History of the J Man

So as you’ll recall, we’ve just arrived at the hospital and the ABC is unavailable… 

Julie: When we got to the room and they got my monitor hooked up, we took a few showers to try and get comfortable and relax.  We did a few laps around the ward too, but the contractions weren’t getting any closer or more steady.  My water hadn’t broken.  So I opted to let them break my water to see if that would get things going.  But once they did, that there was meconium in the discharge so then they had to hook me up to the amnio infusion to try to flush the meconium from the womb so the baby wouldn’t ingest it.  Picture sitting on a hose.  So that was going on, the baby monitor was hooked on and I couldn’t really move at all anymore.  At that point they wanted to start a little pitocin so, although I wanted to do this naturally and avoid drugs, nothing was happening and I couldn’t walk around so I agreed.   

That’s when the contractions started and I was so tired at that point that I sort of zoned out between each contraction.  At the rate I was going, I wasn’t going to have any energy to do anything else, much less push.  So at 11 a.m. on Saturday, after about 14 hours of managing the pain myself, I asked for the epidural.  I was hooked up to a million tubes and hoses already and I was drained so I said, “Why not?”  I think I finally got it around noon.  At that point, Chris and I both got to sleep for 3-4 hours and I dilated another 4 cm during that nap.  I think the epidural really helped to relax me and let my body open up.  The baby was positioned a little funny though, so I still had a lot of back pain laying there, even with the epidural.  The anesthesiologist and midwife kept arguing whether giving me more pain meds would help my back or not.  He said it wouldn’t, she said it would.  I think she was right, but it didn’t get rid of it totally.  And I hated lying there so still on my back but, the IV and hose were still in me and I couldn’t move my legs, so I was stuck.

Keep in mind this entire process had started after a full day’s work on Friday, which means we have been awake for about 29 hours straight at this point, save for the short nap we took after the epidural.

As afternoon faded into evening, the contractions started to build again.  For several hours, we would sit and wait for a contraction.  When it hit, I would hold Julie’s hand and Carrie (the doula) would rub her shoulders or her legs and we’d just keep at it until the next one arrived.  Finally, about 9:00 p.m., I realize I haven’t eaten in awhile.  While I felt a bit bad about leaving Julie, I knew I needed something to eat, and she was nice enough to grant me permission to go get a sandwich.

The exhaustion of the event had taken its toll and it was nice for me to get out of the room for a bit.  I made a couple of calls and wondered whether our son would be born on Julie’s birthday (June 10).  The cafeteria had closed for the night, so I pumped a couple of dollar bills into a vending machine and got a couple of roast beef sandwiches. 

As I recall, I was so hungry, I began to eat one of the sandwiches as I walked back to the room.  Upon opening the door, I noticed it was really bright – apparently in the 15 minutes or so I was gone, the midwife had decided it was time to push.  Julie had assumed the position, the spotlight was trained on the, uh, staging area and the mirror had been set up.  It was Showtime.

It was my job to hold on of her legs up as she pushed (a nurse held the other leg), but in all the excitement, I realized I was still holding onto the sandwich.  At that point, a) I didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm of what was going on and b) I was still really hungry.  So I continued to eat the sandwich with one hand while holding my in-labor wife’s leg up with the other.  Probably not one of my finer moments.

The next two hours are sort of a blur.  There was a lot of pushing and a lot of yelling and then more pushing.  But then at some point, the head started to crown, and I can tell you as someone who had a front row seat, watching that happen was an otherworldly experience.  Because Jonah has a lot hair, all I saw at first were a few strands and then a few more until finally it was obvious that a skull was pushing out of that very small space.  Once his head was through, the rest of his body pretty much squirted right out.  After putting him on Julie’s chest for a moment, I cut the cord and then they whisked him over to a little table where they cleaned him up.  Fortunately, the meconium wasn’t an issue and within a few more minutes, he was back in Julie’s arms. 

The official time of birth was 11:06 p.m. on June 9, 2007.  He missed sharing Julie’s birthday by 54 minutes.  Lucky for him.

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