Arden Was Born

Friday, July 8, we woke up at the usual time, got Ever and Wren situated with Tutu, and headed to Scripps Encinitas. Jim played folk Christmas music on the way down because getting a baby felt like Christmas. We weren't in a hurry because we figured it would be a while before Trish got checked in/medicated and anything happened. Periodically I got freaked out that somehow things were going to happen really quickly and we were going to miss the birth. We stopped at a donation center on the way down to get rid of some stuff, and I thought that would have been a really dumb reason to miss the birth of our baby. Jeremy texted before we arrived, however, to say it was going to be a while. Trish still hadn't really dilated, and we were in for a long day. There ended up being a fair amount of this:

Trish and I got a picture before the real action started:

Early on, the nurses predicted a 3:00 P.M. delivery, and things looked on track for that. Trish was progressing fine. Then the baby's heart rate dropped for a minute, and the nurses came rushing in to change Trisha's position and give her oxygen. It was a little scary. I kept telling myself that worse-case scenario, they could take the baby by c-section, and everyone would be OK. The nurses turned off the pitocin, and progress stopped. Eventually they got the meds cranked up again, and Trish got to 8 centimeters. One of the nurses called Trish's long-time OB-GYN, Dr. Grauer,who canceled the rest of her afternoon appointments so she could come deliver the baby. It took her a while to get down to the hospital, and Trish was still at 8 cm when Dr. Grauer arrived. Dr. Grauer hung out after she was supposed to go home to see it through. She said Trish had been having dysfunctional labor all day. The contraction pattern wasn't what they want to see, and it indicated the baby was in occiput posterior position (face up). The baby was also not lined up well and didn't want to move down. I was so worried that after a long and painful day, Trish was going to need a c-section. The nurse said babies can be delivered in OP position, but it's harder and takes longer.

Finally, around 6:00 P.M., Trish was ready to start pushing. We went to the cafeteria to get some dinner right before and ended up running into one of Jim's old co-workers who had left Kaiser for Scripps. There was a Jamba Juice machine in the cafeteria, and we made a poor snap decision to purchase a giant mango smoothie. We scarfed the food back in the hospital room but hadn't made much progress on the smoothie when the pushing began. Jim and I sat on the couch on the side of the room. I had the smoothie in hand, and it was just really weird - like I was watching a movie, with refreshments, of my baby's birth. I had to put the smoothie down and let it go to waste.

Trish pushed a bit, and then Dr. Grauer said she wanted to let her rest briefly and see if the baby would move down into a better position. Around 6:45 P.M., Dr. Grauer came back, and the pushing began again in earnest. It was really hard to watch. The epidural, although helpful, didn't prevent all pain. At one point, Trish said, in a tiny, high voice, "It hurts!" She asked repeatedly how she was doing and if we were making progress. In the beginning, Dr. Grauer wasn't super-engaged. She was standing a ways back during the pushing and left the room at one point. Trish asked if we were almost there, and Jeremy said, "I think when the doctor doesn't leave the room, that means we're almost there." It was awful seeing Trish in so much pain, concerned husband at her side, knowing it was all for us. I cried sometimes. Trish thought it would be easy - a few pushes, and the baby would pop out. They commented that she'd never had to push so long. I was off to the side going, "See? I'm telling you, Kringel babies don't come out!" I, irrationally, felt a little validated when even a professional birther couldn't get our baby out.

The nurses' shift change was at 7:00 P.M. The nurses who were ending their shift brought in the new nurses and were getting them up to speed. Things started getting exciting right around then. One of the outgoing nurses said if she heard a baby crying, she was going to come back in and see it; she didn't care if we saw her in her shorts. She and the other outgoing nurse ended up lingering long enough that all four of them were there, plus all the rest of the team, when the baby was born at 7:22 P.M. She was 7 lbs 14 oz, and I think 19.5 inches. I'll have to confirm. By the time she came out, she had flipped so she was face down. I thought she looked just like Ever when she was born, but by the next day the resemblance was gone. In any case, she was a healthy little girl, and we were so very grateful to have her safely here. She had dark hair and dark, ruddy skin. She looked like a little Eskimo baby. The nurses had me in a gown so I could do skin-to-skin as soon as she came out.

Trish said that when people were checking to see how dilated she was, they seemed to be petting the head of this baby. There was much talk of how much hair she had:

The nurses had me in a hospital gown so that I could slip the baby in for skin-to-skin contact as soon as she was born. Jim and I focused on the baby while Trish was getting cared for. Dr. Grauer said Trish didn't tear at all, "even with Big Head over there." (That's a direct quote.) Trish was bleeding, though. The nurses kept switching out pads. I got to see a placenta for the first time, and I saw the giant bag of blood and other junk get picked up off the floor and thrown away. Childbirth is so incredibly gnarly. It's a wonder anyone survives.

