This was the mantra I kept up all night after Roy and I
turned our lights off for bed. Contractions had definitely started that evening
and were escalating. I knew this wasn’t going to be a 77 hour labor like I
experienced with James. (For which I was, and am, eternally grateful!)
If you know anything about James’ birth you know that it was
three and a half really long days of contractions 5 minutes apart the entire time. We were turned away from the
hospital twice before finally being admitted the third day and given Pitocin to
help get things moving. Roy had performed the entire weekend with the symphony
and was exhausted. I was exhausted for other obvious reasons. He fell asleep in
the chair next to me and we didn’t know where he was when it was time for James
to make his entrance into the world. (I honestly have no idea how he slept
through the first part of pushing—there were like 8 people in the room and he
was sleeping ten feet away from my bed.)
So my greatest wish for this baby’s birth was to have a
father who was present and alert. And I knew that meant that he needed to sleep.
So I labored on my own in bed, next to the bed, and in the shower. Roy slept
like a dead man. (I feel like if our roles were reversed I wouldn’t have slept
as well, but maybe that’s just me.)
My contractions were never super consistent. I’d have a
couple 7 minutes apart and then 3 that were two minutes apart. And then another
one eight minutes later. But they were strong, and I knew they were doing their
job. By the time 4:30, 4:45, 5 rolled around I was pretty much focused on two
things: breathing, and 6 A.M.
6 A.M. on the dot I roused Roy and informed him that it was
TIME to go to the hospital. Forget the 1 hour-5 minute-60 second thing. Then I
threw up. This got his attention. He quickly called the on-call doctor to let
him know we were ready to go. There was no answer. We waited for a while. By 7
I wasn’t waiting around anymore. We got into the car and headed towards Strong Hospital.
This is where things got interesting. I was doubled over in
the car and Roy was driving to the hospital from a different direction (remember,
we had just moved four days earlier). I watched out our window as we came into
view of those comforting blue H signs with the arrows. I knew we were close…so
close. Two H signs passed, with straight ahead arrows. Then a third, which
pointed to the right. Roy went straight. For a split second I thought about
letting this pass and hoping he’d figure it out, but when you’re having a baby
you kind of don’t want to be in the car for any more time than absolutely
necessary, so I “casually” brought it up.
“Hon, that hospital sign said turn right.”
“The hospital is this way. I think.”
“But it said turn right.”
No response.
“Hon, I’m just telling you what the sign said!”
<note of urgency in my voice at this point>
Roy turned right. Now, in hindsight, if he really knew where he was going he should
have ignored his delirious, dilating wife. But he listened to me and followed
those blue H signs all the way to the WRONG HOSPITAL.
There was a smidge of finger pointing at this juncture.
That was a low point.
I scrunched back down in my seat and tried to focus on not
throwing up again. Roy got us turned around and drove to the correct hospital.
I kept my mouth shut (at least when it came to GPS assistance).
I think Roy knew things were gettin’ real when he asked if I
wanted to park and walk in with him or be dropped off. I answered, without
hesitation, “Drop me off.” And if that didn’t convince him, when the nice
greeter people looked at me and asked if I wanted to be wheeled up to maternity
I immediately agreed. Things were dire people. I knew how many hallways there
were before the elevators.
Roy ran and basically caught up to us by the time we got off
the elevators. The nice check-in people took me back to triage right away. I
hate triage. I’d been there three times with James and only once did they take
pity on me and let me through. This time I knew there was no WAY they were sending me home, so why do we need to go through the formality? A nurse and
on-call midwife asked all the lovely questions and measured me. 7 centimeters.
Boo yah.
The nurse asked if I was planning on an epidural. Yes. Yesyesyesyes. Alloftheyesses. Yes, I was. The midwife looked at me, oh so sweetly, and said, “Well, you know.
You might just be too far along at this point for an epidural.”
Aaaaaaannnnd that was the lowest point.
I simultaneously wanted to burst into tears and wring her
neck. I remember feeling absolutely terrified. I knew things were going to get
a lot worse before they improved and I didn’t know if I could do it. I really
didn’t. From my perspective, things were quickly spiraling out of control. The nurse stepped in and told
me she would try to get an anesthesiologist in ASAP. Karen. Sweet Karen. We
knew we were having a boy but if it had been a girl she could have had a
namesake right then and there.
