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#1
11-07-2006, 07:13 PM
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Trip Report: DrewDevil becomes a daddy (way too long, with pic)
My son was born early Saturday morning. I am not usually at a loss for words, but I am having trouble putting into words what these last few days have been like for me. It was almost an out-of-body experience; at times I felt like I was watching a movie of myself as the events unfolded. This is what I remember:
<u>Thursday, November 2</u> On the day before my wife's due date, she went to her regularly schedule weekly OB appointment. Unfortunately, she discovered that our doctor had been called out of town on a family emergency. A nurse examined her and found her to be 3 cm dilated and 90-100% effaced, meaning she was physically ready to go into labor any day. She decided to monitor the baby's heartbeat for 20 minutes to see how things were going. The heart rate was strong and stable (around 140-150 beats per minute), except for a few momentary dips (into the 80s and 90s) during that 20-minute period. While this was not a major cause for alarm, it was a concern to me and my wife, because she is 34 and her sister had delivered a full-term stillborn baby. As a precaution, we decided to go to the hospital and have a little more checking done. At the hospital, the on-call docs and nurses wanted to monitor the baby's heart for a full 2 hours and do an ultrasound. After the 2 hours, the heart rate looked great--no dips at all--but it looked like it would take all night before the ultrasound was available. The OB told us to go home and return the next morning for the ultrasound. <u>Friday, November 3</u> On my wife's due date, we were at the doctor's office for an ultrasound at 9:30 a.m. Everything looked great... they estimated the baby was 8 lbs. or more and looked very cramped in the uterus. There was plenty of amniotic fluid and no reason for any concern. Still, we really did not want to go too far past our due date and wanted to try to schedule an induction... but the only one who could authorize that was our out-of-town OB. I got a little keyed up at this point and got a little hostile with the nurses until they agreed to call our OB. We got a message from her that we would be on the waiting list to be induced on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday of the following week, but that we were on our own for the weekend. That calmed us down somewhat, but I wasn't able to get much done at work that day. My wife, her mom and I went to dinner and then walked around for a while. My wife had had lots of Braxton Hicks "practice" contractions and some cramping, but had never felt any "real" contractions at that point. During our walk, my wife's mom noticed that the moon was full. "That's a baby moon," she said. About 9 p.m. my wife and I got into bed to watch TV and unwind, and both of us were a little frustrated that we were going to have to wait another weekend before our baby arrived. We talked about going to a nice restaurant, seeing a couple of movies, or doing some other things we wouldn't necessarily be able to do after this weekend. About 9:30 p.m. my wife sat up in bed and said, "Well, that felt a little different." She felt a definite start and stop to the contraction, something she had not felt before. I hit the button on my watch and started timing. Five minutes later, she had her second contraction. We looked in our booklet about contractions, and it said not to call the hospital until the contractions had been five minutes apart for two hours. "I have to sit here for two hours?" my wife said, frustrated. Of course, it was only three minutes before the next contraction. And then two and half minutes. And then one minute and 40 seconds. "I think we should call the hospital." So we did, and they said we should come on in. I walked to the guest room to tell my mother-in-law. "So, are y'all turning in for the evening?" "No, actually the contractions are two minutes apart and it's time to go to the hospital." Her eyes got as wide as dinner plates and we all sprang into action. We called my wife's dad and my parents and brother in Houston and they all piled in the car to head our way (about 150 miles to Austin). We grabbed as much stuff as we could think of and hurried to our own car. The hospital is only a few minutes from our apartment, so we were there by about 10:15 p.m. My wife is a very talkative person, but the labor pains had rendered her almost completely speechless, so I knew they must be terribly painful. She was ready for the epidural, but unfortunately, the hospital had to admit her and put her on IV fluids for an hour before she could get the epidural. <u>Saturday, November 4th</u> Midnight had come and gone and we still did not have an epidural, because the anaesthesiologist was busy with a c-section. My wife was in what she later described as pain far worse than she had ever imagined, but she didn't scream, yell or cuss me