Madeline Terri Forrest

Many of you have wanted to know the story so I figured I'd post it on here so all could read.

Monday, April 26th was the day intended to be my first day of maternity leave...

Sunday, April 25th at fellowship I began to feel some lower back pains that I had never experienced before. I told my husband who then began to be worried that it could be early labor but I assured him all was well and then we continued through our day.

Monday, April 26th 1:30 A.M. - I was unable to sleep and kept tossing and turning so I got up and went into the living room. I tried getting on facebook and doing other odd things while I was feeling these things that felt like contractions. They would start as lower back pains and then go around to my lower abdomen. I started to notice that they seemed to be every 5 minutes, lasting about 1 minute but I thought, "I'm probably just imagining it." So I tried to go back to bed.

2:00 A.M. - Tried to go back to sleep and couldn't so in the interest of not waking my husband I went into the living room. I had never finished one of my CSI: New York episodes so I propped up two pillows, reclined toward the computer in the famous 'child's play' yoga pose and began to watch the episode. I was feeling a few contractions but I thought they were just false labor and would go away with time. I pulled up the word processing unit on my computer and decided I would type in the time when I felt a contraction and then when it finished so I kept track. After the episode was finished I had been having about 40 minutes of 5 minute apart, 1 minute long contractions. I decided it was time to wake Nathan and see what he recommended. Woke him up and he was super concerned and told me we should call the doctor. We called Global Doctor's oncall line and the doctor told me that he needed to check me out but maybe we should wait morning at 8:30 a.m. I was already planning in going in for a regular check up that day for being 35 weeks. Nathan was not happy and decided to call Dr. Dave, one of the family's doctor friends who lives in Bulgaria right now. We called, Nate explained the situation and he said, "We define contractions as anything lasting for 1 minute long and coming every 5 minutes. Your wife is in labor my friend and needs to be examined." We waiting and decided we would call our doctor on her cell around 5 a.m.

3:00-5:00 - Nathan timed and wrote down my contractions as we sat in the bed talking about how bizarre this is and I was convinced I was just having a false alarm. (I could talk through my contractions so I didn't think they were THAT bad!)

5:00 - We called the Morrows (a couple who works with us) and asked them to walk over to our doctor's house and see if she could reach her because we couldn't get her on the phone.

Katherine (my doctor) arrived shortly after and did an exam on our guest bed and told me that her head had dropped but that she couldn't tell how dilated I was. She called the doctor on call and he came and did another exam and confirmed I was 2 cm. dilated. Now, here's the bizarre part. We live in Shenyang and only recently have they opened a hospital where foreign doctors can deliver but it hasn't been done yet (according to my doctor friends) and the doctor who has the connections is out of town. So we had to decide what to do and decided, upon the approval of both doctors, that we were safe to get on a train to go to Beijing. This may sound odd to many of you or crazy but since the doctors gave the ok I figured it was good. We called the our principal and got tickets to Beijing (4 hour fast train) for 8 a.m. Nathan then packed up all of our stuff for our "hospital" bag while I laid on the bed (2 doctors reminding me to not move around alot) and informed him of what we needed to take.

7:00 a.m. - Dan McCort, our GM, came to our home and picked us up to take us to the train station.

8:00 a.m. - Train left from Shenyang to Beijing. My contractions were still 5 minutes a part and lasting 1 minute long but I was able to function through them pretty well. Luckily the train wasn't too crowded so for most of the way I was able to lay out across 2 seats. Contractions starting getting worse near 11 a.m. and by noon they were about 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 1-1 1/2 minutes.

12:15 p.m. - Arrived at the train station but couldn't find our driver so we opted for a taxi. These taxi drivers wanted to charge Nate like 120 rmb to get someone that was 30 rmb. I looked at them and said in Chinese, "I am in the middle of having a baby! What is your problem?!?" Needless to say, those guys looked dumbfounded why my husband (with my STRONG support) was not willing to pay them and we found a taxi driver to take us. We tried to tell him to hurry and he just smiled casually until I let out a nice yell from the back of the taxi and he understood the urgency.

