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Enter: LMS, Part V :: Birth

Tuesday 9 January 2007

One two, one two — chop chop! There’s a sense of urgency to the arrival at the hospital that I’ve never experienced before. Yet, strangely calm urgency.

We get to the emergency room and the attendant grabs a wheelchair for K and I head back out to park the car. By the time I come virtually sprinting into the birthing room, K is on the bed, a nurse is getting a vast array of implements ready, and we’re all wondering when the midwife is going to arrive.

The nurse hooks up the two belts around K’s belly that measure the contractions and L’s heartbeat. She goes over some paperwork with K (“Would you refuse any particular type of medical intervention on religious grounds?” and the like) and then the midwife comes in. This is something like her 1,600th birth — she’s calm, calm, calm.

Contractions continue. Questions continue. More nurses come in and prepare a tray covered with various “sharps” — scissors, scalpels, needles, and a few things that look more Inquisitorial than medical.

Paperwork complete and sharps in place, it’s time to get K to the tub. I glance at my watch — it’s something like 6:40 am. We’ve only been there a little over forty minutes. Things are going so fast that it’s difficult for me to keep everything in perspective.

Once K’s in the, everything calms. K relaxes so much — and is so exhausted — that she actually begins falling asleep between contractions, which are coming with more frequency and lasting longer. I begin thinking, “Forget this hours in labor stuff — we’re having this baby within a few minutes.”

Close.

LMSThrough this all, K’s constant question: “When will I know to push?” The midwife, the nurses, everyone (except the only man in the room) respond with a reassuring laugh: “Oh, you’ll know.” One compared it to the feeling you get when you absolutely have to have a BM and there’s no toilet around. Nothing like a metaphor even the man can understand.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, K says, “I think I need to push.” And push she does, probably a total of less than ten times.

At 8:05, L makes her appearance, covered in cheesy Vernix caseosa, which the midwife advises K to use as lotion around her eyes. Her eyes, not L’s. “It’s the best moisturizer in nature,” she explained.

Within minutes, K’s in the bed, with L lying on her chest, and G standing around in a daze…

Enter: LMS, Part IV :: A Brief, Predictable Interlude

Wednesday 27 December 2006

All my life, I’ve had an impossible, unlikely scenario in my head: driving my laboring wife to the hospital, I get pulled over by the police for speeding.

We’re about eight miles from the hospital. It’s early Saturday morning. There’ll be no traffic, so I decide we’ll forget the back routes (which are really a touch longer, but less traveled) and go the main way.

About a mile down the road, we realize K doesn’t have her wallet. We go back, get the wallet, and start again.

K is groaning and begging me to hurry; the road is deserted; I speed up and do between 65 and 70 mph on a quiet highway with a speed limit of 45 mph.

As I near the intersection with the main road in town, the highway curves gently to the right, slightly downhill.

On the left side of the street is an Ingles. In a small darkened access road to the left sits a car. I know what it is immediately.

We come to the stop light, and I look in the rear view mirror — there he sits, though his lights are not on. I decided I’ll go ahead and pull over preemptively, but when the light turns green, his lights turn on. I pull over.

Fortunately, the officer is reasonable and lets me go with a warning to drive carefully.

But no offer to escort me? Come on! That’s not how we all envision it!

Enter: LMS, Part III :: 4 a.m., Saturday

Tuesday 26 December 2006

K awakens me with the news: “I think my water broke.”

Again, from birthing classes, we know that this is not a sign to rush to the hospital immediately. There are still no contractions, and the trick for knowing when to go to the hospital is 4-1-1 — contractions which are four minutes apart, last for one minute each, and continue like this for one hour.

“All this is part of early labor,” the birthing instructor informed us weeks ago. “This could last for hours, and it’s important for mothers to be as relaxed as possible. Go for a walk. Take a hot bath. Watch your favorite movie,” her advice continued.

We’d decided we’d watch My Big, Fat Greek Wedding — a movie about an amusing clash of cultures not entirely unlike what my family experienced at our own, Polish wedding.

But who wants to watch a movie at four in the morning?

K decides to call the midwife, just to make sure everything is fine. She learns that we need to meet at the hospital by eight if nothing has happened. “If contractions do not begin within four hours of water breaking, we’ll need to induce labor,” she explains.

We begin last minute preparations for our big adventure.

Once everything is packed, I come back to the computer and publish the pre-prepared post about going to the hospital. I set the time for eight, figuring that no matter what, we’d be on our way by then.

As I’m finishing up, K informs me that her first contraction has hit. It’s 4:15 a.m., and the contraction lasts about fifteen seconds, and about four minutes later, the second hits, also fifteen seconds.

Four minutes later, the third: about thirty-five seconds.