After Trish and the baby were squared away, the room cleared out and we started celebrating - "We did it! That was crazy!" I told Trish how bad I felt for her. She said, "I told you I'd probably yell at the end!" She claimed that she hadn't really been in pain; she was just uncomfortable. (Total lie.) I told her how I was just so scared that after that whole day, she was going to end up needing surgery. I was so relieved a c-section hadn't been necessary.

Jeremy had posted a couple updates to Facebook about the days' proceedings. A couple times during the day, he read the comments to Trisha, complete with capitalization and punctuation. It was hilarious. I videotaped one of his readings after Arden was born (hence the crying baby):

Not long after things had calmed down and the room had cleared, Trish needed to go to the bathroom. The nurses came in to help her. Next thing I knew, one of the nurses was saying, "She's pale!" and they were rushing her back to the bed to lay her down. She had lost a blood clot and was bleeding and bleeding. I'd thought we were out of the woods, and then we weren't. I thought, "Now is when the bad thing is going to happen." It was so scary. They quickly got her a medication that shrinks the uterus. That controlled the bleeding, thank heavens, and we were all able to move upstairs to recovery about 11:00 P.M. Jeremy and Trish had a room, and we had a separate room with the baby. 

That first night was rough. Nurses kept coming in to check the baby's vitals. Her temperature was low, so I had to hold her skin-to-skin for a long time. She fussed a lot. They would only give us a teeny bit of formula at a time because newborns' stomachs are so small, but she always seemed still hungry. By 4:00 A.M., I was exhausted and had not been able to sleep for one second. I wanted Jim to help (he'd been trying to sleep on the couch but had just been up for a diaper change), and he jumped up all bitter and said, "Fine! I'll just do everything! Give me the baby!" I yelled back, "Nevermind! I can't ever sleep anyway, so I'll just do it!" We were so very tired. It hurt, but we survived the night.

The next morning, I went home to fetch Mamo, Ever, and Wren. (Ever had cried when we'd called the night before and told her about the baby but said it was too late to come to the hospital.) It was nice to have all the fam together.

Jeremy and Trish came up to our room before they checked out. Mamo gave Trish a big hug and cried. Such an amazing thing she did for us. 

Poor Trish and her swollen face. Nice to know I'm not the only one who experiences that, although mine was always worse than this:

Team Baby, plus our other kids:

I took Mamo and Wrenbo home, but Ever opted to stay with us at the hospital until we checked out that evening. She was very good hanging out in the room for hours. She colored and did more baby holding:

During our time in the hospital, we surveyed all the nurses about the baby's name. Arden had been at the top of my list for a while. I think Lark is adorable, but I couldn't do a first name that ends with a "k" because of our last name. ("Lark Kringel" sounds like "Lar Kringel" unless you over-enunciate and pause between the names.) I also wasn't a big fan of becoming a weird bird-name family. We discussed Juniper, Sullivan, Rowan, and Auden. Jim was pushing for Curran, but I had to veto that one. Jeremy and I spent lots of time that long Friday researching the name options. Sullivan is used primarily for boys; Rowan is more evenly matched; Arden was used primarily for boys decades ago but is now used much more often for girls. (Jeremy found a website that told us how many boys and how many girls were given each name in recent years.) Every single person we asked, besides Jeremy, voted for Arden. When the birth certificate lady came in on Saturday, we asked her opinion. She said she sees lots of Rowans (a turn-off for Jim), and she loved the name Arden. Her friend from high school has a 13-year-old daughter named Arden. And so the deal was sealed. I have to say, with our other girls we didn't solicit opinions on names much, partly because we know our style is a bit unique. This time, however, it was helpful.

Arden Lark, ready for the car ride home:

Later we got a thank-you card from Trisha that made both Mamo and me cry:

Jeremy and Trish are incredible. What a gift they gave us! 

I wanted everything to go well so they wouldn't regret their decision to do this. Things definitely weren't as smooth as we would have hoped, beginning to end. After she went home from the hospital, Trish continued to bleed. She ended up needing a D&C weeks later. Something funky happened to her uterus. A little nodule where the placenta was attached to the uterus didn't fully heal, and the D&C also revealed scar tissue and a polyp. Ten days after the D&C - which was about two months after Arden was born - the bleeding finally stopped. These Kringel babies don't make it easy, but thank heavens Trish is all right. We are forever indebted to her and Jeremy.

