Well, it took me long enough, but at long last, I present to you our birth story. I have tried not to include any medical details that would fall into the realm of too much information, but I have put in an accurate quote involving mildly bad language from one of our nurses because it isn't as funny if I clean it up. So I would say that this birth story is rated PG. It is also very, very long, perhaps due to the fact that I was in labor for 24 hours. I hope it won't feel like 24 hours that it takes you to read this, but in any case, proceed at your own risk.

Thursday, September 6, 2007:

Today I am three days overdue and we are scheduled for an appointment with my doctor at 7:15 a.m. I have spent the last week speed walking around our neighborhood, eating spicy food, and generally doing everything short of jumping on a trampoline in hopes of triggering labor, all to no avail. I have managed to stay pretty positive, but I am now officially in a bad mood. I am huge, I am constantly hot, my back hurts, I can't sleep, I have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes, and I am so ready to get this baby out of my body that the thought of labor no longer scares me. Thus, I am highly annoyed when my doctor, who is an extremely upbeat, petite woman who I could crush like a bug at my current weight, gives me an exam and perkily announces that my body has made exactly zero change since my last appointment a week ago. She says this as if she's telling me something good, like that I have won the lottery. I want to thump her cute little button nose. But instead, as anticipated, Dan, the doctor and I talk and come to the conclusion that if Kate hasn't made her appearance in a week, I'll check into the hospital to be induced. Being induced is my worst fear related to labor, and so actually scheduling a date for it does not improve my outlook on the world. It doesn't make me feel better that the last thing my doctor says to me before we leave is that she thinks I'll go into labor on my own anyway. I am a complete labor atheist at this point. I go home, take another walk just because it's what I do with my spare time now, talk to our moms to give them the update, and then sit down on the couch to have a good cry. I then get on the phone to schedule the ultrasound that my adorable, petite, maddeningly optimistic doctor wants me to have to check on the baby. That baby who is never coming out.

Friday, September 7

7:30 a.m.: After Dan leaves for work, I pour myself a bowl of cereal and try, for yet another day, to think of things I could do to keep me busy. We have the ultrasound in the late afternoon and then I'm supposed to go on a girl's night out with some friends, so I figure the latter half of the day is full. As I'm pondering these thrilling things, it occurs to me that I feel weird. It's hard to describe, but I just feel really achy and crampy and strange. I attribute this to my terminal pregnancy and give it no further thought. This is what I can expect from my upcoming lifetime of gestation.

3:30 p.m.: It's time to go for the ultrasound, and I'm feeling worse. I'm having contractions, but I've been having contractions for two weeks and they never get into a pattern or get stronger or mean anything. So I almost don't even notice them anymore. Whatever, contractions. I have an ultrasound to get to. I get into the car and drive across town. Halfway there it occurs to me that I am holding onto the steering wheel really tight during these meaningless contractions. Huh.

Dan meets me at the specialist's office, and we go in for the first look at Kate we've had since 20 weeks. It is amazing. We see her face. She has her lower lip stuck out and her hands up by her face and chubby little cheeks. It's such a shame she's never coming out. The baby is declared to be in excellent health, and the technician announces that based on her calculations, Kate weighs about nine pounds, one ounce. Dan finds this hilarious. I do not. We part ways for the evening, so that I can head back to the house and get ready to go out.

7 p.m.: I meet up with my friends at Elephant Bar Restaurant, where we enjoy a nice meal and discuss many many things, none of which I now remember, because about halfway through the meal I start to notice that these contractions? They hurt. But they aren't really in a regular pattern or anything, and I decide that if I go home in order to time them and they just go away, as they have done before, I will officially lose my mind. So instead, I continue on with the plans for the evening, which call for us to play cards at the home of Mrs. J.

8:30 p.m.: I am proud to say that in spite of the fact that I am quietly timing contractions, I am dealt, and manage not to screw up, one really good hand of poker. I clean my friend Judi out of all her chips and, to celebrate, eat a piece of one of the fabulous chocolate confections Susie is always bringing to gatherings. If I had known that this was going to be the last thing I managed to eat for the next 24 hours, I would have had two pieces. And a Big Mac.

10 p.m.: The card game breaks up, and I head home. Dan is there, and I tell him that I think I might, possibly, could be in labor, but not to get too worked up or anything. I head back to our bedroom and start rounding up the things I would want to take to the hospital if we went tonight.

