Atticus' Birth Story

The long-awaited -- at least, by me -- written account of my baby boy's birth.  It's longer than I thought.  I wrote the Induction section right afterwards, the part about the c-section next, and the labor section -- well, today.  I noted before things I wanted to be sure to include, but writing it was emotional and difficult -- as was the labor -- and it took me this long to have time and distance to finish it.

It's a long read.  Get comfy.  But, friends and family, it really would mean a lot to me if you would read it.  Labor of love and all.

INDUCTION

Mom, Donny, and I were supposed to be scurrying around like mad on Sunday, February 19^th to clean the apartment and finish making space in the bedroom for the crib.  Donny did some scurrying, but Mom and I watched the new Star Trek movie and ate popcorn instead.  I was having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions and Mom was very glad we were going into the hospital that night. We packed my bags at the last minute, and away we went.

Now, the plan my doctor gave me was that I check into the hospital at 7:00 PM, have the Foley bulb catheter placed into my cervix to help me dilate, take the Cervadil to soften it, and start the Pitocin in the morning. 

The contrast between the plan and reality was almost comedic. 

See, the nurse was going over my chart and made the discovery that I was only 38 weeks and 6 days along.  Regulations require they not do anything do induce, including oral medication or the Foley, until I was at least 39 weeks along.  Therefore, they concluded I would have to wait until midnight to begin. So, we’d get to hang out in the labor and delivery room for about four hours after all the check-in nonsense was done.

This may have been for the best, as my maternal-fetal doctor and I had a miscommunication about my diabetes medicine, and I had taken my long-acting insulin before arriving at the hospital.  This was cause for major concern, and so I was strongly encouraged to eat and eat before midnight.  I did, and by midnight, fortunately, my blood sugar was high enough to proceed.  Throughout the night and next day, my finger was pricked at intervals and my blood sugar stayed in the 80s or so, for the most part, occasionally falling and then being upped through the IV. 

I was placed on “chips and sips” from midnight on.  Ice chips and sips of ice water.  I was grateful for them before long. I never really got hungry until after it was all over.  (And then I was starving and could only have chicken broth and jello.  Best chicken broth of my life. Shout out to Lipton Cup of Soup. I love you, man.)  

My first nurse was very young and very sweet and easy to ask questions and tell my preferences to.  Lots and lots of various people came in and asked me the same questions again and again and again.  Someone from anesthesia, someone associated with my maternal-fetal doctor who would be monitoring the diabetes, and a resident working with my ob/gyn came and introduced herself.  The resident stuck out the most in my mind.  Dark hair.  Young, but very confident.  She would be placing the Foley bulb and watching me through most of the labor, with my ob/gyn’s supervision.  I liked her immediately.  She was calm, confident, and reassuring.  She did have a med student following her, and I was surprised that I didn’t really mind at all. 

Mom and Donny and I were in a good mood during the wait.  I expected at the beginning that it would take forever, in the way that hospital waits tend to.  So, I was amazed when the time just flew by. We told stories and made jokes.  Mom and I played a game of gin. (I won by a large margin.)  The plan was for them to stay until the resident put in the catheter, then they would go home, shower, and get some sleep and return when the Pitocin started.  The Foley catheter had been billed as being “uncomfortable, like a cervical exam” and I had initially been told the Pitocin would start around five or six in the morning. Since I had never really been that uncomfortable with a cervical exam, I was not worried at all.

At 12:00, they began getting ready for the Foley bulb.  The resident came in.  I’d had Benedryl at 11:30, and was feeling pretty relaxed.  A bit nervous, but not much.  She checked my cervix, and I was still dilated to approximately one centimeter and was, maybe, 25% effaced.  Much as I liked the resident, her cervical check hurt so much more than the ones I am used to from my ob/gyn.  And then she began to place the Foley. 

It hurt.  It hurt a lot.  So much more than I expected.  Sharp and intense and lasted too long.  Brought tears to my eyes, brought on instructions from my mother to breathe deeply and focus.  I did, it was hard, but I managed.  I stared up and to the right at the ceiling and tried to count dots on the tiles and tried to take myself away from the pain that was so unexpected.

Then it was over and the med student was filling the bulb with saline water and I was so glad it was done, so very glad.  I was uncomfortable, but it was done.

