Labor and Deliverance

I was lying in bed...

Counting the minutes...

But I didn't hurt.

So, I wasn't in labor.

I couldn't be.

I mean, labor hurts.

A lot.

I mean, A LOT.

I poked (according to him, aggressively) my snoring huzzybund, and said,

"Hey, they are three minutes apart, should we call the doctor??"

"Okay."

"...you call the doctor..."

"Dara...YOU need to call the doctor if you are in labor."

I hate it when he makes me take responsibility. I could seriously just hide behind him for the rest of my life and whisper what I want to have done in his ear and be happy.

So I called the doctor.

"Hello, we are closed. If this is an emergency ("Is this an emergency?" I thought. When you cut your finger off you KNOW it's an emergency. False labor is just embarrassing.), please call the on-call doctor at..."

So I called Dr. On-Call, and I got this message:

"Hello, we are closed. If this is an emergency ("No, this is just annoying..."), please call the following number..."

So I called the following number. Which is stupid, since shouldn't the On-Call doctor pick up???

"Hello, we are closed. If this is an emergency ("I would be dead by now..."), please go to the hospital. Thank you."

Jeremy had fallen asleep again by this time.

"Jeremy, they said to go to the hospital."

Jeremy rolled over in bed, slinkied on to the floor, and then pulled himself across the carpet into the bathroom and crawled into his pants. He lay there for a moment.

"I can drive myself if you don't want to," I said meekly. "I mean, it's probably false labor anyway..."

Jeremy gave me the look, and proceeded to primp himself, while I futilely tried to make my hair lie flat on my head and sighed at the dark circles under my eyes.

My contractions were still coming on every 3 minutes or so, but they didn't hurt HURT, if you know what I mean. I felt like I was justified in waking everybody in the world up, and wasting the hospital's money.

We hopped in the car, and I tried not to throw up (no, it wasn't labor, or Jeremy's driving...apparently something went really wrong with my meatloaf...).

Arrival at the hospital when you are only 66% sure you are in labor causes one to feel slightly shy about walking into the labor and delivery section of the hospital. It's almost like the feeling you get when you are taking a test on a subject that you are only okay at, and are pretty sure you are going to bomb it, but you do it anyway because, well, you have to, and by golly, you're bound to get SOME of it right.

It was midnight when we showed up, and the nurses seemed extra glib. Or maybe I was just nervous, and thought they could, with their nurse x-ray vision, see that I really wasn't in labor...

And I am sure it didn't help that they were asking Jeremy questions to which he didn't know the answers, and I COULDN'T answer during contractions. We must have looked highly suspect.

"Date of birth?"

"Uh...gosh that's a hard one."

If I could have, I would have kicked him, but I was afraid of my water breaking in the lobby.

When I could breath, I felt it necessary to validate my being there.

"Yeah, I've been having contractions for, like, the last 8 hours, and I've been timing them for the last three, and they are 3-5 minutes apart...so there..."

The nurse was extra happy, and bored, I guess, because she laughed at us (not with us, mind you), and waved us on through so I could be "checked."

I'll spare you.

Except to say that I was a 4, and they were pretty sure I wasn't going anywhere that night except into a room to have a baby.

In 45 minutes time, I progressed to a 5, and then waddled down to my room, and they hooked me up to all sorts of machines, put in IVs (and made quite a mess of it, if I do say so myself), got an epidural (and boy was he FAST...it was like he was trying to beat his personal best at how quickly he could insert the 14 foot needle into his victims' backs...poor Jeremy had to walk away while he did this...give Jeremy bloody hamburger-like child, no problem. Give Jeremy cut up wife hand, no problem. Give Jeremy giant needle being poked into wife's back, and he goes a little green...we all have our limits.), turned on all sorts of monitors and then turned off the lights, and told me to go to sleep.

Yeah.

Like that was going to happen.

I lay there for 7 hours watching my baby's heartbeat bounce up and down to the rhythm of my contractions that were getting lazier as the hours marched on.

Body: Okay, Uterus, contract!

Uterus: Uh...no...well, I'll give you a little one, just for consistency's sake.

After this went on for 7 hours, the nurse got impatient, and informed the doctor right before her shift ended that, in her opinion, they really should break my water, for heaven's sake.

And that's what they did. Plus give me lots of pitocin (which is still pooling in my legs and I am anxiously awaiting the day when I don't have Cankles anymore).

That sped things up, and after 30 minutes everything was set in motion, and I was commanded to push, and let me tell you, floppy epidural body is almost useless at pushing. I felt like I was failing miserably. I mean, gosh, I should be good at this by now! (I have to be honest though...I didn't want to, you know...poo...on the table...but once I let go of that ambition, things went along more smoothly. Sometimes you have to sacrifice dignity and self-respect for the greater good...)

And then, suddenly, I was in love again, and they took my screaming, white banshee to be given the once over, and, once done, they plopped my gooey blob into my arms and I couldn't help but think she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Because she is (and 3 others are) the most beautiful thing(s) I have ever seen.

I could seriously sit and just watch her all day long, and lucky for me, the human body takes time to recover from that sort of experience, and that's all I really can do. God was smart to make it that way.