Midnight: We go to bed to try to get some rest.

12:20 a.m., September 8, 2007, Kate's birthday: I get out of bed and go to the kitchen to time contractions. They are really, really starting to hurt, and I have to spend all my energy on breathing through them. They're also getting closer together.

12:25 a.m.: Dan joins me in the kitchen, foolishly abandoning his last shot at getting any sleep.

3:30 a.m.: I talk to the doctor on call for our practice and am told to come on in to the hospital. This sounds like a good idea to me, as I've spent the last three hours in real pain and am now having contractions about four minutes apart. I suppose it's obvious that you don't know what labor will be like until you're in it, but for me, the most surprising thing is that it has become impossible to sit or lie down. I have to stand up during contractions and lean my weight on something. This makes me think that the car ride to the hospital is going to be problematic. But even though I'm in pain, it feels really exciting to actually be on the way to having a baby. On the way out the door, I post an entry on the blog to let everyone know we're going to the hospital, thus sealing my status as a geek forever.

3:45 a.m.: It turns out I am right about the car ride. I have about four contractions during the very short trip to the hospital, and I almost rip that little hand grip thingie out of the ceiling of Dan's car, I am pulling on it so hard. We finally arrive at the hospital and head up to labor and delivery.

3:50 a.m.: Here's a fun fact: Did you know that there are men who work in labor and delivery? Not doctors. Nurses. Male nurses. I did not know this. And I'm not too excited about it either, when it becomes apparent to me that the gentleman who is handing me one of those beautiful hospital gowns and ushering me into a triage room is doing so because he's going to be in charge of us for the next few hours. It's probably unusual that I've gotten through my whole pregnancy receiving care only from female doctors and nurses, but that has suited my comfort level just fine, and somehow, while I knew there was a good chance that one of the male doctors in our practice would be at my delivery, I never envisioned a male nurse. He's completely competent and professional, but part of me just wants to call a time out and say "Seriously, dude? This floor is the one where you want to spend your time?" But instead, I put on the gown, go through the triage process, and learn that I am two centimeters dilated. Only eight more to go.

3:55 a.m.: Our doula arrives. If we had known how happy we were later going to be to have a doula during this whole process, the Hallelujah Chorus would have been played in the room at this point, but as it was, she just walked in, introduced herself and started asking some questions about our birth plan. If you're not familiar with the work of doulas, you can read about them here. And if you're not familiar with birth plans, they are these funny little documents that you write up before you go into labor indicating in print your preferences for your labor and delivery. I say they are funny because there are so many variables to labor and delivery that saying what you do and don't want in advance is a bit like trying to pre-order perfect weather for your beach wedding during hurricane season. But it's good to have a plan, right?

Dan and I talked a lot about our birth plan, and if I had to give it a title, like it was a term paper or something, it would be "Heck, no, we don't want to see the placenta." When it got down to it, Dan and I decided that ignorance would be bliss for us in the visual images department. So when the birth plan papers asked if Dan wanted to cut the cord, we said no. When they asked if I wanted to be given a mirror to see the baby's head, we said no. And when we talked to the doula, we made it clear that the answer to all questions that started with "Hey, do you want to see the (fill in the blank)" would be answered with a resounding "No!" until they had an actual baby to show us. Call us weenies. We are. But we're weenies who know what we want.

5:30 a.m.: Mr. Male Nurse tell us that the labor and delivery floor is very busy, and there are no rooms available at the moment. Because of that and because I'm not terribly far along, they suggest that we go walking around the hospital to try to help me dilate a bit more. So I put on an extra hospital gown for added fashion benefits and we take off to walk the halls. At one point, we were pacing up and down in the main lobby of Large Health Care Company's hospital. When I was a full time newspaper reporter, I covered Large Health Care Company as part of my beat, so to me, this feels oddly like wandering around in the lobby of a bank or some other place of commerce wearing a floppy hospital gown before the sun is up, like one of those bad dreams where you're naked in some public setting. I keep expecting a security guard to come and ask me what in the heck I think I'm doing, and maybe ask who I work for and then call my boss. But no one does, because apparently, in a hospital, it is fairly common to see gigantic women in ugly gowns trotting up and down the halls and stopping every few minutes to lean against the wall and breathe really deeply.

