"Jacob Neill Marlowe was born on May 15th, 2007, at 10:34 am. It was kind of spooky because the conditions that Christine came to the hospital were identical to when Elena Nicole was born. The 15th was a Tuesday; on Monday, Christine got her membranes scraped by her Ob/Gyn and was sent home.
The contractions started that night at 6:00 pm... by contractions, at this time, means she started having some kinda regular kind of strong contractions... like strong Braxton-Hicks (so she tells me). We were anxious to go home, as we'd spent by this time 10 days living with my Mother-in-law, a fairly demented woman in her mid-to-late fifties from Malaysia. We were hoping that things would progress, but of course the Ob/Gyn makes no guarantees and I, as always, was cynical, believing none of it. However, the contractions started getting more uncomfortable (I hate to use the word stronger here, as it implies hospital-going strength, which they were not), so we made plans with "Ahma" (Cantonese? for Grandma... or something else (that I cannot type as some wife of mine is reading this email as I type)), left a bag of essential goodies for the kids for the day in case we were not there, and went to bed.
At 0400 Christine woke me up saying it was time to go. Eerie. It was 0400 when she sent me, almost 2 years ago at that point, to fetch the babysitter for Julia when she was having daughter #2. So, we woke up lovely Ahma, gave her the news and drove to the hospital.However, I remembered that when Elena was being born that it had taken quite some time and didn't at all expect this baby to be born before noon; Elena after starting contractions at 0400, didn't emerge until 1620 that afternoon. And I was hungry. So on the way to the hospital (well, kinda... 8 blocks out of the way), I went to the McDonald's 24hr drive through. There was no answer. The lights were on. Christine allowed me to wait about 15secs before she mashed on the horn for a good 10secs. Then, with no response, and thoroughly disgusted, she ordered me onwards, which I happily complied with as much speed as a lightfooted 106 year-old grandma in a Smartcar along a well-travelled truck route. Eventually, we reached the hospital.
When we arrived, Christine was sent to Maternity, where she was placed in the same birthing room that Elena had been born in. Spooky. Then the same nurse that had started the Elena delivery on night shift was again working night shift, and was assigned to Christine. Now this is beginning to feel more like fate. (Highly memorable person... she had a peculiar British accent that I couldn't immediately place - turned out to be Welsh, and SNARKY... ah what a woman! If she had been 15 years younger...).
Christine got seen by her most excellent Ob/Gyn when she was doing her 0600 rounds at the hospital (note, she wasn't on call, apparently, this woman starts her days doing rounds at the hospital if her patients are admitted. Very commendable woman). She broke Christine's water. We were getting excited.STOP went the contractions. They virtually stopped for an hour or so, and Christine was finally allowed to walk ( I say finally because another night shift nurse/intern/person forbade her to walk since she's a VBAC - vaginal birth after Cesaerean. Christine playing coy for awhile, finally had enough of the wench and started giving her the orders, letting her know that she would be walking after the doc said so. So, the doc said so. She walked.
At 8 or so, Contractions started coming strong and fast. By 0835/0840 they were getting hard for Christine to handle alone. Of course, Christine's sister being who she is, decided this was the perfect time to get the car seats out of our car to put into her truck. So, like a dutiful husband, I left Christine alone and went to get the damnable seats. Christine took a shower. I foresaw what happened next, since it wasn't actually the future - it was the carbon copy of the past with Elena - damn near to the minute - when Christine's contractions started getting into that "strong" phase and she had then, like now, taken a shower. And that stalled her birthing for an additional 4/6 hours.
So before I left, Christine, myself, and the nurse talked about options. Christine had requested an epidural and the nurse, soothingly (like Satan was to Eve) replied that it was"coming" (only later did she explain that the mat ward had 4 C-Sections and 8 screaming bundles of joy slated for that morning... poor guy had to run from patient to patient when not in the OR) and offered morphine. Christine hesitated and said to hold off Morphine in case the epidural became available, and decided to take a shower. At that point, I left to meet with Christine's sister.So, believing time wasn't of the essence, since my wife was upstairs stalling her pregnancy, I gave the seats to Christine's sister and went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Some juice, a muffin. I think that was all. I got back into the room at 0910 or so..., and had been gone about 25 minutes. She was in the shower, stalling her labour. Well, this time (learning from last time, always commendable) she kept the water off her belly and only poured on her back. Perhaps stupidly, I believe this made a difference. This time, no stalling.
She told me to fetch a nurse, I did so. She checked her, and she was at 6.5cm. I was like damn, this is different from last time (You'll notice that's the 1st time I said something of this effect in this message - some 5hrs after the start of the "fun"). The nurse again brought up the fact that likely the anesthesiologist was not likely to make it to Christine by the time she was going to be 8cm (I thought this was a good hour off and wanted to wait - but hey, it's not like I was feeling the pain, right?) so she brought up the idea of morphine again. It'd take 20 minutes to kick in she said, and "won't kill the pain, but it will take the edge off". Christine must have hmmm-and-hawed about it for a couple of minutes, because I remember having to go to the desk and telling the nurses there "My wife needs to be shot". Wow! Such stupified faces! You'd think I was Harry Potter with his non-killing, weakling curses. "Uh, what did you say?" "Morphine. My wife would like some shot into her body". "Oooohh". Stupefy!
Christine continued to labour, and the nurse said come get her when Christine says it's time to push. Inside, I was like, like fuck, that'll be 2 hours away yet. Not even 10 minutes after, Christine said "I feel like I need to push!" I was thinking "don't overreact", but went and fetched the nurse anyways. I used the words "My wife says she needs to push". The nurse jumped out of the chair and came "running" (I say running, but it was more like a slow jog... they are forbidden to run after all).
She checked, and Christine was at 9. And I was like holy fuck that was fast!. The nurse had grabbed the resident on the way in, got on the phone to get our Ob/Gyn because the poor resident was some high-school droput 19 year-old straight from the inner-city burb of Brooklyn...Luckily, after only 10ish minutes, out Ob/Gyn had gotten in just as Christine was "setup" (i.e. put her legs in a human stirrup) for pushing. What a sight that must be to walk into a room. Some people choose this for a career.
Guiding Christine through, she got Jacob born in about 7 contractions, lasting maybe 10-15 minutes. I'd like to point out that Christine got the morphine soon after 10; they hadn't kicked in yet. After Jacob was born, her eyes kinda rolled back... and you'd swear that her tongue kinda hung out of one side of her mouth... the doc was like "yeah, she's feeling happy now!" I think it was in reference to the drugs, rather than the arrival. I took it that way anyways.
At any rate, I was quite blown away by the speed of it. And even with the big burst of speed to the finish line ...before I continue, I just remembered a great part. When Jacob was being born... that last push to get his head out, Christine yelped and said she got a sharp pain in her left ribs. Apparently Jacob, tired of waiting for mommy to pull him out, decided to set both feet on her ribs and push himself out. I'd like to point out the fact that it worked. Atta boy... anyways, with that great burst of speed that Doc.Brox did a commendable job of guiding Christine through the contractions as she didn't tear, and didn't get an episiotomy. Quite a feat. No stitches at all. Elena had given mom 3 sticthes, none in a row."
Well its relatively accurate, anyway :) Other posts to come, uh, when I have more time.
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