out, just held on to the bed and tried to breathe correctly. She was a lot tougher than I imagined she would be, though at one point she asked me, "Can we adopt the rest of our kids?" She was kidding, I think. The anaesthesiologist finally arrived at 1 a.m. with the epidural and my wife had some relief within about 10 minutes. She even dozed off and slept through some powerful contractions... amazing considering how painful they had been before. All of the nurses were remarking at how quickly my wife was progressing, especially considering she was a first-time mom. By about 2:30 a.m. (I think?) she was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. The caravan from Houston had arrived by then so I went and gave them an update. The next two hours were, I must confess, pretty much a blur. With a nurse coaching her, and with me trying not to get in the way, my wife would push during the contractions and rest in between. She said it was really difficult to push because she could not feel anything at all below her waist. That was a good thing, because according to her monitor, her contractions were now three times stronger than before the epidural. She said later she does not know how any woman could bear natural childbirth with pain that intense. There were some nervous moments for me because the baby's heart rate would sometimes dip during the contractions and it was obviously a concern for the nurses. But it always bounced back into the 130s immediately and he was definitely progressing down birth canal. At about 4 a.m., the baby "crowned" so that we could see the top of his head. We could tell that he had blond hair right away. The nurse called the doctor and a phalanx of medical personnel streamed into the room. I don't know what they were all there to do, but it looked like about 4-5 would assist with the delivery and another 3-4 were waiting to test the baby's vitals, clean and warm him up, etc. At about 4:20 a.m. my wife had pushed about half of the baby's head out. The doc and nurses were using olive oil (!) -- lots of it -- to help lubricate the birth canal. There was blood and I'm sure a lot of other unpleasant things to see, but all I can remember is the amazement I felt at seeing my baby's head! At 4:24 a.m., my son Jay was born. He began crying almost immediately, which was a great sign, but there was also some meconium (baby poop in the amniotic fluid), which was a concern. The B team whisked him over to the baby warmer to get his vitals and suction his nose and mouth to keep the meconium out of his lungs and stomach. Then they had to keep him under the warmer for a few minutes to get his temperature up above 98 degrees. I was able to stand right there and touch my son for the first time. My hand covered his entire torso. His fingers would grasp at my finger. He cried and fussed some, but amazingly enough, he was pretty calm, just looking around and taking it all in. I'm sure I will remember those few moments as long as I live. My wife was doing very well but she had lost a little more blood than normal and so the doc was working to get that stopped. They assured me that everything was fine, but still, I was a little nervous. Finally they gave our son to his mom to hold for the first time. Another moment I will never forget. I went out to the waiting room to tell my family the good news, and we brought everyone in to meet Jay. He is my parents' first grandchild, and to say they were ecstatic would be an understatement. <u>Tuesday, November 7</u> We are all back home now and everyone is doing well. Jay is happy and healthy and so is mom. I feel like my heart is about to burst, honestly. I can't even describe the feeling of holding my son in my arms. And I think he is just about the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Judge for yourself.  Well, I guess I'm not having that much trouble putting into words, after all. Cliffs Notes: My son was born on Saturday, and he's the best looking boy ever. 
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#3
11-07-2006, 07:20 PM
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Re: Trip Report: DrewDevil becomes a daddy
Congrats sir. Sad to think though, that an entire generation is being born never having lived before black monday.
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#8
11-07-2006, 09:14 PM
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Re: Trip Report: DrewDevil becomes a daddy (way too long, with pic)
Congratulations! In my experience, EVERY stage is the most fun. You won't be able to believe, when he smiles at you for the first time, that it can get better, but it does. Take good care of your wife and fasten your seatbelt.
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#10
11-07-2006, 09:23 PM
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Re: Trip Report: DrewDevil becomes a daddy (way too long, with pic)
tl;dr, but wanted to say congrats and that's a great pic. best wishes.
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