The Birth (and a return to the blog!)

The Birth

First of all, I want to apologize for not writing this sooner. Those of you with children though will probably understand just how crazy this first month has been.  So, I’m not actually sure how apologetic I really am. I’m more tired than anything.  Now that I have that out of the way, I think I’ll outline my plan of attack to catch you up on things. I’m going to try and condense some things, and some I’ll skip over. I’d like to get caught up and have this at least be a multiple post a week blog now that our daughter is here.  Things certainly haven’t been easy, and I’ll start that entry in a minute.  My wife and I have also discussed her doing some more guest blogs and I really hope that she can. I feel that even though there are a billion mom blogs out there, she has something important and pertinent to say regarding our experiences so far.  So today, I’m going to start specifically with our first week: from labor to going home.  Also, please forgive me those that remember the facts better or differently than I do (Mom, Mom in Law, Wife, etc), I’ll try my best, but that whole not sleeping thing, coupled with my horrible memory anyway may leave some holes.

Labor started easy enough.  We had been out for a friend’s going away party on a Friday night, got home, watched some TV, and then BOOM. Contractions.  I got out a pen and paper and started timing them for my wife.  We attempted to go to bed, but sometime in the middle of the night, they became more intense, and my wife told me it was time to go.  We called into the baby line, they talked to my wife, determined that it was probably go time, and we should come. I want to say this all started around 3am, but who knows.  We went to the hospital, and they monitored them for a while.  The contractions weren’t getting closer together, and after a few hours of monitoring, checking, walking around to get things going, they opted to send us home.  However, they asked that we come back that evening and due to the complications with my wife’s low platelets, they wanted to induce her that evening.  We went home, and tried to rest.

Saturday evening after dinner, we headed back to the hospital.  They started the inducement (induction? To induce? I’m really never sure how to state that).  We sat around, and like much of the first week, we watched Friends on DVD (an aside, I’m fairly certain our daughter is going to grow up somehow knowing what “WE WERE ON A BREAK” means, without ever actively having watched the show.).  Once again, about midway through the night (and by midway, I mean 2 or 3am (I’m using a lot of parenthetical asides (isn’t this fun?))) it was determined that things were progressing now, and they would take out the stuff they used to induce my wife, and let things go on their own.  So, real, painful, focus on your breathing labor was going on now.  I called my Mother in Law, as she was requested by my wife to be another in the room also, and we labored.  This went on for, and I’m only guessing here, 5-6 hours of contractions, before we got to the pushing.  I’m not even sure anymore.  Anyway, things sort of got hung up again, and they opted to break her bag of waters (Now that I type that, I’m fairly certain that actually happened, but sometimes it seems like I imagined it. I’m not sure.). So water broke, mom dilated, it was go time.  So she started pushing. And pushing. And pushing.  For two hours, my wife pushed, and pushed and pushed.  And she hadn’t slept really since Thursday night.  They rotated her every which way they could. I helped push against her back, held her leg(s), got cold wash clothes. Basically whatever I could do. And I still felt helpless to move this baby along.  So, we got to about 11:30 am (once again, only a guess. But it sounds right.)  And the doctors gave a few options. Basically, my wife could continue to try and push for another half hour, but it was likely that the baby wasn’t coming that way, or we could opt for the C-section now, without the additional pushing.  Since my wife was so far past sheer exhaustion, we opted for the c-section without the additional pushing. They didn’t feel it was likely she was coming that way, but they knew that we had wanted a natural child birth.  By the way, my wife did all the above up to that point, with no drugs. They had given her Fentinol (sp?) at one time, but that didn’t do anything but make her tired.  She was (and still is) amazing.

So, our baby is stuck, and needs a c-section.  We’re obviously tired, and emotionally drained, and now scared.  The baby was doing fine, heart rate, etc was good.  But I was scared for my wife. I don’t know that she saw it. I tried to be brave.  One of my greatest fears is losing her.  I was especially concerned then since her platelets are low, and now they’re sending her to surgery.  Once again, brave face.  They prep her, and the OR.  They give me scrubs and I get ready to go in.  Also, this should be an aside, but I feel that I’m overusing them, so here’s an aside mid paragraph to annoy English majors the world over.  I thought I looked pretty good in scrubs. Who knew?  Back to the story at hand.  They walked me into the OR, and sat me by my wife’s head. I can’t remember anything we said up until when they told me to get the camera ready.  The pulled our daughter out, and brought her around to see.  I then got to go watch her be weighed, measured, had her footprints done, and I got to cut the umbilical cord.  I brought her back around to meet her Mommy.  I may have cried a little. We got to sit for a few minutes, and then the baby and I went back around to get her a shot, and put some goop on her eyes, etc, and then we went to go meet Nanna (Nana, ? I should figure that out) while they finished up with mom.   And that is the very short version of how our daughter was born.

I will save the rest of the story for tomorrow. I know I said I’d do the whole week, but that is just going to get really long, more than anyone would want to read from a blog.  We’ll pick up from this point tomorrow.