Ahhhhhh. The baby took a huge feeding and is down for the count. She should sleep for a good three or four hours, and since I'm finally feeling moderately well rested myself, I think it's finally time to post an update.

First, for those of you who are in a hurry, here's the nutshell. Keira Lisa Lin was born on Friday, May 30, 2003 at 11:43pm. She weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz. and measured 19" long. Felix and I adore our little girl, and you can see more pictures of her here.

OK. So now for the longer version. I should warn you, though, that birth stories have messy moments, so if you're the queasy sort, perhaps the nutshell is where you want to stop.

It looks like my last blog update was at 37 weeks, when I found out I was already somewhat dilated. At my next weekly appointment on May 29th, I had made even more progress, having jumped all the way to 3 centimeters dilated! It's funny, too, how your mind decides to deal with certain kinds of news. I left that appointment thinking, "Huh. 3 centimeters. Well, I suppose it could be any day, but really it could still be a couple weeks or more. Dilation doesn't mean anything." Felix, on the other hand, left the same appointment completely wound up, certain that we were going to go into labor that night. It was really strange. On the one hand, I was just as excited and anxious for the baby's arrival as Felix clearly was...but on the other hand, I wasn't quite ready to actually wrap my mind around the reality of labor and birth.

Whether or not I was ready, the baby decided that night that she was tired of being crowded in my poor belly. At around 3:00am, I woke up with a start, called Felix's name (totally freaking him out), and ran to the bathroom, certain that my water had broken. About a minute later, I sheepishly had to come out and declare a false alarm. Oops. At around 4:30am, I woke up again, but this time I decided to let my sweetie sleep while I figured out what was going on. I felt crampy and uncomfortable, so I got up to watch the Amazing Race on our TiVo and drink warm water until I could settle back to sleep. Unfortunately, sleep was not an option. By around 6:45am, I was feeling pretty tired, but I was still too uncomfortable to get back in bed. Instead, I sat in the gliding rocker in our room, having decided that a book might calm me down.

7:00am. I felt a rushing sensation that sent me scurrying to our bathroom again, crying out Felix's name as I ran. This time I was certain - my water had broken. Over the next hour, we tried to stay calm. I took a shower, we had breakfast, and we got on the phone to let everyone know we were heading out to the hospital. Felix and I arrived at Stanford by around 8:30am, and the doctor confirmed I had sprung a small leak. The big moment really had arrived! He suggested I go ahead and admit myself so they could start a pitocin drip, but I really didn't want to be bedridden with an IV just yet. Instead, we decided to go walking, and the doctor let me leave with instructions to come back by 12pm.

It was a lovely morning, and Felix and I strolled all around campus. I was still feeling rather crampy, but walking and talking were very reasonable. By the time we hit the Quad at around 11:30am, however, something stronger was definitely starting to settle in. There were moments where I simply had to stop walking, and I clung to Felix's neck, hugging him tightly and taking deep breaths. "These must be contractions," I thought to myself. We made it back to the hospital almost exactly at 12pm, and I was admitted. To the doctor's delight, my walk had been extremely successful; I was 100% effaced, which is apparently the hard part, and a decent 4 centimeters dilated. After changing into a fabulous (ha, ha) hospital gown, I settled into my delivery room with Felix by my side.

The next three and a half hours were a real low point. The crampy, achy feelings were constant, punctuated by strong contractions that left me speechless and nauseous. It was all I could do to squeeze Felix's hands and listen to his voice. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been there - Felix was absolutely the most supportive husband I could have ever imagined, and even when I threw up on his hand, he was completely unfazed.

There were moments when I almost asked for the drugs, but I still wanted to cling to my freedom to move around unfettered. Although I spent most of the time curled up in my bed, I also sat in a rocking chair for awhile and took a very hot shower. The shower felt amazing; I thought the nurse was nuts when she suggested it because I thought there was no way in hell I could remain standing, but it was incredibly soothing and DEFINITELY something I would recommend to anyone who is writhing from the pain of labor. The minute I stepped out of the shower, however, I threw up for a fifth and final time. That was my sign to call it quits, and Felix asked our nurse for my epidural at around 3:30pm.

I have to say - I feel really good about myself for making it as far as I did. I never thought I'd be strong enough to last nearly as long as I actually did. Don't get me wrong, though; the anesthesiologist was an angel sent from heaven, as far as I am concerned. Within 20 minutes of my request, I was hooked up and feeling better. In fact, I felt just like myself again. Felix and I watched some TV, called family to update them on my progress, and watched the contractions come and go on my monitor without feeling a thing. It was a great epidural - I could still feel and move my legs, but the pain had simply vanished. Just heavenly.

At some point, I also had pitocin added to my IV to keep my contractions moving along. Even though I was at 6 centimeters, the epidural was causing my contractions to slowly move from 3-4 minutes apart...to 5 minutes apart...to 6 minutes apart...and 7-8 minutes apart. The pitocin gradually brought things back into focus, and by around 8:30pm, I had hit the transition stage of labor. This part really caught me by surprise - no one warned me that I would shiver like a crazy person. One minute, I'm lying in bed laughing and talking with Felix; the next minute, I'm shaking from head to toe. Even my teeth were chattering! It was an incredibly strange experience. I had literally lost control of my body and muscles, and of course, this was precisely when Tom and Rob decided to drop in for a visit. Rob told me later that he thought it was totally freaky - I was smiling and trying to talk, shaking and chattering the entire time!

The nurse, however, was quite pleased. Apparently, shivering is a classic sign that I should be ready to start pushing. Who knew?! So at around 9pm, we started pushing, and I discovered the downside to having an epidural. When you have no idea if you're having contractions, you have no idea when you should push. All three of us - me, Felix, and the nurse - would watch the monitor to try and spot a contraction, and then I would push based on what we saw. To say the least, I felt totally unproductive and unhelpful. To make matters worse, the doctor realized at some point that the baby's head was not quite turned right. Babies should tuck the chins down to their chests in order to present the smallest part of their head for birth. Keira's chin wasn't tucked in, but amazingly enough, the doctor was able to do some incredible maneuvering and get her head into the right position.

At this point, we were approaching about 10pm, and another obstacle threw itself in my way. I started running a fever. I guess this can happen during labor, just from the sheer work and strain of the process, but since Tylenol didn't lower my temperature, some sort of infection was suspected instead. By the time my temp hit around 103, my uterus had decided to take a break; high fevers make your body lazy, as if it was a hot summer day and no one feels like working. This meant that I was the only one pushing, which slowed progress again. To get things going, they pumped antibiotics into my IV, and sure enough, it was just the thing to give my uterus the wake-up call it needed.

As the contractions came closer and closer together and built up in intensity, I could definitely feel them over the dosage of my epidural. The discomfort, however, wasn't anywhere close to what I was feeling that afternoon, and I could finally tell what on earth was going on with my body! I was so glad my pushing was suddenly getting us somewhere that the extra bit of pain was actually a welcome event.

Finally, at 11:43pm, Keira Lisa Lin entered the world. And what an entrance! When her head finally popped out and the doctor asked me to pause in my pushing, Keira's eyes were already open and looking around. Then, as her entire body came out, she let out a huge poop all over the doctor. That's our girl! Felix cut the cord, they wrapped up little Keira, and suddenly I was holding my baby. When I cradled her tiny body and looked into her wide eyes, I was completely overwhelmed. The fierce and intense love I felt for her was like nothing I can describe. She was our little girl, and we were parents. It was incredible.