And then we all heard a loud “POP!” coming from inside of me.  

I was startled at first, but then I knew.  Before they told me. 

The balloon at the end of the catheter had popped, and they were going to have to take it out and place another one.  This took everyone by surprise, as no one had actually seen that happen before, though they’d heard of it.

Oh, and, also, the resident told me, by the way, they had accidentally broken my water.  So, the clock started ticking as far as they were concerned about wanting him to be born in 24 hours or by Caesarian.  I was not really concerned with the clock.  I fully expected him to be born before that, or to be so close to it that there’d be no real problem convincing them to let me finish myself.

Everyone, particularly the resident, was SO apologetic about having to do the Foley procedure again.  I accepted the apologies as almost unnecessary – as far as I was concerned it was no one’s fault, just an accident.  So, I made Donny’s usual joke when something breaks about how it must have been made on a Friday. And breathed and tried to relax throughout the second insertion. 

It hurt to put it in.  Okay.  I expected that, this time.

I did not expect it would hurt so much to HAVE it in.  It turned out that between having the bulb in place and having my water broken, and maybe the medicine they’d given me to soften my cervix, my uterus was irritated into starting some very hard contractions, coming one after the other with no chance to really recover.  There was no real relief in between contractions, just slight lessening of continuous pain. 

I was scared and hurting, but I tried to calm myself.  I asked Donny if he would take my mom home and if he could maybe get a little sleep and come back soon. 

Apparently, Donny and my mom did a lot of bonding during labor.  Donny told me later that he and my mom pretty much looked at each other during the first few minutes after the Foley bulb was put in place and quickly confirmed with each other that neither one of them was going home.  I tried to object, trying to believe that it would hurt less soon, but I really couldn’t object too much.  I was so scared and hurting and did not want to be alone.  And I knew that nothing I could say would convince him, anyhow.  He had brought along two of my stuffed tigers from home, and gave me the oldest of them – Tiger, the first one he ever gave me, the one I slept with while he was living in North Dakota and I was in Kansas.

Mom brushed my hair several times during labor in between contractions, starting here.  So comforting and helpful.  I hated having my hair brushed as a child, but as an adult it was perfect and nurturing and lovely.  Donny held my hand.  I breathed through it and began to wonder what I was in for the rest of the labor – would it all be like this?  “Mom, I don’t like this!  I don’t want this!” and “I don’t know if I can do this naturally.  Forget natural childbirth. Damn hippies!” were statements made in this time frame.  My mother – big advocate for natural childbirth – laughed so hard at that last one.  She was seriously tickled. 

An hour later, the nurse pulled at the bulb to see if it would move and to help me dilate faster.  She pulled with apologies but also with aggression.  I remember I whimpered, and I suspect I cried.  However, she told me she could feel it move, and this was a good thing.  That comforted me.  We were getting somewhere, and that helped.  When she was done, I felt ridiculously nauseated from the pain and came very close to throwing up.  Suddenly, being allowed to eat up until midnight did not seem like such a good thing.

Another hour later, she came back for another pull.  I braced myself, and just as the pain was escalating to its worst – the Foley bulb was OUT.  The relief was enormous and immediate.  I was still very tender and sore, but NOTHING like before.  I wondered if it was a preview of what it would be like to push out my baby boy. 

They checked my cervix.  I was expecting 3-4 cm, which is generally what is required for the bulb to come out.

Two centimeters.  And my cervix effaced to 50%.

