Amelie Joretta Gigax

Amelie was born on June 17^th, 2013 at 3:13 A.M. We had a beautiful baby GIRL!! I could not believe it. I for sure thought we were going to have a boy and his name would be Augustine. I birthed myself. All 9 pounds 7 ounces came out of me and looked exactly like myself. Her chubby cheeks were out of this world. Her jet black hair and pink coloring made her gorgeous. I couldn’t believe my pregnancy was finally over. I had made it to the finish line. I was finally staring at MY daughter. Now let’s rewind a bit to tell how we got to this point.

It all started Friday night when we were at a dinner with the Basel gang. I kept getting shooting pains down my legs. My mom had said when this happened to her labor was near. The shooting pain stopped me in my tracks when I was walking and I thought to myself, this really hurts. Ha. Looking back that pain was NOTHING of what I was about to endure. Went to bed that night with a little excitement thinking this has to be it.

Woke up the next day with real contractions but they were all over the place. I walked around for hours to try and get the contractions going. I tried to do everything they tell you to do. Eat pineapple, drink the tea, walk the stairs etc. As the contractions were harsh they still were not getting closer together. Frustration cannot even begin to tell how I was feeling. Come to find out again the pain from these contractions were also about a 2 to what was about to come. It was the middle of the night on Saturday and I had hit my breaking point. I could not sit any longer and endure this pain. We headed to the hospital and got hooked up to everything. To my dismay I was only 1 cm dilated and my contractions were not consistent. I had one terrible one then a mild one and so on and so forth. The nurse said I could stay but it would be at least 14 hours till anything really happened. We chose to go home. I was crushed, devastated, sad, overwhelmed, lonely and the list could go on. I could not believe I had to go back home and potentially wait another 14 hours. Back home we went, I told Andy to get some rest, and I watched slingbox on my Ipad in bed. Obviously sleep was not an option at this point. With each contraction that came my prayers kept getting more and more. I kept saying Lord, please make this pain not so bad. Please, please, please!!!!!! I remember feeling so helpless. The contractions would come whether I liked it or not. Crying during a contraction made it so much worse. I had to try so hard to just focus on my breathing and not get upset. Whenever the tears came, my breathing would go erratic and I would spiral out of control. I knew what needed to be done. I could no longer cry if I was going to get through this. Finally about 14 hours later, I had had enough. I could no longer do this. I called in and said no the contractions are not closer but my pain is no longer tolerable. I must come in. They agreed and off we went. I remember praying constantly in the car. Please Lord make my contractions closer. Please make this the real thing. I cannot go back to the apartment. I have to have my baby.

I rushed back into the same room I was in 14 hours before and was immediately hooked up to it all. Praise the LORD I was 3-4 cm dilated and my contractions were about 4-5 min apart. I cried with relief. This was IT. We were checked into our room and I was given an advil to take the edge off…. Really? I don’t think it did anything… But it was a nice gesture! Then the terrible news came. The anesthesiologist was taken away for an emergency C-section and he couldn’t see me for at least an hour. Obviously in that moment I took a second to pray for the people involved in that. No one wants to have an emergency C-section as it means something went wrong. Although it was tough to think I had to wait another hour to get an epidural. Before labor I hadn’t thought of getting in the birthing tub. To me, I think that is for mothers who are going all natural. In Europe though a lot of women get in it to ease the pain. At this point I would do anything to take the edge off. So the nurse started the tub. Unfortunately the tub cannot be that hot because it can harm the baby so it was luke warm. I, on the other hand always made scolding hot baths. Whoops. Then the pain was so intense I asked the nurse if I could get anything else to take away some of the pain. She said yes and brought something quickly in. Later I found out that this actually slowed down my labor. When I told my Mom she was NOT happy about this. She said that you never slow down labor once it has started. Well good thing I didn’t have a clue because it definitely helped. Oh I forgot to mention it had been well over an hour now. The C-section was taking way longer than expected. Andy was a wreck. He was pacing back and fourth in the room constantly uttering where is he? Where is he? I was smitten. I felt so very loved by him during this time. He could not deal with me in this much pain. Every contraction that came I held his hand and focused on my breathing. About 2 hours later they were ready to give me my epidural. I leapt out of that tub so fast and onto the hospital bed. The nurses were afraid though that I might be too far along in my labor process and that the epidural would not take. Instantly I was panicked stricken. WHAT????? I said a quick prayer and they checked my dilation. I was 5 going on 6 J  I was not too far along. Although for you mothers out there 5 going on 6 cm means OUCH!!!! Most women get the epidural at 2-3 cm. I am not going to lie I felt like a badass being able to endure that much pain. A lot of women say the needle for the epidural kills but at this point nothing could hurt more than what I was experiencing. He put the needle in me when there was a lag in the contractions and I barely felt a thing. I was just thrilled to have it. It only took about 5 minutes to feel the relief. I was in Heaven. I was very loopy. And all of a sudden I loved my husband again. HA. I was dreaming of rainbows and butterflies. J But wait, it doesn’t end this happy. The nurse decided it was time for Pitocin to speed up my labor. Once the Pitocin started my contractions returned L I was devastated. Oh I forgot to tell you, in Switzerland they start off with a very low dosage of the epidural and it is controlled by the patient!! How crazy is this? So with each new contraction I was feeling, the button for the epidural got pushed. I felt that my thumb was permanently attached to the button. The machine will stop if I would have pressed it too much. I literally think I pressed it over 50 times. That is how bad I still felt. The good news was I went from 5cm to 9 in 1 hour!!!!! This is amazing for labor and I was happy about that progress. The nurse checked me and said she could see the head but wanted to wait for me to push. So I just kept turning from side to side to get the baby down more. I remember feeling so much pressure in my bum. I literally felt like I couldn’t hold from pushing. It hurt so bad. I mean so so so so bad. For the next hour I had to keep going from side to side and was not able to push. It was awful. Finally after that hour the nurse said she felt confident that I could push this baby out. This was it. We were ready. The Doctor finally came in to assist the nurse in the delivery. The spouses also have a lot to do with deliveries here too. Andy was at their disposal. The good thing about feeling so much of the pain was that when they said to push, I pushed harder then I ever have done something before. I just wanted the pain to end. I wanted it to be over. I remember telling the nurse that I couldn’t breathe. She said that it was a contraction. To this day I know it wasn’t because it was a continuous feeling that an elephant was on my chest. It only took about 7 pushes and Amelie Joretta Gigax was born. She was the most beautiful, precious sight I had ever seen. She was me. It was love at first sight. The nurse told me I had pushed amazingly well and couldn’t believe how fast the baby came. I knew why. I couldn’t handle the pain so I did what I needed to do to get her out. That is the positive about feeling so much pain. Some women end up having to get C sections because they can’t push hard enough. For me the whole process was over in 2 hours J