My Son's Birth Story

I did it for my daughter, and now I have to record my son's birth story, before I forget...

On December 10, 2008, I was getting my daughter ready for daycare. I was due to give birth in a week, and while my daughter didn't go to daycare every day, she did go fairly often: on days when I had doctor's appointments (which, since I was a gestational diabetic, meant I went to the doctor 3 days a week).

I had just squatted down to pick her up and put her in the car when I heard a pop and felt fluid in my underwear. "Hmm," I remember thinking. "Did I just have an accident, or did my water just break?"

I was praying that I had peed my pants. See, it was my husband's and my anniversary, and we had decided to spring for a sitter - a rare treat. It was going to be our last date night before the baby was born and our lives spun out of control for a little bit.

I called my mom to ask her, but she didn't answer the phone, so I didn't think much of it. I took my daughter to school, I came home, showered, and picked up the house. I wasn't feeling any contractions, but still -- that rush of fluid was on the back of my mind, worrying me. So I called my husband, told him my water might have broken, and drove myself to the hospital.

The nurse checked me and and swabbed at my, um, nether regions with a little strip to test for amniotic fluid. If my water had broken, she said, the strip would turn blue. If not, they would send me on my way. When I pointed out I wasn't feeling any contractions, she just laughed and said, "Honey, we can start those right up for you."

The strip turned navy.

Then nurse laughed again when I asked if they could start the contractions tomorrow. After all, it was date night. "No," she said, hooking me up to an IV. "You're having a baby today."

I called my husband, told him my water definitely had broken and that he needed to leave work and come to the hospital. While I waited for him, I pulled out my schoolwork and tried to read. Oh, did I mention that I was in my MA program at the time? And it was finals week?

My husband showed up and asked if I would mind if he took a nap. Since we were both expecting the 36 hour ordeal we had with our daughter, I said sure.

The contraction-starter-medicine kicked in, and it kicked in HARD. Within two hours, I was writhing in the bed, whimpering in pain. My husband was napping in the cot they had provided him. I threw my book at him to wake him up; if I was hurting, then damn it, he was going to witness it.

The contraction monitor was shooting over a 100. A nurse came in to reset it and commented that I seemed a tad "uncomfortable."

"You think?" I snarled back.

"Do you want me to call the anesthesiologist?" she asked, patting my hand.

"No," I said, at the same time my husband said "Yes."

The nurse looked at me and then at my husband and then back at me. "Why not?" she asked.

"I want to try to do this without medication," I said. "I want the epidural, just not yet. I want to feel it, to know that I tried..." I would have gone on, but right then I was hit by a contraction so hard my body jack knifed like I was the little girl in the Exorcist.

To the nurse's credit, she didn't roll her eyes at me. "And now you've felt it," she said. "And it hurts. You are at 6 cm. It's only going to get worse."

"I know, but..." I whimpered.

"We don't give you a medal when you check out, you know," she said in a no-nonsense tone. "We give you a baby. And you need to be rested so you can take care of it."

I agreed to the epidural.

[To those of you out there who firmly believe medication only has a place in a birthing room for extreme cases: Good for you. I'm happy that is the choice you made. This was the choice I made. The nurse was right; I needed my rest, not to reenact the Exorcist. And they didn't give me a medal. They gave me a newborn baby boy with colic. I'm grateful for the epidural because it allowed me to take a nap - the last nap I got for over a year. So please, no comments on my decision for an epidural or the nurse offering me one.]

And then I went to sleep for five hours.

The nurse came in at seven, checked on me, and said, "Wow, you are ready to go! Shift change is here, though, so we are just going to let you hold tight; the night nurse is going to help with your delivery."

"Wait," my husband said. "If she's ready to go, shouldn't we be pushing NOW?"

"No, it's fine," the nurse said, backing out of the door. It was obvious she was trying to get away...I hope she had really important plans. More important than my having a baby.

So we were left to our own devices for about on hour. An hour that I spent shaking with adrenaline.

To be fair to the night nurse, she was great. She walked in right at 8 and said, "So, we're having a baby in about five minutes, huh?"

She got everything all set up and then said, "Okay, Shannon, I'm going to have you do a couple practice pushes with me, so we can see if we have to turn off the epidural before we call the doctor in. Push on one... two... thr-- STOP!"

"What?" I asked frantically, as my husband started to laugh. "What's wrong?"

"The baby's crowning," my husband told me, kissing my forehead. "They had you wait too long."

The nurse ran for the doctor, who came in 30 seconds later, positioned himself at the end of the bed and nodded. My son was born three pushes later. He literally just slid out. (I know. I hate women who say that too. But after an hour of waiting... well, he was ready.)

They didn't give him to me right away. Everything was hazy, and I remember thinking that was odd, so when I looked down, my heart stopped. Boyo was blue. Not your normal, baby hasn't pinked up yet blue, he was umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck, around each limb, and around his stomach blue. The doctor studied the knot my son had tied himself in and started twisting and turning the baby until he wasn't blue anymore. He was red. And screaming. And pissed. And it was beautiful.

I should also mention that because he had been slamming against my cervix for so long, he had a second head. Not a conehead, like most vaginal births, he had a perfectly round bump at the top of his head, about two inches wide and half an inch thick. It looked like he was a mad scientist.

"That's perfectly normal," the doctor said, reassuringly. At least, it would have been reassuringly if he wasn't pressing on the bump, trying to make it go back down.

Throughout all of this, I was focusing on my boy. I'll admit it, I was apprehensive. Yes, I know that I all ready had a baby at home. You would have thought that I was used to this. But I was scared of him. Why? Because he was a boy. I didn't know what to do with a boy. He was the first boy in my family in 40 years. And yes, you would have thought that in the 18 or so weeks I knew I was carrying a boy, that I would have gotten used to the idea. I didn't. (I'm mildly ashamed to admit that I was hoping the ultrasound was wrong, and that he would really be a girl. I know. I know. I had an ultrasound every week for the last 6 weeks because of the diabetes, but I was still clinging to that last ray of hope. I'm a horrible mother.)

So I was focusing on my boy, and getting more and more nervous. And then the nurse finished his bath, wrapped him in his blanket, and put him in my arms. And when Boyo looked at me, I caught my breathe, I couldn't help it. He had this very serious, old man look in his eyes (which was aided by the mad scientist head bump), and he just stared at me as if to say: You're going to be fine.

And that was it; I was sunk. I started falling in love with him at that moment, and I haven't stopped (I will admit, though, some days I fall in love with him faster than others. Like the six months he had colic. I loved him, but man, it was a painful process. But isn't that true of any parent who has a child with colic?)

My son was born December 10, 2008 at 8:07 pm after 9 hours of labor. He weighted 7 lbs, 12 oz and was 19 in long. And he has gone from this:


to this: