I premise this tale with the fact that doctors should not tell you you're likely to have a baby any day. A month before I was due I went into my doctor and they said I was 80% effaced and dilated to a 2+, which, in their words, meant "this baby is probably going to come early." I freaked out. I was not finished with my last class yet, and there was no way to finish it up within the next week or two due to a class project that required other group members. I emailed my professor and got permission to do an individual project. Two days later I was finished with my last class and for all intents and purposes graduated with a bachelors and teaching license in Special Education: Emphasis in Severe disabilities. Voila, I thought I am ready to have a baby...well as ready as I was going to get. The next week I was dilated to a 3, the week after that a 3+, the week after that my doctor greeted me with "I can't believe you haven't had a baby yet." Bah, where is the baby. The next week I have still not delivered and was not really having any contractions worthy of note. This is one week before my baby is due, my doctor was very surprised, and I very perturbed. I hate waiting, but even more so when professionals keep telling me I should have to wait no more. This week I was dilated to a 4 and my doctor was looking for any sort of reason to induce, but I'm as healthy as a pregnant horse could be and was sent home with again the assurance that I should have a baby very soon. My blood pressure had been a tad high, thus, I was told to check it a couple times a day and come in to labor and delivery if it reached a certain level. I checked it on the morning of December 13th, one day before my due date, it was high. I call Spencer to tell him I was going in to get it checked out, but that he didn't need to come to the hospital since they probably would just monitor me and send me home. Kimberly, Spencer's sister, picked me up and went with me to the hospital. They hooked me up to the stork monitor and low and behold my blood pressure was beautiful, beyond beautiful 90/50 kind of beautiful (my body just loves behaving for the pros and misbehaving for me). My doctor had them check my amniotic fluid, while I was there. It was low, not dangerously low, but low enough for them to induce me. I was asked if I wanted to be induced then, or if I wanted to wait for tomorrow when my doctor could do the delivery (as it was getting close to time for her to go home and she was not on call that night). Well I wanted a baby, so I said "Please, induce me." I had just told Spencer that I was going to go home 15 minutes previous, so I called him again and said come to the hospital we're having a baby.
They moved me to another room where they hooked me up with an IV to give me Pettosin--which I have no idea how to spell--and broke my water, and finally I was having contractions. Kimberly stayed with me until Spencer got there and a for a little while after he arrived. I wasn't sure if I wanted an epidural, because I figured if it isn't too painful why have to deal with numbing. The contractions continued to build, and they were painful though not unbearably so, the pain was just not where I expected, it was centered in my lower back and spread from there up and down my spinal column. Now I thought to myself, "Self, you can probably deal with this and be just fine, but do you really want to feel this if it's possible not to." I asked the nurse if I could have an epidural, and in no time it all I was chilling, unable to feel my legs at all and feeling no pain whatsoever. I hung out for the next few hours. At one point (when they poked him in the head as they inserted an internal monitor) the baby's heart rate dipped and a whole bunch of doctors and nurses converged on our room, but everything leveled out again quickly. Spencer's mom came in and sat with us for a little while, but went back into the waiting room for the actual delivery. I pushed for an hour (which is really hard work even if you can't feel the pain and my whole body was shaking like crazy). Thus it was that six hours after checking in at 10:22 p.m or 22:22 military time James was born. He was bright purple for a minute or so (he had the cord loosely wrapped around his neck), and he had a bit of a cone head, but even then he was beautiful. He weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 19" long. He had his eyes open and was looking around a few minutes after he was born and he is still a curious little fellow. Spencer's parents came in shortly after he was born to see their new grandbaby and take pictures. We went to sleep very late and woke often while in the hospital, where we saw many of our wonderful friends come to congratulate us and see the new edition to our family.
We came home from the hospital on the 15th and I started a new chapter in my life: Motherhood (about which I'm sure to say more in later posts).
All of the above pictures were taken about 15 minutes after James was born...wasn't he cute at 15 minutes old.