I was less disappointed than you might think.  This is how these things start, I figured.  And it felt so, so, so good to be without the Foley.  They gave me an Ambien and I slept solidly for a good hour and a half. I woke up at 4:30.

~~~

To the sound of a nurse announcing it was time to start the Pitocin. 

Wait, what?  I thought we were starting that around 5 or 6:00 AM.  I wanted to go back to sleep! 

It was not to be. 

They started the pit at the very lowest dose and began the ritual of cranking it up every 15-30 minutes.  Contractions started pretty quickly, but they were mild.  Still, enough that I couldn’t sleep.  Talked with mom, talked with Donny, talked with the nurse, and waited for Atticus.

At the same time that the Pitocin started, they put a fetal monitor on my belly.  I was hooked to an IV and to a fetal monitor.  Someone called out that the baby’s heartbeat was 150  bpm, and that became the background sound for the next 20 hours.  Beating along steadily, speeding up a bit before contractions, then back to 150, never slowing down.  Mom said whenever she got worried, she’d listen to that steady sound and feel reassured. 

Around 6:00 AM, one of our pastors came to visit – the one who had done our premarital counseling.  We chatted and laughed, and I quietly breathed through the contractions that were starting to get harder and firmer and more real.  We talked about first communion and baptism and what we were looking forward to.  We chatted about inconsequential things, too, and then we all held hands and pastor prayed in a heartfelt way that really touched me.  Mostly what I remember of it is that he talked about God being everywhere as comfort, and that God was certainly present in labor and childbirth as well. 

And then the Pitocin and I quickly got down to business.

LABOR

Audrey was the nurse who was with me through the bulk of my labor.  She was a large woman, older, and incredibly caring and personable.  She was so validating throughout.  She used to teach Lamaze, and so was very supportive of me trying to do it naturally – and at the same time made it clear that she’d be very supportive if I wanted pain relief, that she was there to follow my lead.  I love her. 

(My mom loves her a bit less, on account of her tendency to tell me when she was going to jack up the Pitocin.  I never really thought about it, but Mom knows me and that, while I can handle things as they happen, I struggle with anxiety when I anticipate things.)

Being hooked up to the fetal monitor and the IV made things difficult as far as doing all those things they tell you are helpful in labor.  Which is not to say I didn’t try or that I wasn’t supported in trying.  Logistics were just difficult.   They got me some slipper-sock thingies with skids on them, which was good, as I was dripping everywhere.  Getting up to walk to the bathroom was quite the production.  Someone had to unplug everything, help me up, drape the various cords over my shoulders so they didn’t tangle in the wheels of my IV stand, and help me get the IV stand over the little bump between the labor room and the bathroom.  I didn’t much like walking, anyhow.  They also got me a birth ball.  I liked the birth ball.  However, they didn’t much like the birth ball, as whenever I slumped over against the bed, the fetal monitor quit working.  So, they asked me to sit up between contractions, when all I wanted to do was to lean my forehead against the bed and rest.  It became pretty clear pretty quickly that this was not going to work. 

It was scary, at times.  As much as I’d tried to prepare mentally for it, as much as I know about radical acceptance of pain and deep, abdominal breathing, when the pains would hit, it was hard not to panic.  Donny, in spite of doing reading ahead of time, seemed to feel a bit out of his depth.  So my mother took the lead in coaching me to breathe.  It helped when I realized that the contractions really were like waves, that they did have a clear climax and got better from there.  Something to hold onto, which I didn’t have when I was in so much pain at the beginning with the Foley bulb catheter.  From the birthing ball, they transferred me to the bed.  They raised the head of the bed and lowered the foot, so it was like sitting in a giant chair, and had me sit in the position I had been on the birthing ball.  And, for a time, I labored the way I’d imagined.  I just became very quiet, and very inward, and focused.  I’d hear my baby’s heartbeat increase and know it was coming, and I’d look to my mom or the nurse or Donny for help remembering to breathe. 

The contractions came in levels.  It was like, I’d learn to master one level and get used to talking myself through one level, and then they’d increase, and I’d have to talk myself through this new level of intensity and pain. 

Eventually, at around 1:30 PM, I’d guess, it was time for a cervical exam.  I had been working so hard, and feeling so good about my labor, and I was just sure, just SURE that I must have been making progress.  Everything was increasing so, and I was feeling mostly calm, and it had been going on for so long. 

