Double Venti Latte: June 2010

Today, June 23, 2010 Kari and I had the amazing privilege to meet our beautiful daughter Clara Lane Venti. We thank the Lord for his provision for our family. As many of you may know Kari and I have been researching and studying about the VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarian) for just about our entire pregnancy with Clara. Okay, it was mainly Kari doing the researching and studying, but I did my fair share of preparing to be her support and coach during labor with some Kari-directed literature. Those of you who have been a support for our labor know all the time, effort and planning she (and Audrey and I) had put into making arrangements to deliver at St. Vincent's (the referred hospital for VBACs in Oregon) and we thank you for your encouragement, prayers and love.

Kari started having noticeably strong contractions around 1am on Tuesday morning (June 22nd). Significant enough to keep her awake all night. I woke up around 5am and began to help Kari time the contractions. We decided around 7am that the contractions were strong and consistent enough for us to begin moving towards packing the car t0 head to Portland or to the Salem Clinic for a quick check with Dr. Peterson (Kari's main OB). Audrey (Kari's mom) came over and we loaded the car and were ready to roll out around 8:15. On our way out we called the clinic to see if Dr. Peterson was in and was told she wouldn't be there until 9am. With fairly consistent contractions we decided just to push on to Portland to be safe and be close to St. Vincent's.

We arrived in Portland and knew that we didn't want the majority of Kari's labor hours to be spent in the hospital so we drove around a bit to scope out the few hotels on our list. By this time the change in environment (an hour long awkward car ride) seemed to have slowed the contractions. We landed at a Tannesborne shopping center and did some good walking (and maybe a little shopping, but honestly it was mostly walking). We walked through a few stores and around the outdoor mall which helped build the intensity of the contractions again. It was close to noon by this point so we decided to head the Spaghetti Factory to pick up Kari's favorite to-go dish while in Portland. With lunch in hand we decided to get ourselves over to the hotel. We checked into the Fairfield Inn just just before noon and chowed lunch between contractions. We labored in the hotel for a few hours, went for a walk and then labored for a little while longer. Around 6:15pm we decided we should get some dinner so I ran to Trader Joe's to pick up some necessities and after being gone for literally 6 minutes Kari called me to tell me her water broke. I checked out, rushed back, loaded our stuff and we were off to St. Vincent's.

We "officially" checked into St. Vincent's at 7:27pm and met with a triage nurse. We spent a couple of hours in check-in (all while Kari's contractions seemed to be building in intensity). Kari was dilated to 3cm to 4cm at 8:20, which seemed like good progress since the exam with Dr. Peterson on Monday showed her at 1cm. Her contractions were tracking 2 minutes apart by 9pm. Finally at 9:30 we were walked to room 320. We were introduced to our extremely helpful/friendly nurse Jeannie just before heading back. We were blessed with experience and flexibility of our nurse and she was a great support to our team during labor.

By 10pm Kari was hitting contractions even more strength and had been working extremely hard for a couple of hours already. Words cannot explain the amazing work God does with us in labor. Kari is a strong, strong woman and I am so proud of the work she put into this amazing opportunity. After working through a few hours (11:30pm) she was dilated to 6cm/7cm and Clara had made some decent progress dropping. At 12:45am she made a comment to me saying, "I got this" (which I had been whispering to her for hours). It was a great feeling to have her reach that point of focus considering her contractions were strong and right on top of each other for over 6 hours. She was working harder in labor than I have ever worked, doing anything, in my life.

At 1am the slight need to push started to come over Kari with each contraction. By 2:30 she was 8cm and -1. Still contractions were strong, lasting at least a minute, every two minutes. At 3:30 she still measured 8cm and our extremely natural birth supporting nurse had explained to us that the dilation had slowed and being at the 26th hour of significant contractions that we were going to need to make a decision to try and help her VBAC progress or we may be subject to a repeat cesarean. After discussion and prayer we decided to go with the epidural with the goal relaxation so she could fully dilate and then have energy for the "push". This was a difficult decision as Kari had labored naturally for hours and we felt like we were almost to the final stage. The epidural went in around 4:30am at which point my dear wife had been laboring for 27.5 hours. It actually took 2 attempts as the 1st hit a blood vessel (which the anesthesiologist then explained would have a 75% chance of Kari having a severe headache in the coming day or two that could potentially last up to two weeks and could only be cured by another epidural blood patch).

The contractions became less noticeable and the strength seemed to fade a bit. Another check showed her still at 8cm around 7:30am (32.5 hrs of labor). By this time we were at a shift-change for both the nurse and doctor. To our surprise the doctor we had seen in Portland to prepare for a VBAC (who was completely unsupportive of Kari having a successful VBAC at her appt on her due date 6/17) was scheduled at 7:30. The new staff came in prepped on our progress and was fully supportive of our VBAC at this time. Before the shift change we discussed the "next" step to help Kari and baby get through the last 2cm. The nurse and doctors supported the use of a VERY small amount of Pitocin to help the final stage of labor get moving. After deciding it was either Pitocin or another cesarean (due the extreme amount of time Kari had already been contracting and the slow of progression) we decided to try our best effort to have a successful VBAC. At 7:30am they began with a small amount of Pitocin, but close to that same time we noticed a deceleration in Clara's heart rate with each contraction. After watching it closely for several contractions the team decided Clara wouldn't be happy going through the last stage of labor.

At this point the cesarean was introduced and RAPIDLY switched gears from our focused laboring room to me throwing on scrubs and us going back into the operating room. Minutes later (8:42am) we were introduced to our beautiful daughter Clara Lane Venti who weighed in at 9lbs and 11oz and 21 inches long. My precious Kari, all 5' 3/4" (I've tried to get her to round up to 5'1" for 10 years now), carried a near 10lb baby! Immediately it was obvious why she had been at 8cm for nearly 4 hours!

We know God had His hand in the labor this entire time and was protecting Kari and baby and I'm extremely happy to have two healthy ladies with me in the hospital room today. However, it was an extremely hard transition when the repeat cesarean became our only option, especially after Kari and I worked so hard for 32.5 hours. I was 100% in line with Kari and her contractions and was so ready to see her through the last stage. I couldn't have been more proud. The labor experience was honestly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. God is truly amazing. Although we didn't get to finish that final stage due to Clara's size I am thankful we had the opportunity to work together in labor. My love, respect and desire to serve Kari has grown exponentially in the past 48 hours.

For years I've wanted some form of a garden. We've lived on Elliot St for a little over three years now and I never did any research about raised beds. This year our good friend Eric Compton (@ecmptn) was an encouraging factor after he got his raised bed built and filled. Our backyard is pretty small so we for this year at least we managed to get a 6x4 raised bed and a small patch on the side for strawberries started.

We've made the Salem Saturday Market a weekly tradition in 2010. Nolan and Mila load up into the jogging stroller and I take the 4.75 mile jog to the market. Prego mama meets us down there and we get our weekly veggie/fruit needs. We've have a good time meeting up with friends (mainly the Comptons) on occasion and usually grabbing lunch at Uncle Dino's place downtown.

We were able to score some nice veggie starts from the Minto Island Grower's stand at the market. So far we have tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, basil, summer squash, zucchini and strawberries (from LifeSource) - all organic starts. Nolan calls it our "salsa garden" :-).