50mm prime lens, so having some zoom capabilities is really expanding the types of photos I can take. With the prime lens I had to get pretty far away from the subject to capture any context, so I took a lot of close ups and scurried around the terrain. Now I can compose a little more easily, but this thing weighs a ton, so not as portable as the prime.

Here are my recent favorites. The categories should be 1.Baby and 2.Other (anything not baby). Hard to resist taking a billion pictures of sweet Graham all day.

Category 1: Baby