6:00 a.m.: After about an hour of walking, we decide we should take a piece of advice our doula gave us, and go get a bite to eat. Since I haven't technically been admitted to the hospital yet, no one is stopping me from eating, but once I am admitted, I know I won't be allowed anything but ice chips. So it seems like a good idea to try to eat something to keep my strength up. This continues to seem like a good idea until I swallow one bite of a granola bar and am immediately overcome with the knowledge that the granola and anything else that happens to be in my stomach at the moment is about to come right back up. And it does. Violently. I am lucky to get myself over a trash can before it happens, and then I just stand there, in the lobby, puking and thinking about how terrible it is that some poor janitor is going to have to clean this up. I feel like I should notify someone and apologize, but there is no one to tell, so we just keep walking.

7:30 a.m.: We report back to the triage area, as we were instructed to do, and are put back into the little tiny triage room. There are still no beds available in labor and delivery, and we're starting to get the feeling that it's been a very busy night on the floor. I haven't seen my doctor yet because she's in surgery, and about the time she got out, she was called back in, so we're entirely in the hands of the nursing staff and our doula. It's not a bad situation, since they're all very helpful and accommodating, but the room we're in is very tiny, the bed is more like a cot, making it hard to rest between contractions, there are no windows, and the passage of time just seems to slow to a crawl for a while. My contractions are getting more painful, longer, and closer together, and the one thing I cannot tolerate when one of them is taking place is sit or lie down. So of course, it is at this exact moment that the nursing staff starts insisting that I spend 20 minutes every hour strapped up to a fetal monitor to make sure the baby isn't in any distress. While it's not entirely necessary that I lie down in order to do this, it's very hard to keep all the wires and things in place if I'm standing, and even if I do, my ability to move around, the only thing that seems to help me at all, is seriously limited. I decide that I hate that monitor more than I have ever hated a machine in my life. I am only slightly less angry with it when it reports that the baby is just fine.

8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m.: I list these times together because all of those hours were basically a big repeat of the same activities. We stayed in triage all that time because the floor was so insanely busy. I never saw my doctor. Every hour they would hook me up to the monitor, and I would hate it. And at some point, they checked me and declared that I had made it to four centimeters, which seemed like a good sign that maybe we could get into a room. In fact, they even went ahead and admitted me and started giving me a round of antibiotics I had to have because I was Group B Strep positive. But the hours ticked by and we still weren't moving out of the triage room. Meanwhile, my contractions were getting even worse, and I was starting to wonder how much longer I could take it.

It was during this seemingly endless stretch of time that the doula really earned her money. She helped me find ways to alternate standing positions so that my legs wouldn't get too fatigued. She put pressure on my back during contractions, which helped a lot, and then she taught Dan how to do it so he could help me. She brought in one of those big inflatable exersize balls and put it on the bed, and it was just the right height for me to lean over, rest my arms, head and shoulders on it and rock back and forth during contractions, which I'm sure looked weird, but it helped. Dan was also just amazing. He was very calm and encouraged me and didn't complain at all when I almost broke his fingers squeezing his hand during contractions. These may seem like small things, but they were things that helped me get through each contraction and prepare for the next one.

In terms of the Drug Question, I pretty much went in planning on having an epidural. However, I wanted to see how long I could hold out without one, because I didn't want it to slow my labor down, as I had read that it can do if given too early. The one thing I had counted on to help me with this was the fact that the birthing suites at the hospital have big soaking tubs, and I really wanted to try one to see if it would help ease the pain. Instead, I was in triage, without the option of a tub or an epidural, and I was pretty unhappy about it. At about hour 12 or so I told the charge nurse that they could get me a tub or get me an epidural, but someone needed to get me a better option pronto. I think I was relatively nice about how I said it, given how much pain I was in, but I might have seemed a little crazy, too, because not long after that conversation, we were magically put in a room. Apparently, crazy gets results. Tada!

1:30 p.m.: Once we're in our room, I get straight into the tub. It is wonderful. For the first time in several hours, I feel like I can spare the energy in between contractions to have conversations. It is so much better that the doula and I send Dan out to get some lunch. Before he goes, he gets my i-Pod hooked up to the speakers that we brought, and so I am enjoying some nice music, and really coping pretty well. Unfortunately, I think I basically got into the tub towards the end of the window of time when it would have been helpful. It was really great for about an hour and a half, and I wish I'd had it for the three previous hours as well. But by about 2:30, my contractions had ratcheted up another notch, and while I liked being in the tub, it wasn't really doing much with the pain anymore.