Four minutes later, the fourth: about forty-five seconds.

K tells me we’re going to the hospital within a few minutes. I’m still skeptical.

A little over an hour later, at 5:30, we leave for the hospital.

Enter: LMS, Part II :: Friday Evening

Friday 22 December 2006

K arrives home exhausted. “I just want to relax,” she says. “I have a feeling I’m going to need my strength.”

I make a quick pizza and salad for dinner, and after eating, K goes to the bedroom, not to emerge until it’s time to go to the hospital.

Worried, I set up the baby monitor we got at one of the many showers held in L’s honor and set it up. Throughout the night, K is moaning in her sleep, and often going to the bathroom. I bring her tea with lemon and honey. She sleeps a little more. I bring her more tea. She sleeps still a little more, but it’s a fitful sleep.

There’s no doubt in my mind that sometime Saturday we’ll be going to the hospital. Still no contractions, but it seems inevitable.

From birthing class, I know that it won’t be a question of Boom! and here comes the baby. Such things only occur in Hollywood. Labor takes time. Hours. Even days.

A story was told early in the class of a woman who was in labor for two weeks. Two weeks of contractions, hours apart, and slowly, probably almost imperceptibly for her, growing closer and stronger.

K’s friend spent sixteen hours in labor at the hospital. That’s not counting the time at home.

“We’ll be going to the hospital sometime in the late morning or early afternoon,” I say to myself, and sit down to prepare a short post making the announcement.

Enter: LMS, Part I :: Friday Afternoon

Thursday 21 December 2006

Three o’clock, Friday — my phone rings. As always, I jump when I see it’s K calling. “Is she having contractions? Is she?”

She always reassures me that that’s not why she’s calling, and this time is no different. She does, however, also inform me this time that her afternoon visit at the midwife’s clinic revealed that she’s one centimeter dilated and ninety percent effaced.

“Ninety percent?” I say. “Our daughter could pop out any minute!” I joke.

“Ninety percent,” I mutter to myself after I hang up the phone. Saturday night’s plans are probably for naught; I probably won’t be coming to work next week; we’re going to have a daughter by weekend’s conclusion.

Nothing’s certain; everything’s certain. I rush back inside to flesh out my lesson plans for Monday and Tuesday. My skeletal outlines will never do if someone else is leading class.

“Ninety percent,” I say again.

It seems certain we’ll be meeting our daughter this weekend.

Lena Maria

Sunday 17 December 2006

Born Saturday, December 16 at 8:05 am


Seven pounds, fifteen ounces


The most beautiful creature K and I have seen

More details later in the week

This Side of Tradition

Friday 15 December 2006

Being pregnant — nay, expecting — in the Christmas season is about the most wonderful gift I can imagine.

Illuminating

Yesterday evening, K and I put on a CD of peaceful Polish carols, turned off all the lights, and sat in the glow of the Christmas tree, talking about the future.

Snow flake

A pregnant Christmas, like the first Christmas, is a Christmas of promise. It’s the thought of a whole series of Christmases stretching into the future, including toddlers, children, teens, adults, grandchildren — it’s sitting at the beginning of a new tradition. As the generations repeat, so too Christmas, each one following the previous, each different, each connected.

Straw Angel

That’s perhaps one of the nicest things about Christmas. It’s a tradition that invites new traditions. It’s a tradition about birth, about humility, about peace, and those are things that are eternal and yet ever-new. They’re things that surprise us and comfort us, like a good Christmas.

L Minus 14

Tuesday 12 December 2006

K’s due date is two weeks from tomorrow. Which means, for the last week, we’ve both been thinking, “Any day now…” True, few first-time pregnancies are early, but last week’s ultrasound (confirming a weight of about seven pounds) has led us to hope more fervently that L will be here by Christmas.

And so soon, all the questions will be answered.

Some already are. The ultrasound technician was shocked at how much hair our daughter already has — and its length: about 1.4 cm (a little over half an inch). We could see the hair, waving about in the amniotic fluid, like some small detail from a painting.

In the meantime, every time the phone rings at work and I see it’s K calling, everything in me jumps just a little.

Birthing Classes

Thursday 23 November 2006

Last week, K and I (and L, indirectly) finished our last birthing class. I’d really recommend to anyone considering starting a family taking such a class. Not only did we learn quite a bit about the birthing process and what we can expect (in about six weeks now), but more importantly, that knowledge has put both K and me at ease (to a degree) about the whole process.

I always had visions of rushing to the hospital in almost-complete pandemonium, because who knows when that baby will make its way out. I knew it couldn’t be that simple, but having never really been close to the birthing process, the lack of experiential knowledge did nothing to dislodge fully my sit-com visions of the Big Day.