Greetings, Predaddits.
Let me start by saying that my son Tesla Ephim was born at 3:52am
on 7/16, and he's doing great. I'm going to be a bit long here but I'll
try to separate out the important points so you can learn from our
experience.
So, Sunday
night the 14th our Doula came over to drop off the birthing tub. Our
plan was to labor at home and then head to the hospital for the
delivery, and my wife really wanted a tub.
A mere four hours after the doula left, around 3am,
my wife got up to use the bathroom and I heard the sound of water
hitting the carpet. "I think I just peed all over the floor," she said. I
immediately thought she had gone into labor; she wasn't convinced until
around 9am when the contractions were coming on strong.
**Protip: When it breaks, the water doesn't always
come out all at once, sometimes it's barely distinguishable from pee.
And it will continue to leak in a slow trickle for hours.**
In our birthing class the advice given was that when labor
starts, you should try to get her to rest as much as possible because
it's going to be a long haul. Specifically, the midwife had said "drink a
big glass of wine and pass out for a while." My wife was leaking small
amounts so she didn't want to lay down anywhere. I covered the couch in a
few towels and she still wasn't comfortable, so I suggested putting on a
maxi pad. Turns out my wife doesn't have maxi pads.
**Protip: Buy thick-ass maxi pads and have them
around the house. You will need them when labor starts and when momma
gets home from the hospital.**
So I went to
Walgreens to get maxi pads, hair ties, and a few other little things. I
was in my pajamas, there was no traffic, and I was zipping back home
when I noticed a commotion at our corner. We live at a decently busy
intersection in Chicago, but this was unusual- several cars backed up,
honking, and a semi truck laying on its horn. As I approached the corner
to turn, I saw a dude completely passed out behind the wheel of his car
blocking part of the intersection. No one else was stopping and I
feared diabetic coma or whatever, so I stopped and got out to check on
him. No amount of yelling could rouse him, so I called the cops.
While waiting for the cops to come, I visually
inspected this guy and his car and determined that he was indeed
unconscious, and also that his car was in gear and his foot was on the
brake. That's a disaster waiting to happen. I also took [this pic of the
unconscious dude](http://i.imgur.com/
The cops showed up, turns out he was drunk, I gave a
statement, and skedaddled back home. Wife was still in a bit of denial
and thought she was perhaps having that "pregnancy incontinence everyone
talks about. Thus began the long, slow "early phase labor."
**Protip: Early phase labor can last anywhere from
1-12 hours. Use this time to get your shit together. Put those last few
things in the hospital bag, pack some food for the hospital, eat (and
make mom-to-be eat). Lay off the coffee or whatever, you'll need that
boost later. Make sure momma is comfortable and has everything she
needs. Firmly but politely make her drink water or coconut water or
whatever, and do anything you can now to get her to save her energy and
rest. She will be very uncomfortable, but do your best. Tylenol is ok,
and one alcoholic drink is ok too. She probably won't want it though.**
I filled up the tub and she got in, which helped
immensely. I also got water all over the place and had to improvise how
to drain out cold water and add more hot when it got cold. I wasn't able
to work this out in advance and wished I had. Also, keep in mind this
wasn't a regular bathtub, we have one of those. This is a high-sided
industrial rigid plastic tub that we rented, and it was totally worth
it. Here's a pic.
She relaxed in the tub and weathered the
contractions while I got everything ready. I put on some of her favorite
soothing music and made her food and scurried around getting shit
ready. Turns out there are hours worth of things to keep you busy during
this time. We also discussed when to tell our families, and decided
that we wouldn't sound the alarm until we were heading to the hospital.
We didn't want to be swarmed at home with everyone kicking up a fuss
while momma was laboring naked in a big tub. But after a little while,
once my wife was convinced she was actually in labor, we sent out some
text messages letting them know what was going on.
Somewhere around 10am
(6 hours after water breaking) the contractions started becoming more
frequent and more intense, and we started getting ready to go to the
hospital. I took a quick shower while she was still in the tub, Momma
dried off and got dressed, and my mom arrived to help us get to the
hospital. Getting down the stairs was difficult, and every little bump
on the road to the hospital made my wife very uncomfortable.
