Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

Magdalena's Birth Story: the condensed version

I'll post two versions of the birth story here. This one will be a relatively brief version for those of you who don't care to know the specific dimensions of my cervix at certain points in time. Although really, in a birth story I don't know if there is such a thing as TMI.

Also, in case you're wondering, "why even bother?" I found that reading birth stories before going through the experience myself was extremely helpful and very interesting. So I might as well make a contribution to the corpus.

8pm, August 1: Climbed the 8 flights of stairs in Bicentennial Hall here on campus (all the way up to the planetarium on top).


8pm, August 2: Repeated the above.

6am, August 3: My water broke.

6.30am: Contractions begin.

8.30am: Got a ride to the Porter Hospital Birthing Center in a Middlebury College police car. Sirens were not employed.

9.00am: Non-stress test; everything is fine and we're good to go. I read Breaking Dawn, while standing up and walking around until...

11.00am: Contractions are bad enough that I get in the tub of my dreams. The lights are dim and I close the bathroom door behind me. It's just me, my iPod Shuffle, and some cold ginger ale.

2.15pm-ish: I get out of the tub, get on the bed, and tell everyone I'm ready to push.

3.03pm: Magdalena Sonora Palmer is born! We're all kind of in shock that she's such a chub (8.5 pounds). I told you I was big.

Anything else you're dying to know I will post in the unabridged version, hopefully very soon.

Magdalena's Birth Story: the epic version

Magdalena Sonora Palmer