Our New Year's Birth Story

Marissa's Birth Story
January 1, 1997
9:28 a.m.
8 lb. 8 oz., 20 inches

All through my pregnancy, with a due date of January 10, we had thought it would be fun to have a New Year’s baby… but we didn’t really expect it to happen! I’d thought the baby would be born around the 4th or 6th. But we guessed wrong.  :)

Throughout the day on December 31, I had contractions that felt just a little stronger than Braxton-Hicks practice contractions. I figured that these contractions were probably doing some of the work of dilating my cervix, since I was obviously going to have a baby soon. So I was happy just enjoying the day, finishing sewing the new cover I was putting on the infant car seat. Matt was on Christmas break from grad school, so we were enjoying a lot of good family time.

We went to the Olive Garden and waited a LONG time for a table, standing for almost 2 hours! I was having stronger contractions then, and we thought maybe we would have a New Year’s baby, after all. Finally, a manager noticed my large belly… soon we had a table! We told him we thought we might be having the baby that night, and with a worried look (thinking, of course, that I’d have the baby right there, on a super-busy night), he told us to please not tell him that! We hadn’t decided yet on names for the baby, so while we waited for our food to come, Matt said that maybe we should talk about names.  We decided on Brendan Michael for a boy and Marissa Kay for a girl.

Later, we went to our next-door neighbors’ house for a New Year’s Eve party. Matt told everyone there that we thought I might be in labor. Wouldn’t you know it, after that my contractions stopped! After a while, we thought since my body was taking a break from contractions, I should go home and sleep. I took David home and got him to bed, then finished gathering everything I wanted ready in case I was in labor. At midnight, our neighbors let off fireworks and I looked down at my belly and said, “Happy New Year!” Matt came home around 1:00 and we went to bed.

At 4:20 a.m., I was awakened by strong contractions. I lay in bed for a while, relaxing through the contractions. I didn’t want to wake Matt until I felt we needed to go to the hospital, because I knew he was really tired. I got out of bed and dressed, then went out to the living room. When I felt that I was getting really close, I woke Matt, and called the hospital to tell them we were coming.

When I called, they didn’t believe me. I explained that this was my third baby and when I felt like this the other 2 times, it wasn’t long at all. Finally, the nurse reluctantly gave in and said to come in and they would see if we could stay. There were only 2 birthing rooms open in the hospital.

I called my parents around 6:00 a.m. to let them know to head out. Since at the time we lived only about a 2 ½ hours’ drive away, I thought they’d need to get going right away. I called our friend Mavis, who’d said she could be with David at the birth to explain what was happening. She said she’d meet us there.

We got to the hospital at 6:50 a.m. I had to rest on a bench in the downstairs lobby because I had another contraction. The people at the reception area saw us coming and sent us right toward the private elevator for laboring couples.

After arriving at the OB unit, they put us in a triage room to wait for a resident to check me and see if I was really in labor. I knew I had to be at least 6 or 7 centimeters dilated, and Matt kept trying to get someone to just put us in a birthing room. The bed in the triage room was more like an examining table, really hard to lie comfortably enough to relax on.

We were really feeling like we were just “numbers” in the large university hospital (which was the only one our insurance was good for), not getting a very personal feeling from the experience thus far. Finally, someone came and examined me. Everyone sprang into action once they realized I was at 7 or 8 centimeters. Our nurse came and took us to a birthing room in the high-risk area because it was now the only room left.

Lynn, our nurse, was wonderful. We learned that she was only 3 months away from being a Certified Nurse Midwife. We definitely got the advantages of her midwifery training. She made the difference in the whole birth experience. Lynn read our birth plan and commented on the things we had put in it. She didn’t strap me to the external fetal monitor, but occasionally checked for the baby’s heartbeat by holding the monitor to my belly for several seconds. Lynn was very quiet and just sat by my left side, watching me to know when I was having contractions. When she spoke, it was very quietly.

My doctor arrived (on a day off!) with her three kids in the waiting area. (I was so pleased, since we had been told we only had a 20% chance of having our own doctor when I went into labor.) She said I could push any time I wanted to, but I was reluctant to try. I wanted to wait until I couldn’t keep from pushing. Dr. S was called to the lobby to nurse her son, and Lynn began suggesting different more vertical positions to see if I might feel more like pushing. After she suggested standing, I tried that. I stood up with Matt’s help, and looped my arms around his neck, facing him.

Once I did that, the baby moved down and I felt the urge to push! I pushed with that contraction and then looked over at David. He looked worried, and I told him I was okay. During the second contraction, I pushed the head out and could see the nurse reaching her arm around to get something. I asked what was happening, and she said, “The head is out!” (She was reaching for the thing to suction the mouth.) She pressed the call button for the doctor to come back. As Dr. S walked in and put on gloves, I pushed the body out and she reached out in time to catch the baby. She said, “Now, let’s not tell her what we have here,” and suggested that I turn around and get onto the bed. When I did that, I saw that we had another daughter!

It was so amazing how gravity helped so much when I had no urge to push. All Marissa needed was a little gravity to help her come into position, and my body took over. I nursed her right away, to stimulate more contractions to help the placenta detach more quickly. They let the cord stop pulsating before clamping it (as we had requested), and I cut the cord, surprised at how tough it was.

We named our new daughter Marissa, which was a name we'd considered when pregnant the first time around. Her middle name is Kay, which is my mom's middle name as well as my own. I always wanted to name our first daughter with this middle name, since I like it so much.

Our first daughter, Jessica (second child), had the middle name Kay, as well. She died when she was 6 1/2 months old. When I was pregnant again, I knew I wanted to use Kay again as the middle name if we had a girl. What's funny is that our kids were so used to all the girls in our family having the same middle name, that when our next daughter Naomi was born, they almost expected her middle name to be Kay, too! (Her middle name is Grace.)