Birds of a Lesser Paradise: The Birth Story

My first real contraction came at 4:17pm on Friday the 16th. I had four within the hour, but then they stopped altogether...for about two hours. They say to time your contractions and not head to the hospital until contractions are consistently spaced apart and occurring about every five minutes. For the next five hours mine were coming after breaks of eight, five, then fifteen, and twenty minutes. I felt like they were all over the place.

Jared fell asleep around 11:30pm. He was dressed in jeans and a nice shirt for the hospital, though skeptical about the arrival of our baby because I told him it could still happen next week. So naive. I knew I wouldn't sleep that night, but I laid in bed and suffered until 12:30am, when I had a contraction so strong that I felt the need to vomit. I didn't, but fifteen minutes later was when my contractions kicked into high gear and were coming every three minutes or less. I used an app to track them and kept telling myself, "These need to last an hour before we can do anything". Again, so naive!

At 1:30am I was reunited with my first trimester barf bucket, and decided it was time to wake up Jared. "I want to go to the hospital." He thought I was joking! While he gathered our bags, I knelt on the floor with my arms on the bed, and wondered how I would make it to the car. When a contraction ended I dressed in a super attractive maxi skirt, baggy shirt, and sandals, and said goodbye to our apartment. We left at 2am, arriving at the hospital ER about fifteen minutes later.

A man was waiting in the parking lot to assist patients, thank goodness. He got me into a wheelchair, then passed me off to a nurse who wheeled me inside. I was asked a few questions, signed a few forms, and was taken to the childbirth center. It reminded me a lot of when I was wheeled off the ship after our honeymoon.

We stopped at the nurses' desk where about four women were sitting, dressed in their blue scrubs. They asked for my SSN, and I was able to give them three numbers before the pain became too intense and I threw up again. Luckily I still had my bucket with me! I gave the nurses what they wanted and was finally taken to my delivery room, where I changed into my pink gown and gave one last urine sample for this pregnancy.

My nurse Karen checked my cervix. "Lauren, I don't want to surprise you, but you are at a seven." I was kind of impressed with myself, but then was worried because most of my friends said they got an epidural at 3cm.

For the next hour I sat up in bed, criss-cross applesauce, holding Jared's hand through the contractions as I received my IV and had blood drawn. I tried to breathe through the pain and not scream, but that didn't always happen. I told the nurse, "my face is tingling", and she said I was hyperventilating, then helped me to control my breathing. At one point I turned to bite Jared but pulled back when I realized what I was doing. Crazy wife. Jared was calm and encouraging throughout the entire thing.

Before the epidural arrived, my nurse asked me to lay down so she could check me again, but I told her no! She made me two minutes later when a contraction subsided.

10cm dilated.

Epidural. Sweet relief, warm legs. I could open my eyes and talk again! I almost wish the nurse had told me not to get the epidural because I was already through the worst part of labor, but at the time I was in love with the anesthesia.

My midwife arrived, looking very sleepy, around 4:15am and said my baby was coming very soon, within a half hour. The room was filled with random nurses. I guess the epidural caused me to have less effective pushes from not entirely feeling what I was doing, because it was an hour and forty-five minutes before I saw my baby. Many of the nurses had left the room during that time, but I had Jared on my right, nurse Karen on my left, and my midwife watching the baby. I was told, "Just a few more pushes, harder, harder!" then I felt his head pop out and heard "Stop pushing!" from the midwife, and "woah, woah, woah!" from my husband.

It was 6:30am when I first saw baby G, a little purple gargoyle already pooping and peeing when placed in my arms. I looked at Jared and started to tear up. I always thought I would cry, but I think I was too shocked and mesmerized by everything that happened that night, and the tears quickly passed.

The nurses all told me I did great (sure, sure) and that next time I need to get to the hospital sooner. Duly noted!

Welcome to the world, baby G.