We decided we would go ahead and go back outside for a few more laps around the parking lot. The contractions came back, at least a little bit, and then would subside, and then came back again. It was now nearly 5 a.m., and no longer dark out. We decided that it was time to go to the hospital and find out what was going on, because we're just not good at waiting and not knowing things.
It was a drive I'd visualized a number of times in the previous few months. I thought about it during the trip to each of the last several doctor's appointments, since the practice's office was part of the hospital complex. And I thought about it on the way to and from work, since the routes overlapped a bit. And oddly, I'd always assumed a middle-of-the-night drive: no traffic, dark out. I'm not sure whether I absorbed too much culture, or that I remember my parents leaving for the hospital at 2 a.m. when my baby brother was born (I was 12 at the time). In any event, that five minutes was about the only period of any length during the entire process that went about how I imagined it.
Alright, so we're at the hospital. We're calm. We're nervous. We're freaking out because the labor can't decide whether it wants to proceed or not. When we got upstairs to the evaluation room, the midwife on duty examined Sarah and determined that she was just shy of the threshold where they keep you, but thought we were close enough. She called our doctor, who asked that we stay there and wait for her to arrive. So we ended up sitting in the evaluation room for several hours. We were exhausted at this point, we both were hungry, Sarah was getting a little dehydrated, Peanut was all sorts of discombobulated and not behaving properly for the montiors. And then the doctor came in and told us to go home. She cautioned us before she examined Sarah that this particular midwife is known for being overenthusiastic in her estimates of labor progression. Then she sent us home to rest and wait, and to come back when "you can't stand it anymore."
So at 9:30, in the midst of a bright, sunny day, we headed home. It was a very odd experience. We thought we'd be leaving with a baby. We'd been there through sunrise, so all of a sudden the day had started (though it was Memorial Day, so everything was rather quiet).
Most of that day (Monday, May 25) was quiet. Sarah had some contractions, but nothing particularly intense. We tried to sleep for a few hours in the morning. We played some games.
While we were napping, we missed the only phone call that could possibly distract us that day. Two weeks earlier, some of you may recall, our car had been stolen while parked near campus. We had assumed it was gone for good (Civics are the most stolen car in America, and it's because they have very interchangeable parts), and went out and bought a new (to us) car. But during our nap, the Baltimore police called to let us know that they'd found our car! [ed.: "Found" may imply that the police were "looking" for the car, when we suspect that someone saw the car parked in front of their house with no license plates and informed the police of a suspicious vehicle.] Because it was Memorial Day, I could not get anyone on the phone back to confirm what was going on, and it would take an awful lot of work to actually get the car back (another story for another time), and we didn't know if it was drivable, but it was good news about the car!
Maybe Peanut sensed our happiness, because it was not long thereafter that Sarah's contractions picked up in intensity. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, her labor had not been textbook. Instead of the contractions starting at 15 minutes apart and getting progressively closer, they'd been about 2-3 minutes apart for over 24 hours. So with the increase in intensity the contractions actually slowed down, but now they were real. By 6pm, after another round of prep and the first half-hour of Back to the Future, we were back on our way to the hospital.
From here things seemed to go really fast. They took us upstairs. The nurses didn't believe that Sarah would stay, because she looked too calm. Then the midwife did an exam and they were amazed that she wasn't screaming bloody murder based on how far along things were. They checked Sarah in. The anesthesiologist did the epidural, after which Sarah wasn't in much pain. At about 9 p.m., the doctor came in and said she would check in again at midnight. We tried to rest with the lights down. Because of the medicine, we were both able to a little bit. Finally, we realized we couldn't sleep, and put on bad television. As I recall, we ended up watching part of Leno's last week on the Tonight Show, with Mel Gibson trying to do a redemption interview after his divorce.
At 12:30 the doctor came back, took one look and said, "time to push!"
[ed.: Gory details here.]
Then, at 1:31 a.m., Nicholas arrived, screaming his little head off. I don't think he stopped until they wheeled him out of the room an hour later for his bath.
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| From Nicholas Is Born |
Ha! Thanks for editing out the gory details. I still don't walk with Anny about the goriness of Abby's birth...
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about the car - that is still pretty messed up in my mind!