Madison Ashley Uchytil's Birth Story
What a totally different and wonderful experience this was! For those who don't remember, Riley started out at Andaluz, but had to be rushed to OHSU because the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice. There were only two good things about that experience:
The whole experience there was not pleasant, nurses being bossy, not wanting to let us hold Riley how we wanted, very uncomfortable room, Marci tearing quite a bit, being sewn up wrong, getting an infection after, being bed ridden for several weeks after, it just wasn't fun for anyone, especially Marci.
This time we had no complications and were able to have Maddie at Andaluz, and spend the night there.
WOW!!!
Now THIS is now births should be, it was just amazingly wonderful! A room that was like a very nice hotel, dinner from the Outback Steakhouse, a very comfortable bed for ALL of us to sleep in, being able to watch movies on a laptop, breakfast of scrambled eggs and french toast (fresh made!), just incredible. But let's start the story back aways.
During her pregnancy, we never saw a doctor, just the midwives at Andaluz - who are VERY knowledgeable and qualified, by the way. They know what they are doing. Each visit was just a joy. Lots of laughing, great advice, encouragement, etc. A wonderfuly positive time. Anytime we had questions we could call and get answers. If our main midwife wasn't available, we could ask anyone elsle and thye would help us. We did get an ultrasound for two reasons. First just to make sure everything was looking good, there weren't any problems, and second because we wanted to know the sex - a girl. WooHoo! One of each! Due date was July 3rd.
Fast forward to June. Our main midwife left for Jamaica to bring back her fiance to Oregon. She thought it would go quickly and she'd be back in the 2nd half of June. In the mean time our appointments were with her backup. By now Marci was really getting ready to be done. It was getting painful to be pregnant, she was having troubles doing things, out of breath, etc. Fortunately, Riley understood Mommy couldn't do some things, like lift him - we told him that Mommy could after Maddie was out of her tummy. :)
June 25th Marci felt GREAT! No pains, no shortness or breath, no nothing. She played a lot with Riley, cleaned up, even washed her car! About 3am on the 26th, she thought she just had bad gas. By 4am she realized they were contractions. She waited until 8:30am to wake up Rich and tell him it was time to go. Why did she wait so long?? Well, Rich was an idiot and stayed up until 1am that night, and she wanted to make sure he got plenty of sleep because she needed him awake. D'OH!
We called Rich's parents, they came and picked up Riley, then we went to Andaluz. We got there at 10:30am and just when we got to the front door her water broke! Got up to Andaluz and Marci quickly peeled off her clothes and hopped in the tub. Ahhhhhhhh......... Rich jumped in shortly after. Carrie, our main midwife, was still in Jamaica, so it was her backup, Sonya and Whitney, and the owner of Andaluz, Jen. We really felt bad Carrie and Misty couldn't be there, but knew we had very capable backups. We brought our own music (Rich's iPod and Bose Wave radio) and turned that on, pulled out our camera's and handed them to Sonya and Whitney. It was soooo cool that both of them helped us out by taking photos and video! Marci's Sony T-1 is GREAT at taking video, but we only had about 6 and a half minutes we could take. Sonya did a fantastic job of taking video of what was important. It was very nice listening to the music Marci picked out to help her relax. Somehow an upbeat country-ish song got mixed in, which made Marci perk up and jokingly ask what that was doing there. haha! The mood the ENTIRE time was light and relaxed, never tense or nervous or worried or anything like that.
Jen was amazing! She knew all the right things to say and things to do. Marci didn't worry once about any problems or that Jen was doing anything wrong (unlike with a doctor who's on a time schedule). The basic thing Jen kept saying to Marci was, "Listen to your body, it will tell you what to do, when to push. If you don't feel like it, don't do it." That advice was fantastic! There were a few times Marci felt something funny, but Jen was there to make sure she knew everything was ok.
Finally she was ready to push. In total, there were about eight pushes, but that was over about 30-45 minutes. Marci would give a push, Jen would let her know if she needed to push lightly or hard, then a long rest. All this time Rich did his best to keep Marci relaxed and calm, telling her to hum really low, relax her face, relax her hands, etc. Once Maddie's nose was out, Jen told Marci to give it all she had with the next push.
This is funny. At one point, Maddie was a little bit out, and Marci started saying, "Don't push her back in!" To her it felt like someone was pushing Maddie back in. Jen again stayed very calm, laughed a little, kept Marci relaxed and un-paniced, and told her, "No one's pushing honey. Maddie is just moving around a little getting ready to be born."
With one last push, Maddie was out - we have a really cool video of it. They brought Maddie up right away and onto Marci. Both of us cried - it's not unmanly to cry when it's your daughter! Time: 12:35pm. So two hours after we got there, Maddie was born. That was awesome! AND Maddie started nursing pretty quickly too, a natural at latching on! About 30 minutes later the placenta came out. They asked us if we wanted to cut the cord, and both declined. So our good friend Susie (Bradley birthing teacher) did.