Three centimeters. 

I was so, so disappointed.  Crushingly disappointed.  I’d been working SO HARD. 

I cried, I wept.  Donny and Mom tried to calm me, and I let them know I just needed to cry for awhile.  They let me, for a bit, and then Mom came back and helped me calm down. 

The good thing, the one thing that helped, was that Audrey told me she could feel his head and showed me where his head was.  It was SO CLOSE.  He was wanting to come out, just waiting until I was ready.  My brave boy, with the steadily beating drum of a heart.  Just waiting calmly, wanting to be with me.

Anyhow.  At that point, I decided I needed a break.  If I’d been making any progress at all, I would have skipped it, but I just needed to rest.  I thought maybe if I could get a break from the pain and the worry, maybe things would speed up.  So, I asked for IV medication.

“When is it going to start wor – woah.”  Everything got all fuzzy. 

Apparently I slept.  I have no memory of sleeping.  I woke from some really weird dreams that were dark and yet involved My Little Ponies and The Babysitters Club.  It felt like no time at all had passed.  Everything was fuzzy.  “You look funny,” I said to Mom and Donny, and Mom replied, “Well, we’re funny people” and burst out laughing and they both started laughing and couldn’t stop.  I kept going, “NO, I didn’t mean it bad! I didn’t mean it like that!” until mom finally reassured me she knew what I meant.  They were a little punchy.  Like I said, Mom and Donny did a lot of bonding over this whole ordeal. 

Anyhow, in my head when I woke was the idea that I’d just gotten the shot a couple of minutes ago, and was getting a break soon.  So it was terribly disorienting to me when the contractions kept getting stronger and my break was over and I hadn’t had any kind of chance to enjoy it.  I was bitterly disappointed when I realized that I wasn’t GOING to have a break – I’d already HAD the break.  And missed it.

Sometime around when I had the IV medication, they had asked to put in a uterine monitor.  Not the kind that goes in the baby’s head, but just something to directly measure the contractions.  This meant no more walking to be sure it didn’t slip out, but I was okay with that, as walking with all my encumbrances hadn’t been particularly relaxing. 

The good news on waking from the IV-induced dream state was that the doctor and nurse had decided to halve the Pitocin on the theory that if my uterus was less stimulated, it might contract more strongly on its own.  Unfortunately, they did not KEEP the Pitocin at half for reasons I still do not understand.  But that reality kicked in later.  I was so happy with that decision.

“Are they getting stronger?” I asked.

“Do they feel stronger?” the nurse replied. 

They did.  They felt much stronger.  And gaining strength.  And it helped me to think that it was MY body doing this, not just the Pitocin.  And they seemed adequate according to the nurse.  Which was good, on the one hand, in that my body was responding.  It was problematic, on the other, in that I was not dilating in spite of this.  There were some rumbles of c-section as this might mean the baby’s head was too big or something else that was causing my body to ignore the contractions.  But that point didn’t really register with me.

So.  More labor.  And, I felt more courageous from the fact that this was MY body.  Donny helped me more with the breathing for the next couple of hours.  Eventually, it registered that the Pitocin was going up, too, and the contractions weren’t just hard but coming together so much faster.  There was less time to recover from one when another would come.  But, despite how hard they were, I was so hopeful.  I was working so hard.  Surely, surely, surely we were getting somewhere. 

At three o’clock, Audrey’s shift was coming to an end.  She checked my cervix.  I awaited the results hopefully. 

“Four centimeters,” she said.  She tried to make it sound like I’d progressed, but I knew I hadn’t.  I also had a feeling she was being generous with that measurement for my sake. 

If I’d been progressing, if I’d been at five or six centimeters, I would have kept going.  But no progress.  And I just decided.  “I want the block,” I told her.  I knew it was time.  Not only was I exhausted, but I was becoming afraid.  If it hurt and was so hard now, what would it be like later?  And I knew that fear could not help me.  And I wanted so badly for a vaginal birth, and it just seemed to me like getting the epidural was my best chance of that, because I just couldn’t be calm in the face of who knew how much more pain lasting who knew how many more hours.  And everything I’d read said fear is a major factor in slowing labor.  So it was time.  Fifteen hours or so.  I had exhausted everything I had. 

