The Birth Story

Thanks for all the well-wishes! Sigrid, Chris, Soren and I are doing well, and I'm currently awaiting Chris' return to the hospital with the new big brother, who will finally be meeting his sister for the first time. In terms of Soren's level of interest in Sigrid, I'm guessing it will be somewhere between "I want some crackers" and "Can I push this button?" We'll see...

So, let's get down to business. The Birth Story: Timeline Form. If you're squeamish, or male, I assure you that the only slightly gross word in the story will be "placenta," and I won't be describing it or anything, so you should be able to handle this.



Yesterday morning, 8:30: Drop Soren off at daycare, then return home and read the paper. Consider taking nap.

9:00: OB's office calls to reschedule my 3:15 appointment, since the doctor's going home early; can I come in right now? Sure. I suppose the nap can wait.

9:30: Routine appointment; I'm 3-4 centimeters dilated, but still haven't felt any major contractions, so we'll just wait and see what things look like at my next appointment on Tuesday.

11:00: Return home; take nap.

1:15: Awaken from nap; remember that I have to send out a platemaking file for an invitation client.

1:16: Stop to use the bathroom on my way to my office, whereupon my water breaks. Hmmm. Well, apparently I'll be having this baby sometime in the next 24 hours.

1:17: Start putting together the platemaking order.

1:20: Finish order, call Chris. Inform him that my water has broken, but I haven't gone into labor yet, so I'll let him know when he needs to come home.

1:25: Decide it might be a good time to shower, since I won't want to do it while I'm in labor (based on how it went last time).

1:34: Shave legs. Why not?

1:35: Get out of shower. Chris calls. I have a contraction while talking to him, and it's kind of owie, so I tell him maybe it's a good time to come home.

1:50: Having gotten dressed, I decide to head downstairs, since the contractions are getting painful enough that I won't want to use the stairs pretty soon.

1:52: Call my mom; tell her I'm in labor.

1:53: Call my dad; tell him I'm in labor. End call abruptly with "I have to go," since I don't want to scare him by yelling OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAGGHHHHH into the phone.

1:54: Start contracting and making loud noises in earnest.

2:03: Maybe I should start timing these. Move into the dining room to lean against a chair.

2:04: Get back on the floor.

2:10: OH MY GOD CHRIS WILL YOU PLEASE GET HOME NOWWWWWWWWWWWW

2:12: I might call 911 if I could get up and get the phone. Alas.

2:15: Okay... there's no way I'm having the urge to push. It's way too soon for that.

2:16: This is insane. It's not time to push.

2:17: Perhaps I should think about removing my pants.

2:18: Yell like an extra in a slasher film.

2:19: Perhaps I should prepare to catch the baby.

2:19:30: That seems to be a head.

2:20: Hey, there's the rest.

2:20:01: HOLY CRAP I JUST HAD THE BABY BY MYSELF ON THE DINING ROOM FLOOR.

--

Whereupon I took a few minutes to reflect on the fact that the baby was a girl, pink, crying a little, apparently had all her parts, and would probably pass the Apgar test. Then I had some time to think about how the baby was probably kind of cold, but all the clean towels were upstairs, and I really didn't think I should start wandering around when I still hadn't delivered the placenta. So I held her close and started wondering what exactly Chris would think when he got home. When he walked in at 2:30, he was a little.... surprised.

We called 911 and the rescue truck came immediately (helps that the fire dept is right down the street), and they helped deliver the placenta, covered us in blankets and various wires and sensors, and took us to the hospital, where a curious group of nurses was waiting to ogle us and say "AWWWWWW" as we came in. After some warming up, Sigrid was pronounced Just Fine, and now we're just hanging out and waiting to be discharged tomorrow (we could have left today, but we wanted to make sure her temp was stable overnight).

Makes me tired just thinking about it all. I'm going to take a nap. Go look at pictures, why don't you?