* See http://itswilsontime.blogspot.com/2016/07/7-8-2016.html for Trisha's account of Arden's birthday. 

A Few Things - Before Arden

Susan and I joined forces for semiprivate swimming lessons with Tracy Zundel this summer. We had a heck of a time coordinating our schedules to squeeze in 10 lessons before Baby 3 was born, but we did it. Ever and Luc had their lessons first, and then they entertained themselves in the pool while Wrenzy and Amelie had theirs. It was nice to see Ever swimming again, and now she's comfortable enough that she'll even swim in other pools (unlike last summer, when she lost her nerve everywhere besides the Zundels'). Toward the end, she and Luc started working on keeping their faces in the water and breathing to the side, although that's going to take a lot more practice. 

When Tracy suggested joint lessons with Amelie and Wren, she didn't realize that Wren couldn't even walk yet. Also Amelie screamed the entire time until the last lesson or two. After a few attempts at joint lessons, Tracy suggested that we split them up and just do 15-minute private lessons with each little. That worked much better. Wren was amazing. She LOVES the water and cried when her lessons ended. I couldn't believe that right off the bat, Tracy had her jumping in and going under water and even sort of swimming (assisted, of course) to the steps. She got so that the second Tracy sat her on the side or put her on the steps, she would throw her arms up over her head and try to jump back in immediately, whether or not Tracy was ready. A couple of Wrenzy videos from an early lesson:

Both girls after one of their last lessons:

Mamo and Pod got back from Peru on Saturday, June 18. They rented a car and headed up to Ventura. I went up with the girls to see everybody and drop Ever for some cousin time. I spent the night and drove back with Wren on Sunday. Saturday night we got to see Mamo and Pod's pictures from Peru. What an incredible trip they had! The only bummer - and it was a big one - was that Mamo hurt her back (compression fracture) during a fall on a big natural rock slide on the penultimate day of their trip. She was in really bad shape. I can't imagine being in that sort of pain. She is a trooper, though. Dee or Shan took this phote while we were there:

I went back up on Tuesday night and brought Ever back to Oceanside on Wednesday morning. Pod flew home Tuesday, and Tutu was going to stay with the Deetrixes until we needed her for Baby 3. On Wednesday night (June 22), however, we had a scare. Jim and I were up until after midnight. Then about 1:30 A.M., I got a call from Trisha. "I think it's time!" She had been having contractions 6-8 minutes apart for a couple hours, so they were heading to the hospital. I told her we'd get somebody to come stay with Ever and Wren and would meet them there. When I hung up, I got emotional ("Oh, my gosh. This is happening!") and started freaking out ("We are not ready!"). We were not prepared in any way. I'd been spending a lot of time on work and hadn't managed to wrap things up yet. Stacey Sullivan (mentor/partner at work) was in Europe for two weeks, and I was trying to move a deal along as much as possible while she was gone so they'd be ready to close shortly after she returned. I hadn't finished everything I wanted to do. We hadn't installed the car seat, packed anything for the hospital, etc. Nanny had offered to come over any time, day or night, to stay with Ever and Wren when we went to the hospital. We had just exchanged texts on Tuesday, and I asked her if she had been sleeping with her phone on. She said, "No, but I will." So I called her as soon as I got off with Trish, and she didn't answer. I called a few times. We tried Carl's phone, too. No answer. We texted Jeremy asking if his parents had a landline. Jeremy didn't think so. I was in a frenzy thinking we needed to get to the hospital immediately, or we might miss the birth. Jim called Karen Bunnell. She answered on the second ring. When he explained that we needed to go to the hospital, she just said, "I'll be right down." She was here in a flash. I was whirling around trying to think of what we needed to take or do. I hadn't been grocery shopping for a while, and we were even out of bread. I didn't know what to tell Karen to feed Ever and Wren the next day. She just said, so calmly, "This is not my first rodeo. Just go. Go have a baby. We're good." She's a comforting person to have around during a crisis. I felt bad because she called out of work the next day, too, so she could rescue us. When she arrived, I said I hoped she didn't have to work the next day (she's a neonatal nurse), and she said, "It's already taken care of." So incredibly nice. 