I was less emotionally upset about it than I was at the last cervical check, more accepting.  All the same, everyone wanted to validate me, make sure I felt good about what I’d decided.  Donny and Mom told me later how incredibly relieved they were about my decision.  Mom came over and told me I’d done well.  She also told me that, yes, it was true she’d labored naturally with me after being induced for 25 hours – but, please remember, she was four weeks overdue, whereas I was a week early, and further, she was SURE by this point she’d been making more progress.  Audrey called my doctor, and then came over and told me, “Dr. H says she’s glad you’re doing something to make yourself more comfortable, you’ve been on her mind today.  And she says to tell you not to feel bad about it, you’re doing great.”  And Audrey told me I’d done really well.  “Really?” I asked.  “Yes.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen someone labor this long without the block.”  And that helped.  It really did.  Helped me feel I’d done what I could, but it was time to change tactics. 

The new nurse was younger.  She came in around the time the epidural crew came in. 

Now, the epidural was a different kind of scary.  I was scared of something happening to my back, etc. Also, I had to sit forward and hold perfectly still through my contractions while they were putting it in.  And the contractions were still coming hard and fast, and my will to labor well through them had sagged a bit since I’d decided to have the spinal block.  They told me that either Mom or Donny would help to hold me still.  I asked for Donny.  So, I sat on the edge of the bed, and he sat in front of me, holding me, coaching me.  I just watched him and breathed and felt so close to him.  My husband, my baby’s father, holding me through this pain and fear. 

So, in went the spinal block, and the pain began to recede gradually.  It was really strange for awhile, because gravity has something to do with where the block goes.  Since I initially laid on my right side, the pain on the right began to recede quickly, but the pain on the left stayed longer.  They rolled me to my left side, later, and the pain their receded.  The rest of labor was punctuated by people pressing me with little thumbtack thingies and asking me if I could feel it. 

New nurse on duty, much younger.  I learned from her, pretty quickly, that 1) all the nurses knew about me, and 2) I had the reputation of being an absolute sweetheart.  Here is what I learned about myself in labor:  I become extremely, unfailingly, absolutely polite to everyone around me.  I was constantly thanking people for even the smallest things.  Other than the “damn hippies” comment at the beginning, I never cursed.  My favorite exclamation was “uffda.” 

(Sidenote:  Since my labor, that stereotypical comedy schtick of the crazy angry woman in labor has really rubbed me the wrong way.  My experience was utterly opposite of that.) 

Anyhow, the new nurse was looking over the monitors and – I don’t know what – something was happening?  I think the word de-escalation was used?  And, so, they decided to give me oxygen and more fluids.  So, the rest of this occurred with an oxygen mask over my face, unless I removed it to talk to someone. 

Anyhow, a lady came in and asked if it was okay for one, just one, nursing student to come in and watch the rest of this.  I agreed to it. 

Things were much quieter at this point.  I was trying to rest and sleep, and felt really grateful for the disappearing pain.  I listened to my nurse talk to the student.  Then the nurse started to do some deskwork at the computer beside my bed.

She was chewing gum.

I remember that part so clearly.

In my head, “All this and a gum chewer, too?” 

Fortunately, I had brought earplugs with me.  I’m not sure if my unfailing politeness would have survived otherwise. 

The resident came in to check me.  The easiest cervical exam yet, thank you, spinal block.  And, it turned out, that the reason they thought my contractions were getting less strong was that my uterus had pushed out the uterine monitor. 

The resident told me this.  At first I was so happy, “Oh, good.  My contractions are still adequate.  Good.  ‘Adequate’ must be a good thing.”  And I basically said, “Oh, good.”  And then I saw a pained, dreading look creep into her eyes.  And I knew before she told me.  I remembered.  That adequate contractions with no progress meant c-section.  They were going to let me continue to labor for another hour or so, but if there was still no progress, they would be doing the c-section, she told me. 

I looked her in the eye and thanked her in a wobbly voice.

And as soon as she turned away, I began to weep. And sob.  And mourn.  I had worked so hard, so hard to keep that from happening.  It was the thing I had wanted to avoid from the very beginning, and now it was happening.  All those hours of pain and work for nothing.  I just let myself go.  I couldn’t hold it in, I couldn’t even try. 

The room was full of people at that point.  The nurse, her student, the resident, I think one of the diabetes experts, mom, Donny.  Fortunately, they all left me alone.  Mom told me later that she heard someone ask about me, and she heard someone answer that I had just found out about the c-section, and “they all cry.” 

For good reason. 

Eventually, I cried myself out.  Donny and Mom tried to calm me.  Donny gave me Tiger to hold, and I clung to him, and tried to rest for the next hour, hoping against hope that I would progress.  So, I began to try to sleep.

