0800 Text message Channing to Jacob 'you need to call me'
0805 Phone conversation 'Honey, I think I might be leaking'
1000 36 ID Special Troops Battalion HQ: "Sir, I might not be coming in tomorrow"
1800 I finish the latest version of the Battalion's Access Roster
1900-2130 Pizza & Biggest Loser Finale at home...Jacob looks up contraction timer app
2200 Back Massage for soon to be Momma & a discussion of 'what we need to do to get ready for the baby because it might be soon'
2230 Channing: "Ow! What did he just do?! Honey, I need you to help me sit up and get to the bathroom right now...scurry...My water definitely just broke."
2230:00 "Ow! Um...I think I'm contracting" Jacob finds the 'Baby Bag List' and starts packing, while starting the contractor timer app
2230:45 "Ok, I think it's over"
2233:00 'Ow! Here's another one, but honey, I signed up for a June baby!'
Jacob: "Honey, where are the bendy straws?"
Channing: "I ALREADY PACKED THEM!!!!"
*This continues for one hour* Contractions change from short and conversational to long and taking all her energy.
2330 I survey the contraction timer list to find that we've been less than four minutes apart for an hour, each contraction longer than 40 seconds.
Jacob: "Baby, It's time to got to the hospital, I'll bring the bags down and come back for you."
Channing:"But we are having a June baby"
I come back to find her slumped over on the couch, holding her abdomen and crying, saying that if she moves she would throw up. I get a pitcher and she is sick all the way to the car.
2350 Jacob on the phone enroute to Scott & White Labor & Delivery: "Hi, this is the husband of Channing Schreyer, and we will be paying you a visit tonight"
Several liberal interpretations of traffic signals later...
Channing: "Honey, if you get pulled over, you're not gonna stop are you?"
Jacob: "Sweetheart, I'm gonna take care of you, the Police can follow me all the way to the hospital"
Arrival at Scott & White ER: "Hi, we need to find Labor and Delivery NOW!"
Labor & Delivery speedily escorts us to the triage room, where we discover our file is locked up elsewhere in the hospital, in the doctor's office who's not on rotation. So now in the midst of waves of nausea, strong contractions and confusion, we need to re-construct Channing's entire medical history.
27 March 2010
0030 Being a highly trained, card carrying Bradley method coach, I carried with us two printed copies of the birth plan. The three nurses attending to Channing and I confirm that we were going to mitigate labor pain with purposeful relaxation and non-medicated techniques, when the nurse checking her cervix says "Wow, you're already a 4 and 100% effaced!"
For those of you not currently tuned into birthing dynamics, effacement refers to the thickness of the uteris near the cervix, leading to the birth canal. Prior to delivery, it thins in preparation to open around the baby. The '4' refers to dialation, or how far the cervix has opened to allow the baby to pass through. A 'normal' labor is 12 hrs in length, and the cervix progresses at 1 cm/hr until the woman is ready to push the baby out, typically at 9 or 10 cm.
With this expectation of having a 12 hour labor, each hour being as intense as the first hours she just went through(the one where she dialated to nearly the halfwaypoint), Channing looked at me and said, "I want the meds, I want an Epidural." I was surprised, because that's not what we'd talked about or planned on. "Are you sure?" I asked, stating "I think we can get through this without them, you can do this."; to which she responded "I want the epidural, and I don't want you to ask again." Well the woman had spoken. The staff moved us to our labor & delivery room then, and commenced to prepare Channing for the final leg of labor. At Scott & White an IV site is standard, even if meds are not administered, in case they need to be. So they proceeded to attempt to stick Channing to set one up. Easier said than done, as she has notoriously difficult to stick veins.
0115 By the time they finished the IV site, Channing said 'Whoa, that last contraction was different'. The nurse checked her cervix and said "Wow, you're a 9. Do you feel like pushing?"
This accomplished two things. One, this sealed Channing's fate, no meds were coming, and two, it moved us into second stage labor: Pushing.
0135 Channing pushed like a champ and 20 short minutes later, we held little Caleb for the fist time @ 0158. From the doctors' hands, Caleb was briefly wiped off and placed on the warm chest of his exhausted mother moments after birth. This image was taken shortly after.
Abba Father, Lord Most High as I look upon the face of my son I think of your heart for your children. As Caleb is helpless and frail, so are we before You O God. As he is small and dependent on my care, so is the greatest glory of man before your Splendor and Majesty. We run from You, ignore You and act sinfully and fall short, when if we would but dwell in your will for us, your loving hands will provide all we could ever need. Thank you God for this little one.
Okay this is Channing updating from 8 months later. I just thought it was important to say that the reason I asked if the drugs were an option is because NO ONE was talking to me. I was getting stuck by no less than three nurses WHILE another nurse asked me pages of questions like "is this your first pregnancy? who is the father? have you been abused?" WHILE in active labor WHILE throwing up WHILE I was told that the doctor wasn't at the hospital yet WHILE I heard my sister say "hello" in the hall. (and this all happened in about 20 mins or probably 10 contractions :) And yes, it was a wonderful experience once my doctor got there and everyone started paying attention to what I was pretty sure was the most important thing going on in the room. It was actually nice just to have someone look at me in the eyes and say something to me instead of just around me. Jacob did a wonderful job of answering the nurses and keeping our family out of the room but all in all it was a very chaotic time and not the peaceful/focused time we had anticipated. Also I'd like to add that Jacob did exactly what I wanted him to do when I asked about my drug options which was to say that we could pull through and if we wouldn't have been interrupted repeatedly by the 5 or so other people in the room we would have had a nice (painful) conversation about it and he would have probably told me I was doing an amazing job and it wouldn't have come up again because turns out, I was in transition... Also I'm adding this comment because I'm tired of people saying how "funny" it was that I wanted drugs. Because it wasn't funny and frankly I also didn't really want drugs so much as someone to actually pay attention to me.
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