lollardfish

At about 3:00 in the morning on January 11th, 2007, my wife woke me up in the little house we had rented on the edge of Edina, Minnesota. She was calm and told me to stay calm as well, but her water had just broken. She had, in fact, made something of a mess and cleaned most of it up and gone to the bathroom before waking me. We called the doctor, assembled some things, threw the bed-clothes into the washer, and got ready to go. I woke up my mom around 4:00 with a phone call and then we headed to the hospital.

The previous four and a half months had been exciting, filled with shopping and plans, discussions on names, frequent visits to the wonderful nurse-midwives who were caring for Shannon, and quite a lot of grace and humor from Shannon, even as she grew so big and uncomfortable. We made it through Christmas and were, by the 11th, well-ready for the baby (officially due 1/15). The days before we had cleaned up the house, gone walking in the Mall of America (the best indoor-place to walk in the Minnesota winter), put together crib and baby dresser, prepped clothes, and packed a bag. So we were ready.

We arrived at the hospital, were checked in, found out the dilation (about 4 cms initially, I recall), and were ready for that baby!

The first six or seven hours passed without painkillers. When Shannon had a contraction, she would stand and put her arms around my shoulders and we would rock, gently, back and forth, until it passed. That remains one of the most intimate feelings of my life, I treasure it, and am more than ready for us to go straight to epidural next time! Shannon's sister arrived at some point, her parents were sent home shortly thereafter (this was at about 10:00 AM or so, hours before the baby actually arrived) before they could even park and get into the hospital, and time slipped by both quickly and slowly. Shannon tried a narcotic as the pangs grew worse, but it wore off after about a half-an-hour, and the nurse midwife (Michelle?) became a little concerned that she wasn't dilating fast enough because of the pain keeping her body tense. So we moved onto the epidural, that worked, and Shannon eventually took a nap.

We had two nurses, the regular one and a reasonably experienced nurse who was transferring to the birthing room. Both were great, but I remember the regular one best - her named was Jenny, she came from South Africa, and she just had that "nursing" presence. She was solid, reliable, kept you upbeat but didn't sugar-coat, and I'm going to miss her next time around. She ultimately ended up delivering Nico, too, but I'll talk about that below. Michelle, the nurse-midwife, was in charge, and she had been delivering babies for over 18 years. She had in fact just delivered the baby of a teen mother who she had delivered when she was new, which is sort of neat. At any rate, the epidural seemed to do its job over the next 5-6 hours, and the dilation came close to the requisite 10 cm.

Then the real work started. Shannon pushed as contractions came. There were various unpleasantries. Everyone in the room helped her hold her legs in helpful positions. It had a certain level of intimacy too and I'll never forget it, but did lack the sweetness of the rocking through contractions so many hours before. We saw his head, hair slick with fluid, and the staff realized that he was sunny-side-up and trying to make his way through oddly (due to the shape of the pelvis/canal), though they weren't really worried about it. This was the moment in which I was grateful to have a nurse-midwife rather than a doctor who might have quickly begun pushing for surgical options or using forceps or whatever. Their attitude was that as long as it took, so long as the heart-rates and temperature remained safe, Shannon would just keep pushing. I remember being a little worried that Nico's head would be too cone-headed due to coming out the wrong way and that he'd look funny - a laughable concern in hindsight, but I can't say I was entirely in my right head.

Michelle and Jenny took turns. During one of Jenny's turns, Nico was facing up, vanished between contractions, re-appeared facing down (magically), and was born. Michelle let Jenny actually do the delivery, typical in S. Africa, but generally not allowed here, and Jenny was glad to do it (she had delivered 3-4 babies in the past few years, and relished the chance). Nico was, of course, blue. One of his eyes was having trouble opening and as he went to the warming table, I asked Michelle about the eye. She said the eye was fine, but asked if we had done any genetic testing. I said no, and she told me what she saw. The next hour wasn't so good, but things have been looking up consistently since then.

Today is Nico's second birthday. I feel that he is both brand new in my life, yet has always been present with me. It's a happy day and I shall see if he wants to eat one of my cupcakes after nap-time.