In church the day before, I had looked up in my hymnal the words to the third verse of my favorite hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”  I began to run those words in my head to help myself sleep, all three verses, but in particular the phrase “strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow.”  I just recited the hymn to myself over and over again, “All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided,” until I fell asleep.  As I woke, I remembered a conversation I’d had with a friend the day before.  “The worst case scenario isn’t a c-section,” I’d told her.  “The worst case is shoulder dystocia – having to have the baby pushed back in and have a c-section if his shoulders are too big to come out.”  And I was just filled with peace when I woke up.  I decided that if my body was not going to dilate, that it meant that my body was protecting me from the worst case scenario, and I just had faith that it would be okay.  C-section or vaginal birth, what was happening was what was supposed to happen. 

The resident actually gave me nearly two hours.  When she returned, no progress, she announced I was still at four centimeters. 

And I think they were expecting an emotional reaction from me, but I accepted it really calmly.  I mean, truly, I felt completely okay with it.  My grief and fear had drained, and I was ready to have my baby. 

DELIVERY

Some hospital people came up to me at this point and asked me to tell them, “What does a c-section mean to you?”  I was completely confused and unnerved by this question.  As a counselor, “What does X mean to you?” is a question asking about emotional aspects of things.  So, part of me tried to compose an answer along those lines, based on my new acceptance of it.  Meanwhile, another part of me knew they couldn’t be trying to do therapy with me and was so confused about why they were asking.  Finally it dawned on me that they wanted to get my informed consent about it.  So, I scrapped the emotional answer and replied, “You’re going to open me up and take the baby out.”  “Good enough,” they said, and disappeared, leaving me a bit amused. 

The anesthesiologist got busy poking me higher on my body with the sharp thingy and asking me what I felt.  Bernadette, the nurse, was bustling around.  Donny was holding onto blue surgical scrubs and calling his mother to tell her what was happening, and someone told him that he’d better get off the phone and get the scrubs and mask, because we were leaving for the OR now.  I remember someone joking about the baby seeing his dad for the first time and having to realize, “My father’s a smurf!”  I called my Mom, who had left to try to get a shower when I was asleep and when she realized that they were probably going to do a c-section.  They’d been told that only one of them could be in the OR with me, and decided that it would be Donny unless I requested otherwise.  Anyhow, I called her.  Yeah.  My family.  She’d gotten lost.  No shower.  So, I gave her directions back to the hospital. 

Everything takes so long in hospitals.  So, it was unreal to me that they’d gotten an operating room so quickly.  Yet, before I knew it, I was being wheeled there under fluorescent lights.  I had done my mourning and made my peace with the operation earlier, and so was mostly feeling anticipation and excitement.  And some fear, but nothing terrible.  When it would come, I would run the words of my hymn through my head. 

On my way to the operating room, someone told me that Audrey had called to check on me and was wishing me well for the operation. 

The operating room was bright.  They were talking to my doctor, and she was going to be there in about ten minutes.  They moved me to the operating table, which was scary in itself because I couldn’t do anything to steady myself or feel my body.  I was to stretch my arms out to either side of me.  I had a fleeting picture in my head of the execution scene in Dead Man Walking, and a quick thought of how when I’d watched it, it had reminded me of the crucifixion.  And my hands started shaking violently.

“It’s normal,” they told me.  All the emotions and the hormones and the lack of food and everything.  It’s normal to shake like that.  The doctor promised that it wouldn’t cause a problem with the surgery as long as I stayed on the table.  But it bothered me.  My hands started to hurt, I was shaking so violently.  So, the nurse – my last nurse of the day, another new one – put medicine in my IV to stop it.  Dr. Hild arrived, greeted me cheerfully, and everything was beginning.  I was tense and still shaking, medicine or no. 

The nurse told me, then, that these were going to be the last few minutes I’d ever be pregnant with my baby, and I should focus on that, on how it felt to have him in me for the last time. 

