The Birth - Retrospective

NOT PROOFREAD YET

Jack was born on October 8th, 2008 at 3:23pm. 7 pounds, 12.5 ounces, 18.5 inches. There's some confusion about the length. Everything we saw said 18.5, but the pediatrician received paperwork that said he was 17.5. A few days later, they had him at 19.5.

As previously reported, we were due to the hospital at 9pm on Tuesday October 7th. The day before, the 6th, we went to see the specialist one last time just to make sure Jack was doing ok. He was, so everything was on schedule.

We made final preparations on Tuesday, including a last minute purchase of a new bag to carry all our stuff. We've had one since the first lamaze class, but we were bring too much stuff. We brought portable gaming systems, dvds, phone chargers, books, etc. Except for the chargers, none of the stuff saw any use.

We arrived at the hospital on time (did you expect anything else?) and were directed to our room. Gina put on the super swell gown, and the festivities began. They did all the usual stuff: paperwork, check the vitals, put on a bunch of plastic bracelets. The drew some blood and put in an IV. After all that, I remembered that i was supposed to tell them we bough VIACORD. So I did. Turns out it was late, though. They could've drawn the blood for it earlier (didn't realize they needed her blood), but now they'd have to stick her again. Whoops.

The first major thing to do was to apply some medication to loosen up the cervix for delivery. We won't go into the details, but it was to work its medical magic overnight. The application process was really uncomfortable, and the first nurse to do it was one of those nurses that you don't want to get. She was completely unsympathetic and quickly got frustated because gina was uncomfortable. She called in another nurse, who was excellent. (not a good way to start the adventure).

My parent's flight landed at 10:30pm. They got to the hospital around 11:30pm. They hadn't seen Gina since she'd been pregnant. My mother was predictably giddie. They hung out for a couple hours or so, then I brought them back to our house.

I've been to the hospital a bunch of times since the pregnancy begins. I know how to get there and back, and never had an problems. Florida is just a big grid; in total, it takes 3 turns and 35 minutes to get from the hospital to the house. Unfortunately, I pulled out of the hospital onto Forest Hill Boulevard instead of 441, and headed the wrong direction for a few miles before I realized something was wrong. That was embarassing, but I got over it. I took a wrong turn. Oh well. We got back to 441 and made the rest of the trip without incident.

The parent folk haven't been to the house in years. A lot has changed. We (mostly gina) have done a lot of work: New paint job, new patio area, new french doors, new celing fan and skylight, new kitchen, new nursery. I gave them the grand tour, then headed back to the hospital. I got back around 3am.

It would've been delightful to get some sleep, but it didn't really happen. I was already exhausted; hadn't slept much the previous couple nights in anticipation. (Its was like what Christmas used to feel like). The nurses were stopping by to check this and that. I don't really recall the details other than the not sleeping.

The labor inducing was supposed to begin at 5:00am, but it didn't. It was about an hour later, but I forget why. They removed the medication from the night before, and started loading her up with the labor juice. After a few hours, she was feeling the contractions pretty good. The anestesiologist came in and inserted the epidural.

For a practical stand point, there really was never a question about wether she'd do the epidural or not. She has a herniated disc; the last thing we needed was to exacerbate that in addition to the new labor pains. I don't feel that we would miss out on much by not experiencing the beauty of birth in all its agonizing splendor. Gina got a slight case of cold feet when the time came due to concern over its effect on the baby, but we talked some sense in to her.

Once the epidural kicked in, it felt like mostly smooth sailing. It was weird that she couldn't feel the contractions, but the monitor showed they were there. My parents hung out most of the day. Gina was adamant about no one being there during the delivery, but she was ok with this part of it. She was plenty tired by now.

We were getting mixed signals about when the delivery would finally occur. Gerrie wanted to be there, but was stuck in a previous commitment. At one point, it looked like pushing wouldn't start until after 5, so I called gerrie and told her to not worry about it until after work. 20 minutes later, they recalculated and said we'd probably start pusing around 2 or 3. So, I called Gerrie back and asked her "How's your sense of humor today?" I told her the revised plan and she headed as soon as she could.

Around 3pm, we were getting really close. They said we'd start pushing in about 20 minutes. Gina was noticing inconsistencies in the heart monitor; there is always some variance due to its position and the other things that are going on in her body at the time, such as contractions. She paid a lot more attention to it than I did, and she really thought it was dropping too low too frequently. The nurse came in to check it out. She then left and called the Dr.

A few minutes later, someone came in and shut off the labor juice. This surprised Gina, but I tried to be rational about it. I figured she was fully dialated, and it was time to go. The thing that I missed is that the Dr. previously told them to increase the dosage, not shut it off. Had I heard that, I would've picked up on the weirdness.

That's when things started getting freaky. I've used the word "surreal" before, because its a cool world, but I don't recally any of my previous experiences as being surreal. It there are any, they weren't surreal enough for me to remember. I'd say this was the first. Someone came and said something about getting Gina to the OR for a c-section. Gina, me, my mother and Gerrie were all in the room? "Pardon me?". Apparently there was a miscommunication somewhere. The woman left the room and got the nurse. The nurse explained that the Dr. was concerned about the reading, so she was going to do the c-section. It was time to get Jack out.

There was a moment of insensitivity that still irks me a little. The OR person shouldn't have just shown up to cart her away; someone should've talked to us first. The cover for that was "this morning, we told you this might happen". Something mentioned in passing 10 or 12 hours earlier should've been mentioned more directly when the time came. In the morning, it was just a generic conversation about something that could happen if something goes wrong. At the time, it wasn't a likely scenario. I wasn't really bothered that things happened out of order; she needed the c-section either way. I just thought the woman was insensitive about it. Not to me, but to Gina.

Gina was little out of it at the time, so I don't know how much of it she recalls, and how much of it matches the way I remember it. I attempted to instill confidence. I asked her if she was ready to have a baby. She was nervous and uncomfortable. Maybe "scared' isn't too strong a word despite her game face. She responded to the effect of "I don't really have a choice". It was more of a surrender than a committed answer. "Then say you're ready". "Ok, I'm ready." "Ok"

They carted her away. My mother assured me that she was going to be fine. I'm pretty level headed about this type of thing, and knew that at a practical level, but it was still pretty emotional. They gave me OR clothes to put on, then everyone left the room. I was there by my lonesome for several minutes, so concentrated on getting my game face on. The level headedness stayed in tact and I bottled up the rest of it. I'm not sure how long I was there, but a cheery nurse stopped by and said they'd come get me shortly. A few minutes after that, my mother and gerrie returned. They were surpised to see that I was still there.

Then, a couple minutes after that, someone came to escort me to the OR.

The surrealness really got kicked up a bunch of notches. Remember that not a lot of time has passed, hardly 10 minutes, since we heard anything about the OR. Gina was on her back, her arms stretched perpendicular to her body. They had the blue paper curtains up blocking the details from her view. They had a chair behind the curtain for me to sit down in.

No matter how freaky it was for me, it must've been 10 times greater for her. Obviously, she was still nervous, but was being a trooper. I didn't really know what to do so I massaged her shoulders and tried to be supportive. The Dr's began their work, and warned her when she would feel some pressure. She never felt pain, but did feel a whole lot of oddness as they dug in. She teared up a little bit.

Unexpectedly, the Dr. said "Daddy, stand up". Assuming that her father wasn't in the room, I stood up. There was a little baby head sticking out of her abdomen. The doctor tugged once and got the baby a little bit out, but then it seemed to get sucked back in. She tugged harder the next time, and out came jack, the umbilical cord, and some other stuff that traditionally belongs inside the body. The way she tugged and the way she held him was awfully bizarre to my untrained eyes. I gave Gina running commentary, sparing the gory details. Jack immediately started crying (he gets that from his mother), and I told her "that's our baby", or someting cheesy like that. I sat back down.

The Dr. said something else at that point, but I forget what. I'll speculate that it was "mommy, look up". Again, unless there was freaky dr. family reunion going on in the OR, she had to be referring to Gina, not her own mother. Gina looked straight up, and the Dr. held Jack over the curtain for just a second; just long enough to imply "Yes, you had a baby, and here he is." To me, that was a significant moment. It gave her actual evidence.

I continued to massage her shoulders as they cleaned up jack and did their medical stuff. I remember them sticking a needle in his thigh, but I think that was later, back in the room. One of the other people in the OR started poking around her shoulders, looking for something. I noticed there was a pad there with nothing on it, and I wondered its purpose. Apparently, there was a wire attached to it and I knocked it off somewhere along the way. The guy playfully reprimanded me. I responded with "Great, now we have to start over". That got a couple chuckles from around the room.

I stood up again to watch them put her back together. "Wow, they're really making a mess of you." I told her. One of the guys gave me a sideways glance and said "No we're not".

The jack cleanup process was complete for the moment. It was time to go. They put him in a bassinet (or something), and wheeled him out, with me following. We returned to the room. My mother and and Gerrie were still in there. I think they were surprised about how fast we made it back. The oohing and ahhing started immediately. They put jack underneath a burger warmer.

So, there's my son, being reheated. He was fresh out of the womb. Not long had passed since the c-section announcement, and there he was. I couldn't pick him up until he was well-done, but felt that I had to do something, so I just rubbed his chest so that he would know I was there. I'm not sure if he was crying or not, but if he was it wasn't a lot. They put medical goop in his eyes (I think that was in the OR), so they looked a little funky as shown in the pictures. Over the next several minutes, he attempted to open them multiple times. He made good progress. I doubt he'll remember, but I was there when he finally succeeded.