We met Jeremy and Trish at the hospital. Trish hadn't dilated any further than at her last OB appointment (1 cm), but the nurse gave her the option of a) walking a bit and getting checked again in an hour or b) going home. Trish didn't want to go home and then have to turn around and come back in morning traffic, so we all hung out as she paced slowly around the room. The nurse checked her again, and no progress. Trish had expected a fast labor and delivery and had never had a false alarm like that, so she was surprised. Jeremy said he'd known all along it was a false alarm; he thought Trish was just trying to will it to happen. In any case, we all headed home thinking we'd be back in the next couple days. 

I became very alarmed at our lack of preparedness. I talked to Mamo Thursday morning and asked her to come down. The middle-of-the-night, no-back-up-plan-when-Nanny-didn't-answer thing was really not ideal. It seemed so much less stressful if Mamo could just be here for the birth. Plus she could help me get ready with whatever time we had left. Mamo was sad she hadn't gotten more time with Dee and Shan and family, but she kindly obliged and took the train down that afternoon. 

Then the baby didn't come, didn't come, and didn't come. Trish was so ready and even tried castor oil, but nada. It was still lovely to have Mamo here, and I got to do lots of things I always want to do (especially before a baby comes) but never have time to. We cleaned and organized various trouble spots in the house, got rid of stuff, etc. I loved it. We also got handpacked quarts of Mississippi Mud from Baskin Robbins, which we enjoyed on sugar cones every night while watching a show or movie. It was amazing. One night I went to get ice cream and was devastated to find one million people in matching blue shirts:

Of course it was a gigantic Mormon family reunion. Aside from a very few, they all got their ice cream and stayed inside, thereby making entering and ordering nigh unto impossible. I was so annoyed. I persevered, however, and one of the ladies let me cut so I didn't have to wait for the entire group to finish ordering. 

Ever received a bunch of hand-me-downs from a friend who moved away. They included a few pairs of biker shorts. Ever tried them on and loved them. She says they're soooo comfortable - the same argument Coco gave for wearing them for years. I had to take a picture for Coco. Ever, keeping Coco's legacy alive:

Wren was a terrible eater for the longest time. I think she was just delayed and had a hard time chewing and getting the food down. Then finally she could eat food and feed herself like a normal child, and I was so excited. Just in time before New Baby.

One day she had her head down and looked up at me like a possessed child. It was really funny. It became a thing she does. I do it once to prompt her, and then she does it over and over and laughs. She's turned into quite a card. This day I took a million pictures of her:

Wren practiced walking by pushing a stool around - an endeavor fraught with danger:

Wrenzy likes playing outside. One day I watched her climb in and out of the little car over and over and over. She couldn't walk, but she sure could enter and exit a vehicle.

We didn't do much on the 4th of July. Waffles with Nutella were enjoyed for breakfast:

Go Fish and similar games were played:

(It should be noted that Mamo played lots of games with Ever while she was here - Go Fish, Old Maid, Crazy Eights, etc. They also crafted and did other projects. Ever was in heaven.) 

We sang "Happy Birthday" to America, and Ever blew out the candle on the country's behalf:

Wrenzoza gave Jim lots of love:

Mamo stayed home that night with sleeping Wren while Jim, Ever and I went up to Bunnells' to watch fireworks from their backyard while Roy played patriotic music. I loved it. 

After the show, Ever and Fox Bunnell did sparklers:

Baby 3 totally pulled a Kringel and refused to come out absent an induction. Poor Trish. Induction was scheduled for July 8. The evening of July 7, Jim requested a last-hurrah dinner at The Soup Plantation. (That used to be one of his favorite places. I think he may now be willing to admit it's not very good, although he'd still opt for that over cooking any day.) Again, Mamo stayed home with sleeping Wren (it's really hard when they go to sleep at 6:00 P.M.), and Jim, Ever, and I hit up the buffet. 

When I said goodnight to Mamo that night, she asked if I were scared. I said no, not really; Trish had always felt good about doing this and had been confident things were going to go OK, so I took comfort in that. Mamo got emotional and said, "Just because of what happened to you, I'll be glad when it's over." That made me cry. (It's still crazy to think about Wren's birth. Once in a while Jim and I still get teary over it.) I also got nervous about the next day. It would have been so awful if Trish had volunteered to do this for us and something awful had happened. Childbirth is such an insane, scary thing.

Anyway, Jim and I were up really late that night making final preparations for the baby. I insisted that he install baby gates so I could let Wren out of my sight and not worry about her on the stairs. He tried to install the gate I purchased when Ever was a baby, but it has to go between two walls, which we don't have at the top or bottom of our stairs. So he made two gates out of PVC pipe that night. We ended up going to sleep around 1:30 A.M. So much for being well-rested when the baby arrived!