the sleppys

I was 41 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I walked into the living room at 2:30 am after feeling some contractions. The night before, I had felt the same contractions, but they disappeared. I thought that these particular contractions would be false alarms as well, so I didn’t wake up Dad. But they didn’t disappear. After walking around the tiny house for half an hour, I went back to bed, thinking that they’d go away if I rested. But babies have to come some time. Ten minutes later, I woke up (imagine, I fell asleep during the contractions), and walked around the house again, squatting by the couch during each contraction, which lasted nearly a minute and were now three minutes apart. Holy crap, this doesn’t feel like a false alarm. So I called my doula, who told me that I can call her at three in the morning if I have to – and, well, it actually WAS three in the morning. I left a message. I called the obstetrician who told me to go to the hospital. I called my doula again. And again. And she finally called me back.

Then I woke up Dad at four o’clock. I really didn’t want to wake him from his slumber, and I knew that he would have to go to work that day… so, other than the kids, he was the last person I awoke. He got a shower (just in case this really WAS a false alarm). And I got a shower, too… and boy, did that feel good! Next baby, I’m laboring in the hot shower, and the doctor will have to come to me. Geez, I didn’t want to leave. Just feeling the hot water on my back eased the contractions, and I wanted to be in that shower forever. I didn’t put on any underwear, knowing that I was going to have to change into a hospital gown in a hurry, and I didn’t lace my sneakers either. Dad got the kids ready, and I helped by putting their shoes on their feet and carrying them to the car… taking pauses through the contractions.

We left the house at 4:30am and took the turnpike to the hospital. I was praying that my water wouldn’t break during the 10-mile ride. I was grudging through every bump and sway in the road. And Dad drove like the Devil was chasing him. I think we paid a toll. We got off the turnpike and onto ground roads. I could hear the panic in Dad’s voice when he saw that there was road work ahead. But the road wasn’t blocked. We just had to go slowly. But that was too much to ask. My contractions were less a minute apart, and we REALLY had to get to the hospital or this baby was going to be born in the car!

We pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital, and I saw my doula waiting for me. She helped me out of the car and toward the inside. I got onto a wheelchair in the middle of a contraction, so I squatted while in the wheelchair. The receptionist told me that I had to sit down, but my doula told her off. I was wheeled toward the Labor & Delivery ward, but the lady who was leading us made a wrong turn, so we got lost. What a time to get lost! I almost got up to strangle her!! We finally got to the nurse’s station of the L&D and they all stopped laughing at some joke when I said, “I have to push.”

Every hand was helping me to a bed, and I, having planned for fire and flood, stripped naked and jumped atop the hospital bed. I was admitted at 4:41am (eleven minutes after we left the house). One nurse was having me sign all these forms while another nurse told me that if I lay on my side and keep my legs together, the baby won’t come. o_O I wonder what school she went to.

Then I relaxed. I can have the baby now, I told myself, even though the nurses were all, “Don’t push. The doctor isn’t here yet. You can’t have the baby until the doctor gets here.” Yeah, okay. Baby, you can come now. Everything is cool. And my body knotted up. I mean, even my neck and leg muscles were contracting. I feel sorry for my doula and her poor hand: I cracked her knuckles from squeezing too hard. But that’s what she’s there for. I saw my husband, who apparated from thin air. “Where are the kids?” I asked him. After hearing something about their being watched by his mom, I felt the baby’s head crowing. I turned onto my back, pushed the covers off of my legs. My water broke. Thank goodness, no mecomium.

One nurse covered my baby’s crowing head with her palm. “Don’t push.”
Sorry, but this baby wants to come out. And I really wasn’t pushing, I mean, I was actually relaxing. But my body knotted up again. During those moments, I visioned a ball of lightning inside of me, like I was a plasma ball, and the streams ran through my legs and curled around the nurses and my doula.

Finally, it came. My body contracted, pushed, knotted, then relaxed. And I could feel the baby’s head working its way out. It didn’t hurt, I swear. It was just a lot of work. From the nurses, I picked up nervous vibes. I tried to tune them out. PLOP! At 4:48am, the baby fell onto the bed. Nobody had caught him.

Or her? My husband was the first to give me the news. “I guess we don’t have to worry about picking boy names.” A nurse cleaned up the baby while giving her to me. I let Newborn Taylor nurse right away for as long as she wanted.