TarHeelMom
Cathlete
Hi there mommies! I just shared this story with some friends via group e-mail and on impulse would like to share it with you lovely ladies who are waiting for your beautiful babies or enjoying new ones. Remembering my son's birth is making me smile and I hope will bring a smile to your faces today, too. And this turned out to be long, so folks, if birthday reminiscing isn't your thing, move on to another post -- this one will bore you to sleep! 
Today my littlest baby (well, not counting my pooch) is 14 years old. Ohmigosh! He was two weeks early and my first was 10 days late, so we were just completely unprepared (mentally, at least) for our Sunday's Child on that chilly day in 1989. An ordinary day ended with Evan's birth and let me tell you, in hindsight we just made it by the proverbial hairs on our chinny-chin-chins.
This time 14 years ago I was still asleep and HUGE, and I slept late. In the afternoon we decorated the tree while I complained about Braxton Hicks contractions. I even went to Michaels' to get replacement fuses. I have this distinct recollection of standing in a long cash register line and thinking "Can these idiots in front of me not SEE that my ankles are ballooning up with every minute I have to stand in this flippin' line???" (Pre-delivery crankies, that's what that was for sure.) At 5:45 I called my doctor and told her I was having persistent BH contractions for the second Sunday in a row. She said to take a hot bath, have a small glass of wine and see if that did the trick.
It didn't work (of course) so I called her back -- still not in a lot of discomfort but feeling kinda annoyed. Still not thinking this was real labor. She said "Well, I'm doing a C-section about 8:00, why don't you come down and let me take a quick look at you?" I told her we'd come if we could get a sitter for Alex, who was a little more than 2 at the time. We found a sitter (THANK GOODNESS), picked her up and took our own sweet time moseying down to the hospital, because the contractions were still sporadic and not too bad -- just persistent. We didn't even take my overnight bag. We really thought I'd be coming home.
We parked at the ER and they made my husband wheel me up to the maternity ward in a wheelchair (hospital protocol) and literally, just as we were approaching the nurses' station there, I got hit with this Tsunami of a contraction. It knocked the breath out of me. The nurse calmly looked at me and said to my DH "She's obviously in labor -- checking in?" My husband said "Well, I'm not sure now -- we were just going to let Dr. Lee take a look at my wife her..." This was at 7:50 -- I remember looking at the wall clock to focus thru the contraction.
I never saw my doc -- she was C-sectioning -- they got me into a gown and things moved really fast. By the time I was gowned up and checked I was 5 CM dilated. I had no anesthesia (a shock to me -- compare Alex's birth: I had had a huge epidural that wore off the labor went on for so long), and I was fully dilated at 8:35 (Alex: Dilating took almost 5 hours). Almost as soon as the nurse had left the room after announcing that I was fully dilated, I had to push. Kenny frantically rang the nurse again. She had -- again calmly -- said "Let me go into the OR and speak to Dr. Lee. Be right back, Mrs. Shapiro, don't do anything now." Yeah, right. I huffed and I puffed. In a couple of minutes the nurse was back to say that Dr. Lee would be in shortly. Incredibly, she appeared to be about to leave the room and I said "Don't go anywhere, this little boy's coming." The nurse tried getting stern with me, like that would help. I did my best drill sergeant imitation and yelled into her face "STAY HERE! I AM PUSHING NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!"
She gave up and rang for another nurse, then said "Alright, you can push now." At 8:42 with ONE push, my beautiful Evan Harrison was born. (Alex: Pushed for 2 hours, eventually had to have a forceps-assisted AND vacuum-assisted delivery. Al remains, to this day, a world-class procrastinator, and Ev remains, to this day, pathologically early. Isn't that a hoot?)
I want you to know that through this astonishing 40 minutes this mind-boggling nurse never once broke her calm, slightly bored demeanor. She and the other nurse who had come in to help suctioned Evan, cleaned him up, Ken cut the cord, and they APGAR-scored him and bundled him into our arms. About this time Dr. Lee (all 5 feet tall of her) burst in, still in scrubs, and said, in this annoyed voice, "Mrs. Shapiro, what are you doing in here???" Don't you love that? By now, of course, I was calm and blissed out, and I said deadpan "Uh, just had a baby boy -- what else ya wanna know?" She completed all the post-baby stuff and by 9:00 Kenny and I were alone for a few minutes with our little boy. By 10:00 Evan and I were in our room and Kenny'd gone home to pay the sitter!
So tonight after dinner, girls, raise your glasses of non-alcoholic toddies to my baby boy who is now taller than me, and to my VERY good fortune that there was -- bizarrely -- no traffic on the legendary Atlanta highways on the evening of December 10, 1989!