2:30 p.m.: At this point, our nurse, Jen, arrives. She is actually the charge nurse for the entire floor, and while she would normally not have patients, today she does because of the sheer number of women delivering. In spite of the fact that her job is, at this point, insanely stressful, she is very laid back and takes the time to come in and talk with me about how I'm doing. She comes into the bathroom and sits down and we hang out. She says she likes our room because we are playing Norah Jones and are generally pretty chilled out and not screaming at anyone, which is apparently not the case in a few other rooms. I tell her that she's lucky she wasn't talking to me before I got in this tub. We have a good laugh about that, and then I ask if we can talk about an epidural. She asks me if I have any concerns that she can address for me while we're sitting there having our little pow-wow in the bathroom, and I'm telling her about how I am not sure how long I should try to make it without an epidural when I have the most horrible contraction I have had up to this point. I think I'm going to die. I can hardly remember to breath. Dan is back by then, so while I'm trying to survive through this thing, he and Jen continue with the epidural conversation, and I hear them have the following exchange.

Jen: "So tell me this. If you got to ten centimeters without any drugs, would that be a personal victory for you, or would you be pissed?"

Dan: "She would be pissed."

And as the contraction finally starts to fade, I know he is right. I have had it. I have been in pain for 14 hours, I haven't slept in more than 24 hours, and I just feel like if I don't get some relief from that pain, I am going to lose it. So the anesthesiologist is summoned, and I get myself out of the tub. That last part took about an hour. You've seen news footage of beached whales? My bathing suit is black and white, so the effect is similar.

3:30 p.m.: I have got the epidural, and I now think that whoever invented epidurals is a genius. The procedure itself wasn't the most fun, just because it's freaky to have needles put in your back, but once the drugs started kicking in, I feel a great amount of love towards everyone in the room. I may send that anesthesiologist a Christmas card this year. This is the good news. The bad news it that before giving me the epidural, the staff checked my progress, and informed me that for all those hours of difficult labor, I had gained, at best, half a centimeter of progress. There is some discussion of breaking my water, because it hasn't broken on its own yet, and that usually speeds things up. But because I am Group B strep positive, my doctor wants to give the baby the protection of the amniotic fluid as long as possible. This pretty much seals it for me in terms of the epidural. Clearly, I was right all along and this baby is never going to come out, so I am going to need some kind of pain medication for the rest of my life. (I laugh about it now, but at the time, it was actually incredibly discouraging to find out that I had made so little progress. It's hard to describe, but when you're in all that pain, you're slogging through it because you know it's getting you closer to the end. But no one can tell you how long labor will last, and that is the hardest part. In case you were wondering.)

4 p.m. What I need now is some rest, so the doula pulls the blinds in the room and helps me get settled in for a nap. Dan is also offered the opportunity to sleep, but elects, instead, to watch Texas A & M play Fresno State on television. And he was not the only man on the floor making the same decision. While I was having my epidural, Dan had to leave the room, and after he called our parents to give them updates, he wandered the halls a bit and ran into another Aggie whose wife was in labor down the hall. Evidently, she is more committed to the team than I am, because she has her bed draped in a Texas A & M blanket. Dan is telling me this while I am drifting off to sleep. When I wake up, there is a nurse in the room, and she and Dan are standing in front of the television, silently pumping their fists and jumping up and down in reaction to something going on in the game. Our nurse, it turns out, is a Fresno State alum, and she and Dan are rooting against one another in a game that eventually goes into triple overtime. Triple. Overtime. You all know how much I love football. So you can imagine how much I want to view the Game That Never Ended from a hospital bed I physically cannot leave. But at least I have drugs. The Aggies win, and Dan is ecstatic. It's pretty much already the best day of his life, and the baby isn't even here yet.

5:30 p.m.: While the game is going on, my doctor comes back to check me. After the epidural, I've progressed a lot faster, and I'm now at about seven centimeters. Seven! I am elated. And now that I've had all of ten minutes of face time with the doctor, it turns out that her shift is ending, and her colleague will be delivering the baby. Her male colleague, by the way. Fan-tastic.

