How U.B. became Jacob

To all those ladies out there waiting impatiently to go into labor, I have a suggestion: go to toddler music class. I went with Isaac on Saturday morning, where I ran in circles, jumped up and down, galloped like a horsey, physically restrained my son when it wasn't his turn to play the gigantic drum, etc etc insert other high-exertion activities that I probably shouldn't have engaged in (but did) here. The contractions started when we got back in the car; the bloody show was already there when we got home.

Since this is the first time I've actually gone into labor on my own, I really had no idea what to expect with the contractions. All "the books" say that they will get closer and closer together, and that you should go to the hospital when they get closer than 5 minutes apart and you can't carry on a conversation through them. My contractions went on throughout the day, and did get much closer together over a twelve hour period, from 15-20 minutes apart to start down to 6-15 minutes apart. They also got more painful, but really weren't all that bad. That they had lasted so long gave me an inkling that this might be the real thing, but I battened down that hatches and prayed to the God of Convenience in Labor that I could last through the night so Dada could get some sleep and, more importantly, so we wouldn't have to ditch Isaac at our friends' house in the middle of the night.

Isaac, in rare form, slept through the night. I did not, having been awakened twice by some seriously killer contractions that strangely went away if I got up and farted around on the computer for an hour. When Isaac finally did wake up at 6:30, I started timing again and they were still a lousy 6-8 minutes apart, but I had to come up with some Claire-improvised labor breathing to make it through them (being the labor class flunkie that I am). I went to fix Isaac some breakfast, passing by Dada who was asleep on the couch. "GET UP!" says I, "HOSPITAL! DRUGS! NOW!" Being the sympathetic wife that I am and having no clue that these contraction-things could actually get worse, I agreed that Dada could take a shower first and that we should stop for Starbucks on the way to the hospital. We dumped off Isaac at our friends' house, where he spent the day playing with Sarah, Ella, and Ella's Grandma and Grandpa. I don't know how, but they even got him to take a nap.

Before you can be admitted to the hospital, you must first pass through triage so they can decide whether or not you are a faker with your labor; namely, the only test you have to pass is to have a doctor examine your baby-chute and decide that your cervix has done enough work that the rest of the job won't take too long. For the uninitiated, I have heard the rule of thumb is that once you're 3 or 4 cm dilated (of the requisite 10 cm), you're in. Of course I had no idea how dilated I was, but I was in some crazy-pain, now every 5-7 minutes. The triage nurse clucked her tongue at me in doubt, suggesting that my contractions weren't close enough together for me to be THAT dilated. On that reliable hunch, these turds made me wait for an HOUR AND A HALF before I was finally checked out by a doctor. This doctor hadn't been in the room for more than 5 minutes before she exclaimed in near-horror, "Oh my God, you are staying. How dilated do you think you are? Guess!" I wasn't exactly in the guessing mood, but a suggested, maybe, 5 cm? "You are a GOOD 7 cm. We need to get you upstairs right now."

This actually posed a huge problem, because at my first prenatal visit I tested positive for Group B Strep. While I as a carrier was asymptomatic, I can pass these bacteria on to the baby during delivery unless I am treated with a solid four-hour course of IV antibiotics. If I delivered the baby before the four hours was up, he could come down with some terrible form of bacterial sepsis, such as meningitis. We arrived at the hospital at 7; we were admitted at 8:30; I didn't get my IV antibiotics started until just before 9. I was given the task of crossing my legs and laying down to keep from having a baby until 1. My delightful labor nurse, Pam, said there was no way, with me being that dilated and a second-timer, that I would make it.

My first suggestion to help stop me from having a baby was to get an epidural, which came at around 10:00. The anesthesiologist was gave me the most perfect epidural in the history of the world. I could feel most of the contractions, but there was no pain or even discomfort with them. Even more importantly, the epidural blocked nothing when it came to the pushing stage...

I labored in relative peace and quiet until about 12:40, when I started feeling this unearthly urge to push. Unlike the epidural I had while laboring with Isaac, where I could feel absolutely nothing and had to be told when to push (which probably factors in to why it took me an excruciating three whole hours for the pushing phase alone), this again perfect epidural hid nothing from me about when I was supposed to do some work and hold up my end of the bargain. It was extremely weird and painful, but I did my best to breathe in my flunkie and distracting fashion to hold out another twenty minutes. At 12:55 they broke my water. Instead of screaming at them to let me push, suddenly rationality took over and I patiently (and breathlessly) waited another 8 minutes, at which time I asked the three doctors, nurse, and husband in the room for double confirmation that it was indeed after 1, that my antibiotics had run their course, and that my baby was given the all-clear to go. They all said yes.

It took me exactly 4 minutes to push Jacob out. Everyone keeps commenting on how lovely I look holding newborn Jacob; how I am "glowing". This is because I busted every capillary in my cheeks, chin, and shoulders from pushing, grunting, and screaming like an Amazon warrior. Dada said they hadn't even had time to wheel their equipment cart over before he was crowning (and I was screaming in pain and hyperventilating). He suggested I title this post "Claire's Baby Cannon," and takes great personal delight in telling his coworkers, much to the horror of my mom, how proud he is that my birth canal could be used to calibrate missile-ballistics.

Back to the L&D room... Suddenly somebody told me to look down and there he was, upside down at the end of the table, my gigantic baby boy, huge and purple and perfect, with this full head of brown curly hair. They laid him on me, all cheesed up. To my infinite surprise, after all the doubts and misgivings I had about my ability to mentally handle the concept of a second baby... the first thing I thought when they handed him to me was "This is going to be so cool." And I have been the happiest girl in the world ever since.