A Game of Gnomes

James’ arrival, a couple of weeks earlier than his due date, was somewhat unfortunate timing. We’d done a lot of preparation, so its not like we weren’t about as ready as can be. Niki had her bags packed and everything. However, for the past several days I had felt terrible (sinus infection), and had actually called in sick the night before in preparation attempting to sleep all day on Friday. His grandparents had also scheduled a trip to Colorado for that weekend, and their flight was leaving that afternoon, so they weren’t going to be around to take Andrew.

Nonetheless, Friday, January 25th was the day he came into the world.

Since I was trying to stay in bed to recover from my illness, Niki had to get Andrew ready in the morning, or most of it, anyway. He was proving to be too much trouble, so I had to come down and get him into the car.

The stress of managing a toddler may have actually triggered something, because shortly after she dropped Andrew off at daycare she woke me up (around 8:15), telling me she was “probably in labor”. I wasn’t terribly surprised. When I got sick (initially a cold I caught from Andrew), I immediately dreaded trying to do my job in the delivery room when so under the weather. My symptoms included nausea, dizziness, and being foggy in the head. Not how you want to meet your second son!

After she told me, I got out of bed and we started getting stuff ready. I hadn’t yet gotten a music playlist ready, so I spent some time that morning setting up a Pandora station on my phone that’d be appropriate. I took a shower and got everything into the car. Things were pretty casual, as the contractions were quite manageable so far. Niki had called the midwives earlier and told the nurses there to expect us, as now she knew she was in labor. She also had a talk with her mom, where they decided that they’d go ahead with their trip as planned.

We then mostly lay in bed for a while. I may have even drifted off a bit, even with the excitement of what we knew was coming. Niki then took a bath. I think I took a couple Excedrin, hoping the caffeine and meds would help me survive the day.

There still wasn’t any sense of urgency, though now the contractions were getting closer together. Niki started timing them, and they were coming pretty regularly. However, they were only lasting 30 seconds or so. We were hungry, so went to Subway and had a little meal. In the line, Niki got a contraction and had to lean on me. The servers were probably looking at us like we were crazy. I called Uncle Ricky and let him know to pick up Andrew at daycare.

We then went home and just waited until we needed to head in, which wasn’t much longer. Niki calmly called the hospital again to let them know we were coming. The drive to the hospital this time wasn’t quite as nerve wracking. But about halfway there she got her first really painful contractions, confirming our decision to go in.

When we got there, two nurses brought us back to the delivery room. Niki got into her gown and stuff, and they insisted on hooking up the fetal monitoring and hep-lock again. At this point the contractions were getting quite strong.

Niki voided her bladder a few times, and found that laboring with the support holds in the bathroom was helpful. During this time the nurses were calmly chatting about the best way to call the midwife to come in. I was a little surprised they hadn’t already called her. I actually had expected her to meet us in the delivery room right away, like what happened with Andrew’s doctor.

So they checked the progress, and she was at 5 cm. She popped back into the bathroom, and the nurses started filling the jacuzzi on Niki’s request. Just a few minutes later Niki came out and made her way back to the bed. At the bedside she had a contraction that sounded incredibly painful, and she was able to use me for support during it. She then got in bed, in considerable pain. The nurse checked her again and she was “full”.

Niki found a position on the bed that seemed to work for her. She was sort of on her side with one leg up. The annoying nurse kept asking her to move, thinking she was going to fall off. I indicated that Niki was fine (nowhere near falling) but she either didn’t hear or didn’t believe me. Finally, another nurse assured her that she wasn’t going anywhere.

At this time, Niki started some pretty primal screams, which drew a lot of attention. I don’t think the staff is very used to natural births there. By this point the room was seemingly full of people, but none of them a doctor or midwife. I guess in their minds maybe six nurses equal one doctor? One or more of them tried to tell Niki to stop screaming, which annoyed her after the fact.

Right about now is when the first doctor popped in. She was just a resident, and probably a student at that. Still no midwife.

The nurse asked Niki if she felt the urge to push. It took a couple of times of asking, but Niki did indicate that she did feel the urge. This was a little surprising to me, since we’d only been there like 25 minutes at this point.

Niki started to push. I had a bit of a different angle this time, and didn’t realize the baby was coming out until during one scream the nurse said “we’ve got to get the head out”. After it took Andrew 45 minutes or more to get through the birth canal, I wasn’t expecting this one to come right on through. I did see the shoulders come out, and sure enough we had a new baby! [2:53PM]

James was very blue when given to Niki, but since nobody else was concerned, neither was I. While James and momma became acquainted, the nurses were concerned with getting the placenta out. Apparently part of the cord was very thin and they were afraid to pull on it. I think it may have stretched a bit during the birthing process.

(Here abouts a new doctor came in, a “Dr. Jones” I believe. I think she was just there so that the resident wasn’t the ranking doctor.)

They wanted to give Niki Pitocin, but we were both pretty skeptical that it was needed. Sure enough, the placenta came out on its own shortly afterwards. I think maybe a nurse did massage her uterus a bit to help it along.

With a healthy baby and momma, the gaggle of nurses started to disperse. James was weighed and measured (6lb 11oz, 19 inches) and given his vitamin K shot and such.

After he was given back to momma and me, we just hung out and cuddled the baby for a bit. The most annoying nurse hung around at the computer for a while, but Niki flat out asked her to scoot so that we could be alone.

Right before the baby came out, Niki’s heplock started bleeding for some reason, all over my shoes and jeans. Another birth where it ended up being a big annoyance! I hung out for the next day with bloody shoes :). After a while, I went home to put Andrew to bed and head back to the hospital.

We didn’t stay there long, just one night. Niki fed James several times at night, and me waking and watching them was almost dream-like with my illness and the strange environment. Niki and James got the whole nursing thing down like pros right away, which made for a much more relaxed and laid back first night (and week).

Ricky was relieved the next morning, and I brought Andrew in to meet James. He was very sweet about it, though perhaps a little confused. We bought him a “big brother” bear, and got an adorable photo of him helping carry James’ carseat out of the hospital.