My first son, Isaac, was due Saturday, August 3, 2002. By the time the end of July rolled around, I was so ready to go ahead and pop that sucker out. I was hoping he would go ahead and be born in July (not dangerously early, just a bit). I had a friend whose baby was due the same day, and she went two weeks early. You can bet I was seething with jealousy the day I lumbered my gigantic pregnant self over to her place to see the newborn. I put on a happy-for-you face, but inside I was begging God to get mine out soon. Silly, but true.
My mom arrived in Houston the day before Isaac’s due date so she could spend the weekend–hoping he would come on time. I was a hopeless insomniac at this point of my pregnancy–tossing and turning all night, hopping up constantly to visit the toilet or put wet washcloths on my itchy feet (weird pregnancy symptom). Brian was more than happy to volunteer to sleep on the couch while Mom stayed in the bedroom with me. As usual, I couldn’t sleep, and Mom was also excited, so we talked late into the night. We finally made one last effort to go to sleep around 4 a.m. We turned out the light and settled down. Minutes later–pop–gush. Enough said. I called my OB and she told me to go ahead and come to the hospital.
So, by 5:30 we were at the hospital, ready to start the whole labor adventure. We were disappointed to learn that my wonderful OB had already been in the hospital for many hours with another birth, so she had to go home. Instead, we had one of her colleagues. As it turned out, that hardly mattered since I spent most of my time with a string of obstetric nurses and rarely saw the doc. Then nothing happened. We wandered the halls–or perhaps I should say Brian wandered while I waddled and shuffled. I was still…um…leaking…and that made me even more uncomfortable. However, nothing else happened. Occasionally I would clutch my abdomen, thinking perhaps I’d felt a contraction, but no, nothing happened. Whoop-tee-freakin’-do.
About 4 hours later, they stuck an I.V. in me and started a Pitocin drip to induce labor. So now, I was attached to a drippy thing and had to wheel it shuffling down the hall wearing a hospital gown and enormous padded undies. The first thing to go in a hospital birth is your dignity.
The second thing to go is your modesty. I don’t even remember who all managed to take a gander at my personal area while we were there. Nurses, anesthesiologists, doctors, my husband, my mother, my sister, whoever. I didn’t care much by the end.
We finally had contractions. Wandered or waddled down the halls a bit more. I was so miserable in my hugeness and discomfort that I preferred to stay in my room anyway. After a few hours, I started asking for drugs, but it was too early for an epidural, so they gave me something else. I don’t even remember now what they gave me, but it totally spaced me out. I was hovering in the air above the bed part of the time and Mom and Brian occasionally wafted into my line of vision and spoke backwards to me like something from Twin Peaks. I answered them in an equally bizarre manner, but didn’t know what I was saying. But sure enough, the pain lessened.
At last, I floated back to earth and the pain intensified again. And then the joyous moment when I had dilated enough to have an epidural. I’m not sure what time it was, but it was at least late that afternoon. I went through that whole weird process of having that tube thing inserted in my back and the drugs were started. I was sure it would not be long until we had our baby out with us where he belonged. There was much rejoicing. And the drugs were good. Maybe too good.
More hours passed. More people came and had a look at me. More nurses came and went off shift. We had arrived at 5:30 Saturday morning. It was now 11 p.m. Saturday night. I got the go ahead to start pushing. My last nurse held one leg and Brian held the other (more hands-on than I think he had intended). So we pushed. And pushed. And pushed. And pushed more. I was completely exhausted, starving (I hadn’t eaten since dinner Friday night), desperate, and miserable. Brian kept telling me I could do it. I insisted I could not. I wondered why they didn’t just take me in for a C-section already. I must admit that I was a total baby at this point, but Brian was a tower of strength. He held my hand (when he wasn’t holding a leg) and looked in my eyes and told me I could do it. Not only that, but I think he said, “You will do it.” Brian was so convinced that I felt I just had to do it. But I still couldn’t quite do it yet.
Eventually, in the wee hours (around 4:00, I think) they decided they needed to take me off the Pitocin because it was no longer effective–my exhausted body had stopped contractions altogether. They let me off for an hour’s rest (not that I could sleep much at that time). Then they started the drip again and the pushing started all over again. (I’m really trying to think of something amusing to say here, but it was really not at all amusing at the time.) I was having a hard time even figuring out how to push because I couldn’t feel much of it. At some point, my mom gave up and had to leave–she couldn’t bear to see me in such a state and was exhausted herself. My sister Kendra came in and stayed through the birth, giving me ice chips and encouragement when necessary.
After 6:00, they decided to bust out the vacuum extractor. Let’s review those words: vacuum extractor. It’s kind of icky to think of something like that coming anywhere near my…you know. However, it turned out to be my deliverance–or rather, Isaac’s deliverance. Bam–three tries with that thing–the first two being rather unpleasant–and pop goes the baby. Out came Isaac’s head and then a bit more pushing and out came the rest. I must emphasize at this point that the vacuum extractor did not do all the work. They still had to coordinate it with my pushing (just so you don’t think I was just lying there waiting for the baby to be sucked out or something).
Wow. The massive relief it was over. The incredible joy of seeing our beautiful firstborn baby boy–he actually looked a bit freaky with that cone-shaped vacuumed head, but we didn’t care about that. The exhaustion. Time of birth was 6:52 a.m., Sunday, August 4, 2002. He was 8 lbs. 13.6 oz. The first thing I wanted was him in my arms, but they had him across the room doing all that hospital stuff to him. The second thing I wanted was breakfast. Oh, how I wanted that breakfast.
I got both wishes, at long last. And family members came in a few at a time to meet Isaac. We had called people as soon we got to the hospital and they had all come immediately–and subsequently all waited all night through the labor. Then they all went home and we were stuck there with a new baby by ourselves, though supremely fatigued. We managed and we were supremely happy.
It’s hard to believe that Isaac is now 3 1/2, walking, talking, counting, saying his letters, and spelling his name. He is such a beautiful gift–worth all those many hours of waiting, misery, vexation, immodesty, and weariness.
[...] written previous posts about the births of Isaac and Ewan, so I might as well write about Cormac’s birth while the experience is still fresh [...]