Then passing through downtown, some asshole abortion
protestors were standing on every single overpass holding 15-foot tall
signs with full color pictures of aborted fetuses on them. My wife
started crying and I told her not to look, and I flipped down her sun
visor so she wouldn't see. Those fucking assholes. If any of you happen
to see any of those people in your particular town, please egg them or
steal their signs and throw them away or something. This was seriously
the absolute worst thing for my wife to see in that moment and made her
extremely upset and my protective rage kicked in. I'm still kind of
seething about it.
So we got to the hospital, checked in, and went into
triage. Our triage nurse was awesome. My experience of the hospital
staff (and we were at a very good women's hospital that specializes in
childbirth) is that some of the staff are amazing. Some are kind of dumb
and lack bedside skills, and some have been doing the job a little too
long and gloss over your particular details.
Protip: If you think something is being missed or
your momma-to-be is being handled badly, take the staff aside and talk
to them. Don't be an overbearing asshole about it, but step up and
protect your family. Momma is too busy and distracted and it's on your
shoulders to be vigilant and proactive.
Our birth plan was all-natural childbirth. No
painkillers, no pitocin, no intervention. My wife labored for 26 hours
total, pushed for the last solid three hours of that, and We ended up
getting an epidural, pitocin, and then ultimately having a c-section.
Ultimately, I think the reason the natural thing
didn't work out is because our baby was huge: 9lbs, 6 oz. And my wife is
pretty small, 5'4" and only 135-140lbs before the pregnancy. After all
the labor and pushing, the baby wasn't budging down the birth canal and
they started talking about forceps to pull the baby out.
Personally, I've hear the worst horror stories
regarding forceps and it seems absolutely medieval to me- vaginal
tearing, injury to the baby's head and neck- really scary shit. As they
started to become more insistent, I asked the hospital staff to leave
the room and we had a talk with our doula, my wife, and her mom. With
everyone's suport, my wife decided on the c-section and I think it was
the right choice.
Protip: know that a c-section is a very major
surgery. They don't just cut a little hole and the baby comes out. They
cut a little hole, extract all of your wife's intestines, ovaries,
bladder, and other organs through that hole and place them carefully on
trays outside her body, split the abdominal muscles and crank them apart
with a clamp, them make a hole and remove the baby. They then spend the
next hour re-packing everything into her abdominal cavity, checking to
make sure they didn't lose a bit of gauze or a tool in there, and then
cauterizing and stiching her up. I was in the room with her and you can
small the cauterization.
As a bonus, they found a cyst on one of my wife's
ovaries and removed it right then and there, since they were already set
up to do it. This is what convinces me that we did the right thing.
When they pulled out our baby he cried right away, but
then stopped and looked around with the widest, most aware eyes. They
wiped off the cheesy coating and handed him to me, and I couldn't stop
crying with happiness. People here have talked about the powerful wave
of emotion that hits you when they're born, and I can confirm that it is
huge and it is amazing. As a male, there are few times in your life
when you can cry powerfully, this is one of them. Let it all out.
The nurse took a picture for us then, and I am grateful for it.
I
held him and talked to him and showed him to my wife, who was still
laying there with half her organs splayed out on the other side of the
sheet. I laid him on her chest and she shook from the systemic shock and
talked to him and kissed him, and with a nurse's help we got him to
breastfeed.
These were not our ideal circumstances, but it was what happened and it was beautiful.
Eventually
they got it all wrapped up and we went into a recovery room, and then
to our room in the hospital for observation. His blood sugar was
**just** below the acceptable threshold and they took him down to the
NICU for a few days, which was very hard on us- I could write an entire
post about this. But we visited him as much as we could and tried to
sleep and recover and on the fourth day we got him back. On the fifth
day we were discharged from the hospital and we're all happily hanging
out at home, figuring it all out.
Also I wanted to add a little on smell. I forgot to mention this in the post I wrote. So right after Tesla was born and for about the fist three days he had the most intense smell. It was a very good smell and made me want to be right near him all the time. The smell made me feel very bonded with Tesla and very protective and nurturing of him. I smelled the same smell on me and surprisingly especially strong after I used that bathroom. I also started to smell it on Michael's breath and in his hair. Not as strong as from Tesla but strong still. I felt like the smell cloaked the three of us and united us into a unit, a family.
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