7:30 p.m.: The last couple of hours have passed pretty quietly, but suddenly I am feeling this strange sensation of pressure. The male doctor comes in to check out our progress. He is very nice in spite of the fact that I am not happy about him being male and all. He also has good news for us -- I am ten centimeters dilated, and it's time to push. Dan and I look at each other, registering the fact that, wow, this is it. We're really going to have a baby soon. I don't know how Dan feels, but for some reason, even though I've been imaging this moment for nine months, I am totally overwhelmed now that it's here. I actually start to shiver, which is probably a combination of the drugs and the adrenaline. Whatever it is, I'm feeling a lot of energy, which is a nice change from before.

During the exam, the doctor also notes that my water has broken, and there is some meconium (medical jargon for "baby poop") in the fluid. It means that the baby will need to have her nose and mouth suctioned out to keep her from inhaling the contaminated fluid into her lungs. This begins Kate's career as a prolific pooper.

8:00 p.m.: The nurse and the doula have gotten the room set up for delivery, and they're helping me push. Pushing is the most exhausting thing I've ever done, but at the same time, I have never felt so motivated to keep going through a strenuous physical activity. I want this to be over. I want to see my baby. I want this more than I have ever wanted anything. And it's a good thing, too, because I'm going to be pushing for an hour and a half. I realize that's not all that long relative to what some women go through, but it feels long to me.

At this point in the delivery process Dan returns to his station to the right of my bed, up by the head, and informs the nurse and doula that this is where he will be hanging out for the rest of the evening unless there is a fire evacuation. This was the strategy he had chosen to insure that his birth plan-specified wish of seeing as little as possible would come true. But on the other side of the labor and delivery process, I now know that people who work full time in the business of delivering babies have seen everything, and they still want to see more babies get born. So to them, the idea that anyone might not want to see every part of the process simply does not compute.

Therefore, as things progress in the delivery room, the nurse and doula have several moments of amnesia where their extensive knowledge of our birth plan leaves them and they feel compelled to offer us the opportunity to change our minds by saying things like "Oh! The baby has dark hair! Do you want to see, dad?" And "Haley, do you want me to get you a mirror so you can see the babies' head?" It was like they couldn't help themselves.

Perhaps to distract them, or perhaps because he's been awake for nearly 40 hours and no longer has a filter between his brain and his mouth, Dan starts commenting on the fact that we're getting closer and closer to delivering a baby and there isn't a doctor in the room. Really, he observes, the nurse and doula should get paid more than the doctor, since they are doing all the work. This plays well with our current audience. They love Dan. They wish Dan was in charge of national health care policy.

9 p.m.: The doctor arrives, summoned by the nurse. He stands at the foot of the bed, observing the proceedings with the look of a man who is watching grass grow. In his defense, an insane number of babies have been born in the hospital today, and he's probably exhausted. But Filter-Free Dan decides that since his "Doctors are Overpaid" routine was popular a few minutes ago, the doc might want to hear it too.

"You look like you see a lot of this," Dan says.
The doctor nods and smiles.
"So really you just show up to catch the babies, huh?" Dan continues.
The doctor nods again. I am getting increasingly nervous about the fact that Dan is heckling the man who is about to oversee the delivery of our child. But I'm a little bit preoccupied, what with the pushing and all, and it's not like I can just take Dan aside for a quiet moment and ask if he is actually out of his mind. So I keep going on with what I'm doing and listen to Dan, Mr. Tact, go ahead and say:
"Yeah, I was saying earlier that really the nurse and the doula should get paid more, since they do all the work!"

Remarkably, the doctor actually handles this well. He agrees with Dan and says that actually, this right here, a normal, straightforward, uncomplicated delivery, is not what he gets paid for. He gets paid for when something goes wrong. And after that refreshing burst of candor, the doctor settles down to conduct our garden variety baby delivery.

9:25 p.m.: We're down to the last few pushes, and suddenly all these people appear in the room. There is an extra nurse waiting to tend to Kate. A neonatologist is there to check Kate out and make sure her lungs are clear, a precaution that's being taken because of the meconium. So that makes seven people, counting the doctor, my nurse, our doula, Dan and myself. And then....

9:29 p.m.: There are eight people in the room. Kate is born, and after they get done suctioning out her mouth and nose, she's crying, and they're holding her up so I can see her. She's beautiful. I can't believe she's here. And the rest is a blur. Dan is on the phone, calling our parents. I can hear them cheering on the other end of the line. The neonatologist and the nurse are checking Kate our and cleaning her off and telling us that she's so pretty, so healthy, so strong. Then they hand her to me, and we look down into her little face. She's quiet now, blinking her eyes, and looking back at Dan and I.

We're parents.