Marci had a teensy tear, but both Jen and Sonya recommended against stiches, saying it would be best if Marci would just refrain from doing too much, walking up stairs, etc, and let it heal naturally. Marci also got what they call a "skid-mark", which is a little scrap. That hurt most of all, but nothing like with Riley. Marci says things couldn't have gone better. Jen knew EXACTLY what to say and more importantly, where to put her hands. Marci would feel a bit of pain, then Jen would put her hand somewhere and suddenly it was gone. All three of them were so incredibly comforting, relaxing, and helped so much make everything go perfectly.
About 10-15 minutes later, Marci was up and in the shower. Rich got in the shower after her and shortly after that familiy arrived. We did the famly thing, taking pictures, letting everyone hold her, then they left and it was just us, time to relax. Here's where some of the HUGE differences came.
Everyone was gone and it was just us in the room. We were both tired and relaxed, talking, looking at Maddie, smiling from ear-to-ear. The bed we were on was sooooo incredibly comfortable. While Susie, Rob, and their daughter Kyrie were still there, we realized we should have brought our laptop to watch movies. Rich was going to go back and get it when Susie & Rob offered. We couldn't believe they'd do that, it was sooooo incredibly nice of them! They came back with the video's we asked for and our laptop. Unfortunately, they brought Marci's laptop instead of Rich's. Marci's was having problems and had no sound. D'OH! We didn't say anything because it was so nice of them to do that and WAY too much to ask them to go back. Rich was going to go get his, when we decided to call his parents and see if they'd do it. They did and we now had a laptop that had working sound. (Shhhh.... don't tell Susie and Rob, they don't know, we weren't clear on which laptop to get and by no means are upset with them, actually 1000000% grateful to them for all they did for us.) Rich's parents also brought the movie, "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. AWESOME movie! If you haven't seen it, rent it!
So we popped in a movie and started to get hungry. We had a TON of places to choose from, and chose Outback for dinner. Placed our order and Whitney went and got it. We gotta tell you. It was soooooooo freaking incredible to be sitting there, Maddie sleeping, watching a movie and eating Outback Steaks shortly after Maddies birth!!! Whitney actually took Maddie while we ate. Just incredible!
After we ate, it was starting to get dark and we were getting tired, but still jazzed from the events of the day. We put in another movie and tried to watch it, but eventually fell asleep. It was actually a wonderful night, very relaxing, Maddie slept very well so both of us got some sleep. Whitney spent the night and said she could either come in every four hours or just in the morning. We told her to come in every four hours, wake us up if needed, we'd rather make sure Maddie is ok than get sleep.
In the morning Whitney asked us what we wanted for breakfast, and gave us a list of options. We chose scrambled eggs and french toast. Whitney made it!!! She said, "That's part of the job." It was soooooo good!!!!! What a way to start the morning! What was also cool was they told us we could stay as long as we wanted, even stay another full day. That was nice, but we were ready to go.
Around Noon we started taking showers and getting our stuff together. We left saying to each other over and over, "Wow!" Maddie's birth was one of the most incredible, wonderful, special moments in our lives, and Andaluz made it all that much better. Both of us were saying to each other, "Except for medical reasons, if someone knew about this incredible experience, why would they choose to go to a hospital?" Marci says, "Yes, it WAS painful! It DID hurt! But it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, it wasn't as painful as you hear birth is supposed to be."
Once again, Andaluz was the perfect place to have a baby. We can't thank them enough for all they did, and that includes Carrie and Misty. Even though they weren't there for the birth, they helped us prepare for it perfectly. Our best to everyone at Andaluz, and THANK YOU SO MUCH for such a wonderful experience and perfect birth!
BTW, when we left, we stopped at Babies R Us to get some stuff, then Best Buy to get Riley the Scooby Doo first & 2nd season on DVD, then Winco next door to get Rich some beer. In that first week, we went out to dinner and to the store several times. Maddie went to her first Zoo within a week of being born, and her first Brewpub (Raccoon Lodge). Marci did overdo it a little, but this was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the hospital! She's up and around, not feeling ill or in pain or anything like that. There was one issue though. After Maddie was born, they told us that with each additional child you have aftershocks, contractions with the body going back to normal. We suggested they should tell people this early in their visists. No one will NOT want to have their child or havce it there, but they will be prepared for them. Today is 7/15/05, almost 3 weeks after Maddie was born. Marci is doing GREAT! Feeling incredibly fantastic, though tired just from Maddie having her nights and days mixed up. At this time with Riley, she was till in bed in pain and somewhat sick. What a difference!!!