Kisses to all your babies!!!!!
http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S. (proud veteran of an accidental natural birth)http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif
Today my littlest baby (well, not counting my pooch) is 14 years old. Ohmigosh! He was two weeks early and my first was 10 days late, so we were just completely unprepared (mentally, at least) for our Sunday's Child on that chilly day in 1989. An ordinary day ended with Evan's birth and let me tell you, in hindsight we just made it by the proverbial hairs on our chinny-chin-chins.
This time 14 years ago I was still asleep and HUGE, and I slept late. In the afternoon we decorated the tree while I complained about Braxton Hicks contractions. I even went to Michaels' to get replacement fuses. I have this distinct recollection of standing in a long cash register line and thinking "Can these idiots in front of me not SEE that my ankles are ballooning up with every minute I have to stand in this flippin' line???" (Pre-delivery crankies, that's what that was for sure.) At 5:45 I called my doctor and told her I was having persistent BH contractions for the second Sunday in a row. She said to take a hot bath, have a small glass of wine and see if that did the trick.
It didn't work (of course) so I called her back -- still not in a lot of discomfort but feeling kinda annoyed. Still not thinking this was real labor. She said "Well, I'm doing a C-section about 8:00, why don't you come down and let me take a quick look at you?" I told her we'd come if we could get a sitter for Alex, who was a little more than 2 at the time. We found a sitter (THANK GOODNESS), picked her up and took our own sweet time moseying down to the hospital, because the contractions were still sporadic and not too bad -- just persistent. We didn't even take my overnight bag. We really thought I'd be coming home.
We parked at the ER and they made my husband wheel me up to the maternity ward in a wheelchair (hospital protocol) and literally, just as we were approaching the nurses' station there, I got hit with this Tsunami of a contraction. It knocked the breath out of me. The nurse calmly looked at me and said to my DH "She's obviously in labor -- checking in?" My husband said "Well, I'm not sure now -- we were just going to let Dr. Lee take a look at my wife her..." This was at 7:50 -- I remember looking at the wall clock to focus thru the contraction.
I never saw my doc -- she was C-sectioning -- they got me into a gown and things moved really fast. By the time I was gowned up and checked I was 5 CM dilated. I had no anesthesia (a shock to me -- compare Alex's birth: I had had a huge epidural that wore off the labor went on for so long), and I was fully dilated at 8:35 (Alex: Dilating took almost 5 hours). Almost as soon as the nurse had left the room after announcing that I was fully dilated, I had to push. Kenny frantically rang the nurse again. She had -- again calmly -- said "Let me go into the OR and speak to Dr. Lee. Be right back, Mrs. Shapiro, don't do anything now." Yeah, right. I huffed and I puffed. In a couple of minutes the nurse was back to say that Dr. Lee would be in shortly. Incredibly, she appeared to be about to leave the room and I said "Don't go anywhere, this little boy's coming." The nurse tried getting stern with me, like that would help. I did my best drill sergeant imitation and yelled into her face "STAY HERE! I AM PUSHING NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!"
She gave up and rang for another nurse, then said "Alright, you can push now." At 8:42 with ONE push, my beautiful Evan Harrison was born. (Alex: Pushed for 2 hours, eventually had to have a forceps-assisted AND vacuum-assisted delivery. Al remains, to this day, a world-class procrastinator, and Ev remains, to this day, pathologically early. Isn't that a hoot?)
I want you to know that through this astonishing 40 minutes this mind-boggling nurse never once broke her calm, slightly bored demeanor. She and the other nurse who had come in to help suctioned Evan, cleaned him up, Ken cut the cord, and they APGAR-scored him and bundled him into our arms. About this time Dr. Lee (all 5 feet tall of her) burst in, still in scrubs, and said, in this annoyed voice, "Mrs. Shapiro, what are you doing in here???" Don't you love that? By now, of course, I was calm and blissed out, and I said deadpan "Uh, just had a baby boy -- what else ya wanna know?" She completed all the post-baby stuff and by 9:00 Kenny and I were alone for a few minutes with our little boy. By 10:00 Evan and I were in our room and Kenny'd gone home to pay the sitter!
So tonight after dinner, girls, raise your glasses of non-alcoholic toddies to my baby boy who is now taller than me, and to my VERY good fortune that there was -- bizarrely -- no traffic on the legendary Atlanta highways on the evening of December 10, 1989!
Kisses to all your babies!!!!!
http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S. (proud veteran of an accidental natural birth
)http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif