Some Birth Statistics
Date: November 13th, 2003
Time: 11:21pm
Weight: 7 lb 4oz
Length: 20 1/2 inches
Allison’s arrival
My due date was November 12th, which had come and gone. As with Zoey, I didn’t think Allison really wanted to come out. We had been walking around the square, the school track, Wal Mart, the hallways of the school. Anywhere you could walk in this tiny town, we had been there… several times…. over a 2 week period. I had been having contractions off and on for 2-3 weeks. They never were very painful, and never stuck around. They were actually doing something though, because at each of my doctor appointments, I was a little more dilated and a little more effaced. For the last week of pregnancy, I walked (waddled) around between 4 and 5 cm dilated.
The morning of the 13th, the doctor ordered a sonogram to make sure she had enough room and I wasn’t leaking amniotic fluid. He also ordered a stress test (the 3rd one of this pregnancy). While waiting for the ultrasound, and the stress tests, the nurses were sure I would be admitted and the doctor would start inducing labor so had me walking all over the hospital in my little gown. Because you know, walking is supposed to help bring on your labor. During the sonogram, the technician asked us if we wanted to know if it would be a boy or girl. We decided we had already waited 9 months, we could put it off for a few more days. The stress test came back with good results and I wasn’t leaking any fluids. As if we didn’t already know it, the stress test showed that I was having sporadic contractions, but since they weren’t really constant, I was sent home, but not before the nurses suggested all of the wives’ tale labor inducers.
I decided to give one of them a try. What could it hurt. I was already 1 day over the due date and more than ready to welcome a new baby. I don’t know if it was the castor oil fumes, I couldn’t make myself drink any of the nasty looking stuff, or if Allison decided she was tired of all that walking. Just after we put the kids in bed and right in the middle of a challenge on Jak II, I felt something like the baby giving the hardest kick she could. This was followed by a real contraction and me saying, “Greg, I think we need to get the kids and go”.
Most of the rest is a blur, but here this is how I remember it. We got to the hospital around 9:30, about 10 minutes after the initial pain. Since we live in a small town, the maternity hall is not staffed after 6pm. My doctor and the labor and delivery nurse needed to be called. I was checked in, the ER nurse rolled us down to the maternity hall and we told the nurse she should call the doctor. These were our doctor’s orders. Since I had fairly easy and quick deliveries the first 2 times, he told us as soon as we got the the hospital to have the nurse call him and that he had warned them we might be coming in. She didn’t seem to believe us and said she had to examine me before she would call him. I was dilated to a 6.
Somewhere in between the contractions, a friend came to get Nathan and Zoey. They were outside of the room coloring. We were trying to shield them from their psycho-mom. I have always heard the stories of ladies going crazy during labor, but didn’t quite believe them.
What felt like an eternity of the worst pain ever (was really only about 15 minutes), I was dilated to an 8. I was begging the nurse to give me something for the pain. THE PAIN which kept me moaning incoherently. THE PAIN which made me forget to breath, which made contractions even worse (as if that could be possible). The ER nurse finally believed us and had called the L&D nurse who explained that she needed to get ahold of my doctor immediately. All that kept me from having the baby was the look of fright on the ER nurse’s face. I guess she didn’t realize just how fast this was going to happen.
Here is an interlude where I say how great Greg was with his inconsolable wife. He got me refocused so that I would breath through the contractions and not clench up. After that, the contractions were bearable. I wasn’t ready for them to be so intense and there was no pause between them for me to brace myself for the next one. It was like once my body finally decided it was time, there was no messing around.
After my doctor arrived, things quickly went into motion (as if they weren’t already happening super fast). I was, and had been dilated to a 10 and very firmly told them that I couldn’t keep from pushing any more. Our doctor literally had to hold the baby’s head in while he finished putting on his scrubs. After he finally was dressed, he broke my water, I pushed, and a baby was born. After all of this, while they were cleaning her up, we had to ask if it was a boy or a girl. He had forgotten that we didn’t already know.