Donny was right beside me, and I said to him, “Remember when we first found out?” And we talked about how I hadn’t been sure there were two lines and woke him up shoving a pregnancy test in his face and made him get out of bed and look at the pregnancy test because the line was so faint and I just didn’t believe my eyes.  We talked about the first time we’d seen our baby’s heart beating.  We talked about the first time he’d kicked me, and Donny, and the cat.  Finding out he was a boy.  And it helped for a time.  My hands relaxed and stopped shaking.  But, then, the emotion overwhelmed me and they started again. 

And Donny did the most brilliant thing ever.

“Just name your state capitals, hon,” he instructed.

I’d just been naming state capitals over the week before to help clear my mind and go to sleep.  I name them in semi-alphabetical order.  So I began.  And all the nurses and doctors joined in, questioning, arguing, “Are you sure the capital of Nevada is Carson City?” and helping, giving hints when they knew.  All the advanced degrees in that room, and no one could think of the capital of New Hampshire.  We might have stayed there all night except one resident looked it up on his phone (Concord).  (He also helped me out with Jefferson City, capital of Missouri). 

We got through Vermont (Montpelier) and then they told me I was going to feel some aggressive tugging.  I don’t remember what it felt like, I don’t remember really anything about that time.  Donny remembers I said, “Oh, yes, there it is,” and they told Donny to stand up if he wanted to see the baby come out.  And he stood, and someone said, “there he is!” and someone else yelled out “Fifty-six!” (the time) and I asked Donny, “Can you see him? Can you see him?” and he said he could.  And I heard a baby yelling, sounding so tired and angry and confused. 

And then they held him up above the sheet for just a second for me to see. 

And I am crying now, remembering that moment.  “He’s so beautiful,” I said.  And it’s not so much that I thought he was beautiful in the way I would a few minutes later, looking at him all wiped off and near me.  He was red and covered in blood, and had a little bit of a cone head.  And he was a baby.  My baby.  My baby, whole, a whole new person that had come from me, after all those hours, and he was beautiful. 

And he sounded so angry!  He was crying furiously, sounding so angry and confused and I wanted to comfort him so badly.  They brought him over where I could see him to weigh him.  “Hi Atticus, hi!  Oh, my baby, oh Atticus, it’s okay.  I know you, baby, I know you! It’s okay, Atticus, it’s okay!” and he started to calm down as I talked to him.  “Can Donny touch him?” I asked, and they said he could.  “Touch him.” I instructed, and Donny gently put his hands on our baby, stroking his chest, looking so proud and awed and a little scared.  “Give him your finger to hold,” I said to Donny, and he did.  And Atticus stopped crying a second after he had Donny’s finger in his hand and didn’t start again until over an hour later when he had his first bath. He was so calm and alert from that point on.  Nine and nine, they told us, were the Apgars.  And they gave him to Donny to hold, and a nurse was taking pictures with Donny’s camera, and he held the baby beside me as they were sewing me up.  And I was completely unaware of anything else.  He was more beautiful than I could have dreamed.  I loved him so much, so completely.  I had worried about a c-section that I wouldn’t have the instant love hormones and bonding feeling, but there was no reason to worry.  I was overwhelmed with love.  And the previous twenty hours quit mattering, they just didn’t matter at all.  I sang to him, a couple of songs I used to sing to him in the car and the shower. 

Eventually, it was time to take me back to the LDR room.  They put the baby in my arms for the first time, and he was so light, so little, so amazing.  They asked who I wanted in the room, as my aunts from ND had arrived.  “Mom and Donny,” I said.  I wanted Mom to see him first, and a chance to bond before my aunts came in.  Mom says she remembers being so worn out and having seen me go through so much that day, and then they wheeled me in, and I said to her, “Oh, Mom, he’s so beautiful!” just like nothing had happened. 

Mom and Donny got on the phone right away, and I let in my aunts.  They asked if I wanted skin to skin bonding, and I did.  My poor confused amazing strong baby.  On my chest, and I expressed some colostrum for him and encouraged him to try breastfeeding.  He was interested, alert, and the nurses were very encouraging.  I stroked his cheek and talked to him and put some colostrum on his mouth and watched his kitten tongue and dark blue eyes and felt awkward holding him and nervous to position him and tired and amazed. 

Eventually, it ended, and I was ready to let him have his first bath and all the routine procedures. 

I held him again as I was wheeled to my hospital room for the night.  I remember, as we were leaving the dim labor room for the hallway, seeing how the florescent hallway light was so bright and he was shrinking away and I realized it was my responsibility to shade his eyes.  I could help my baby, I could protect him this way.  He was so little and new, and I was sort of shyly proud of myself for realizing I should do this. 

And so our new family’s life began.