(last belly pic - 35 1/2 weeks)

1:00 p.m. - Arrived at the hospital, got upstairs to the room, and they prepared to examine me. They discovered I was 5 cm. dilated. The contractions began being extremely severe and I was just exhausted so after about 30 more minutes they came back and said I was at 8 cm. I was just exhausted so I asked for an epidural. They kept saying, "Baby is coming soon!" They put in the epidural and then told me we just needed to wait for my cervix to be ready on one side (one side was already ready). I didn't feel the contractions anymore but I did feel the desire to push and could control that urge. Shortly after, they broke my water. On a side note, Nathan really wanted to wear scrubs so he asked the midwife if he could wear them and she was more than happy to get them for him even though they are not required.

4:00 p.m. ish - I started having pain in my right side and told them I thought it was time for me to push. They told me to go ahead if I felt the need. They also pumped up the epidural a little more. After a few convulsive pushes they checked and sure enough that was all I needed to get my cervix ready. They began the prep work for the actual labor. They kept trying to encourage me and tell me that progress was coming but I swear that I was pushing and saw no progress. They were a little worried because she was turned with her head facing my side rather than my back. However, the midwife was certain she would just turn her as we went, no problems. Finally they had me try different positions and I was so exhausted. The Chinese doctor kept saying to me, "It's like a big poop! Think poopie!" I was trying but apparently not doing something right. After about 45 minutes of pushing I finally started screaming a bit, which my poor husband has never seen. The doctor said, "Normally we don't tell women to do that but it seems to be helping so much for you. Keep it up!" So I told them I was just gonna keep pushing till she came and even said, "Just get her out!" (Sorry sweet girl!) They were now getting concerned because every time I'd do a big push her heartbeat would drop but it would always pick up again so we were all worried about the perfect timing to get her out. I started pushing and screaming as much as possible and finally they did one little cut and she came out head and all in one fatal swoop. I found out later that they couldn't help her come out with forceps or anything because she was premature. I kept waiting on some assistance since I wasn't making much progress on my own but it didn't seem to matter, now I know why.

5:49 p.m. - Madeline Terri Forrest came into this world in one fatal rush, the cord was cut and she was taken over to get her APGAR test. Thought she was premature she scored a 9 on the test and had a beautiful set of lungs. Nathan was able to do the 2nd cut on the cord and help our beautiful little girl.

It now seems super surreal that we have a little girl. We feel like someone is going to take her away from us and that this is all make-believe. We look forward to making this blog mostly all about her and in the next few days I will post some blessings that I have been reminded of with her whole process. I just have to end on one note: Nate has been FANTASTIC. He packed everything, called the hospital to let them know we'd arrive in 4 hours, called the driver to get us to the train station and from the train station, gave the doctor the birthing plan and communicated all I needed, sent updates to all our teachers via skype through the process of birth and was able to be there by my side for every contraction, timed my contractions, gave me water after every contraction, told me how well I was doing, encouraged me, ordered my meals without me asking, has taken care of any concerns I have had with the doctors, fought for me over battles of solving issues with breast feeding or doing a quick fix, sought out medicine for me when I'm in pain, taken pictures, jumped up to change Maddy's diaper (even thought he promised to only change one per child) whenever I am resting in between feedings at night, has been absolutely in love with me and our little girl. I am so grateful for a husband that is so fantastic! I love him so much and could NEVER do this without him.

We wanted to fly back to Shenyang asap but the baby came around May holiday (and Labor day) so we are stuck in Beijing until Sunday. We can't wait to get her back so everyone in Shenyang can meet her. As of to date Maddy and I are doing well. We even went for a walk as a family today, which was nice. She is eating very well, sleeping really well, and pooping/peeing very well. I am feeling much better and feeling like my pre-pregnant self, except for the extra pounds that are still around for now. More to come later. I hope you enjoy the story. It apparently made its way around the hospital so many were coming in saying, "Wait, tell me about this train ride again." One doctor just recommended I not do this for the 2nd child. So the moral of the story is: I got a really cool story out of this but would STRONGLY ENCOURAGE that other women not "try this at home" so to speak. Getting on a train worked for us but was probably not the best idea. :-)