Karen delivered the anesthesiologist and by 9 A.M. he was
able to successfully administer the most blessed relief a human can feel.
Seriously. As the contractions faded away into a blissful, warm, numbing
sensation, giddiness took over. I grabbed my phone and sent the “sweet epidural
text” (as my friends call it) to those who would share in my rejoicing. It had
been a long, lonely night, and I couldn’t have been happier to lay comfortably
on my side, with my alert husband next to me.
Thus began a wonderful few hours. Roy and I essentially had
a mini-date. He was rested, I was comfortable. We chatted about anything and
everything. There was no paperwork, no jobs, no toddler-minding, no rehearsals.
It was just us. Our first date in weeks. Once he saw that I was good he grabbed
some coffee and we savored the peace and quiet. Karen sensed that we were in a
good place and only made the bare minimum of visits.
Around 11:40 I started to sense that there might be a baby
coming. I wanted to wait until I was super sure, so I held out a few more
minutes. We paged Karen and she brought in the doctor to measure me. She took a
peek and her eyes got big. “Yep honey—about two pushes and this baby will be
here!”
A team was assembled. With James there was meconium
in the amniotic fluid, so there was essentially a SWAT team at his birth. He
was whisked away from me and carefully monitored to make sure he didn’t
aspirate any dangerous fluids. I ended up hemorrhaging and just have this blur
of a memory of wanting to know he was OK while doctors were barking various
directions at me to try to get the bleeding under control.
It couldn’t have been more different this time. The room was
brighter, smaller, and much quieter. There were many students present at James’
birth—this time just a couple of nurses and the doctor. The epidural was doing
a better job than with James at this point too. A few full-strength pushes and
then it was little ones here and there to ease our little guy into the world.
Then, at 12:06 P.M., he was here! He cried and we cried.
They placed him immediately on my chest and I was able to be the first one to
hold him and make eye contact. He was so beautiful!
“Hiiiii Owen! Hi there! It’s so nice to meet you Baby!”
We had chosen the name Owen a year or so earlier, but had
four or five different candidates for middle names. I told Roy that I liked
them all and he could choose one. He chose to wait until Owen was born, so it was a surprise to all of us when he said in a choked voice, “Owen Nicholas.”
Good. That was my
favorite one.
It’s been a whole year and I still savor his name every time
I think of or utter it aloud. Owen. Owen Nicholas Smith. Owen weighed in at 7
lbs 6 oz (a whole pound heavier than he had been guesstimated at three days
earlier) and was 20.5 inches long. He proved to be a natural at eating and was
very chill in the hospital. I was less reserved about letting the nursery take
him for some of his overnight shifts that first night and he wasn’t fussy at
all. In fact, I paged for him after a five hour stretch to make sure he got
fed! (In hindsight, he was probably just super happy to be around lots of other
babies.) Roy and I soaked in the 27 hours we had with Owen in the hospital
before leaving (on Halloween—we really didn’t want to be in the hospital on
Halloween night) a day early. James wasn’t allowed to visit his little brother in
the hospital due to wide-spread stomach bugs going around, and we were extra
eager to leave to complete our family of four.
And complete us he does. Owen is extroverted, curious,
bright, and oh-so-happy. He already has the gift of making others feel good
about themselves, with his generous smiles and waving hands. (I swear he has
won over every cashier and old man in Wegmans.) He delights in his big brother,
Mommy and Daddy, pushing things around on the floor, and trying to eat the toilet
cap in the powder room. (He is a boy, after all.) I could go on and on, but I’ll
wrap up for now and just say that my heart overflows every time I look at him
and see how richly blessed we are.
 |
| Happy happy happy! |
 |
| He wasted no time. |
 |
| Owen owned the cupcake. |
Today’s 1%: The
difference between child #1 and child #2. Child #1 gets homemade cupcakes lovingly
researched and crafted by Mommy. He ends up coming down with a bad cold at his
party and shows no interest in Mommy’s hard work. Child #2 was going to get
homemade cupcakes, but Mommy ran out of butter. And if she was going to go to
the store to get butter, she might as well just buy cupcakes while she was
there and save herself a lot of time. Child #2 devoured store-bought cupcake.
And you know what? Mommy doesn’t feel like she short-changed him at all.
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