Baby Story

[Imported from "another" blog]
I promised "more to come later" in my last post, so here it is. Although DaRew's interpretation of the comment should have been expected from a mormon, it's not exactly what I meant.

So those of you who know us, might remember the Jaymie had Braxton-Hicks contractions for almost half the pregnancy. Which one might say was just about the only complication through the pregnancy, especially since she was a primigravid (first time pregnant) mom. All throughout my flying around the country in January, I was freaked out that the baby would come while I was sitting in some faculty member's office answering questions about why I am going to make the most awesome anesthesiologist ever, all while trying to sound like a down to earth normal guy who everyone likes. Like the perfect mix of "The Todd" and "Turk".

Finally interviews were over and the baby could come. Except her Nana (my mom) suddenly couldn't come to town whenever because Papa (my dad) broke his foot. Putting on his pants. That's another story. Once Papa was okay to be on his own again, Nana jumped on a plane and came down. Fortunately Jaymie was still pregnant. Unfortunately, Grandpa (Jaymie's dad), who had been in town on business for 2 weeks straight had to go home in 2 days. He scheduled that trip intentionally because he was expecting his first grandchild to come and finally gave in and booked a ticket home for last Friday.

Nana came late Wednesday night. The next day Nana decided she was gonna try all the old wive's tales out. We went shopping. To the enormous mall. The whole enormous mall. Then she took us out to eat. For an enormous lunch. Then we came home and Nana and Jaymie reorganized pantries and cleaned. Some might call it "nesting". Then Grandpa, who was scheduled to go home the next day, took us out to eat. I don't think I've ever eaten as much as I ate that day.

I'm a night owl. At least used to be, and slowly am coming to terms with the fact that my future is full of 7 am start times. Everyone went to bed around 10 and I made into the sack about 11:30. Critical mistake. About 1 the wife gets up to go to the bathroom and comes back and says she thinks she had bloody show and wants me to look next time. OK. About 1:20 the contractions start and she wakes me up to tell me she thinks we're having a baby by Saturday. So I try to stay calm and remember that primigravid women typically progress at a rate of 1-2 cm dilation/hr. If she just now started bloody show that should give me 20 hours right? But what about that primigravid that came in at 2 cm who sent home who showed up an hour later crowning? Well, now I just couldn't sleep. Just try to stay calm...

I start getting stuff ready around the room to get our bags ready to go and go take a shower and shave. I hate shaving. It must be rebellion against that undergrad ridiculous rule. Then we go wake up Nana and tell her that if she wants to take a shower before the baby comes, now might be her only chance.

Once Nana was done, I pulled the car around from our ridiculously far away parking spot and pack the bags and stuff into the back. Then we're off. Or so I thought. We pulled up to the one and only exit gate and it wouldn't open. And neither would the entrance gate. So we drove to the other entrance gate. And it wouldn't open. Trying to stay calm, I think, "She's only been laboring for 4 hours now. We should have plenty of time. But what about that lady...." So I pull back around to the exit gate and inch up to it to ram it open. And just before I get to it, it swings open on its own. I guess it knew what was coming.

We finally get to the hospital and check into triage. The intern on nights came, clearly very tired and ready to go home in an hour or two. She does the SVE and finds the wife to be 4 cms. ACTIVE LABOR! We get admitted and go to a delivery room. One hour later a resident on the day shift shows up to do a follow up assessment. 6 cms. And nice that it wasn't one of the two residents I'd have fired on the spot. At this point, the wife is starting to have stronger and stronger contractions. Breathing excercises are started and it turns out I'm not much a good coach, but Nana sure is. Thank goodness she was there.

Jaymie is also very grateful for my future profession. She made it to 6 cms natural, but then came to the conclusion that an epidural might just be nice to have after all. She got one and throughout the rest of the day was able to nap through some labor and even talk on the phone at 10 cms. I digress.

Shortly after the epidural, an MS3 (third year med student) shows up. I immediately spotted the short coat and listened to her introduction that she just wanted us to know who she was in case she was at the delivery. I hate to sound ungrateful to all the patients who have let me come in and take their history and do a physical, but no MS3 was going to deliver my baby. Shortly thereafter the chief resident shows up and does an assessment. She was really nice, until I mention the MS3 having been in there. "We told them at board checkout there was to be no students. I'll talk to them," she said in stern voice. Hell hath no fury like an OB/Gyn resident scorned.

It was interesting because most of the nurses, ancillary staff, OB and anesthesia residents, and attendings all recognized me. And seemed to bend over backwards to make sure we were happy and well taken care of.

Anyway, the day goes on and about 1:30 Jaymie says she started feeling pressure. So we called the nurse who paged the resident. He came in and did a couple practice pushes and at that point decided that there should be no more pushing until the attending (Jaymie's actual doctor) came. She got there about a half hour later and then she pushed for about 45 minutes.

The doctor avoided any helpful cutting for as long as she could, but eventually said that it would be inevitable but that she was afraid of how natural tearing would go, so she did a little cutting of her own. And then two pushes later out came the baby. And a lot of baby she was. And the whole time the delivery nurse kept repeating how awesome it was that they were able to do it all without an ounce of pitocin (synthetic oxytocin used to stimulate labor). And I thought it was nice that the wife SROM'ed to boot (broke her water on her own).

Even more nice was what happened next. Most deliveries the baby gets whisked away for cleaning, measuring, foot printing, etc. But instead our baby came out and before even having the cord cut, she was skin on skin with Jaymie. The lights were kept low and baby had her eyes open almost immediately. I got to cut the cord.After having rotated through this hospital, I had some reservations about going there. We did have the most "granola" attending there was and so I knew she'd fight for the most natural experience possible. It was nice to see that it really did happen exactly how we wanted and most of all that we have a happy and healthy new mom and baby!

Thanks everyone for your well wishes. We're so excited!

Comments:
michelle :-) said...
I wanted mom and dad to be Nana and Papa, but Dani can't call BOTH sets of Grandparents Nana and Papa! Oh blast!
February 26, 2008 11:57 AM
Trisha said...
Now that was a birth story! Almost all the details my heat could have desired! I'm so glad things went so well for you guys. In my opinion, the most important aspect of birth is that mommy and baby are safe, and right after that the most important thing is that they FEEL safe, respected and in control as much as possible. It sounds like that was the experience you had and I'm so glad. Skin to skin, low lights, you got to cut the cord, so neat! Now I'm just curious--did Jaymie's dad get to be around for the birth?
February 26, 2008 12:16 PM
Caywoods said...
We're so excited for you. I love the pictures and am glad everyone is doing well. Tell your wife we're thinking of her.
February 27, 2008 6:34 PM