Baby Day

I am going to record the events as I remember them here partially for anyone who is interested to read, but mostly as a record of it as kind of a journal.  These thoughts are all from my perspective, I'm sure some of the events are different in Jen's perspective. 

What an exciting day yesterday was.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Jen woke me up at around 5:30 AM and told me that we were going to have a baby that day.    As the day went on she told me more details of the morning, and I remembered more.

I woke up at 5:30 AM to the sound of clanging dishes in the sink since the kitchen is right behind the den where I was sleeping.  We had crashed on the couch watching TV, which is very rare, I hate sleeping on the couch. I said "It's kind of a strange time to be doing dishes isn't it?"  She then walked over to get something out of the den and said "We are definitely going to have the baby today."  I was still half asleep at that point, but a little jolt of adrenaline brought me around.  "My water broke at 4:30," she said.  By this time I was wide awake, and I suddenly felt a little unprepared. 

We had gotten books about giving birth, I had one called "The Birthing Partner" or something like that.  I never cracked it. Contrary to what many people think we both tend to be procrastinators when it comes to certain things.  We both were "crammers" in college, and I guess I was planning on cramming information from these books over the next week or so.  To be fair, we ordered the books online and only had them in our possession for a few days. Jen has definitely read a ton of information on the internet, read other books about pregnancy, and gotten information from the numerous friends that had babies recently. Thanks Stephan, Holly, Christine, Lisa, Tanya and Heather.

Anyway, we also hadn’t gone to any of the birthing type classes. We are pretty practical and independent people, I like to think this is why we didn’t feel the need to go to them rather than being ignorant and/or lazy. Whatever the case, we didn’t go to any.

My only consolation is that we hadn't procrastinated on the essential gear we needed to be "baby ready."  We had the nursery 100%, we had the bassinet ready (I posted on this a few days ago), we had the car seat, and I had plugged in the baby monitor for a trial run just the day before (Saturday).  And of course we had the tons and tons of stuff people have given us for the baby showers.

That’s enough of that tangent. I was glad that we at least had all that done; now we had to deal with today's events.  I walked around the kitchen aimlessly for a few minutes asking Jen questions as they came to mind.  There weren't any apparent contractions at that time, so we decided there was no reason to rush to the hospital.

I took this opportunity to start cramming. I found my book, opened it to the table of contents and began to look for the parts of it that were most imminent as they related to us. Fortunately the book was laid out in a kind of chronological order of events of the pregnancy, so I was able to skim through the first few chapters and began to focus on everything from “Early Labor” forward. To be completely honest, this kind of worked out well, I was able to glean the important information and it was fresh in my head all day. I at least felt a little better after spending about 30 minutes with the book.

Jen called the on call nurse with her doctor and she told us that we should definitely go in soon because after the water breaks they start to become concerned with infection if too much time passes before the baby is born.

Jen called her mom and told her to expect us. I wasn’t in on that conversation so I don’t know what exactly was said, however I do know that her sister Meredith answered the phone and kept telling her to stop joking around.

We both went up and took showers. I was done first. I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself at this point. I was too excited to watch TV or read, but I did want to get the word out on where we were to those who probably didn’t want an early morning call, so I made a short blog entry telling everyone what was going on.

After that, I started wandering around aimlessly again, and I remembered that I wanted to throw down a little more grass seed while the ground was so wet. I had planned on doing that this week. There really wasn’t anything else for me to do except wait for Jen, so I went in the garage, got the bag of grass seed, and spread some around the back yard. Kind of a strange thing to do in retrospect.

We packed up the car with everything we needed, including our hospital bag which we had prepared, and Cooper. We were taking him to Jen’s mom’s house until we got back from the hospital. Another thing about Cooper, he followed Jen around all morning like a shadow, it seemed he knew something was up, normally early in the morning like that he pretty much ignores us.

Once we got on the road, we started calling family and friends who had told us they wanted to know when we went. I called my parents first. My dad answered and I told him what was going on. Somehow my mom caught wind of what I was saying and grabbed the phone from him. I told her what was going on and she got very excited. She said “I have to get dressed! Chesapeake General right?”. And she basically hung up on me. I was laughing and told Jen that she hung up on me.

So we called some other friends, dropped off Cooper and arrived at the hospital. We were relatively quickly ushered into our room and began what would be quite a waiting game.  The nurse could not confirm for sure that she was definitely in labor and that the water had broken, but we were pretty sure.

There is always the first time parent factor, where the doctors and nurses pretty much think you don't know what you’re talking about.  But it became clear as the morning progressed, that the contractions were for real.

Throughout the day, family and friends came and went, as we weren't sure when the final event would take place, we generally didn't want people to hang around in the waiting room for so long.  Our immediate families pretty much stuck around though.  Our cell phones were ringing like crazy from out of town friends and people just checking in.  This was not an annoyance at all, it was a nice distraction at times and it really helps to know that people are thinking of you.  It's definitely nice that Chesapeake General doesn't mind if you use your cell phones. Thanks to all of you for your well wishes, thoughts and prayers.

Anyway, with all that going on, Jen and I basically sat around all morning and talked about how we couldn't believe it was happening and how the baby was so early.  My granddad says babies don't come early, they know when it's time. 

We watched as the contractions got closer together, but Jen wasn't in too much pain at that point.  The contractions would just interrupt conversations much like a small cramp or something. We did a little walking around the unit to try and speed up the process a little.

Around lunch time I was getting pretty hungry and poor Jen wasn't allowed to eat anything so I decided to step out for a little bit and grab some lunch.  Jen's mom and one of her friends, Holly, stayed with her.  Trust me, I wouldn't have left if I thought there was the slightest chance of missing something, but by this time we were not making much progress at all. 

My Grandmother Janet volunteers at the hospital on Sundays and was just getting off of her shift, so she took me to grab some McDonald's. Then she came back up with me to visit.  Barry and Sandy Mosely from church were there when I got back up, I'm glad I got back in time to see them.  Honestly, I was glad I got back up there in time for them to see me, I didn't want them to be like "So, where is Cameron through all this?" They hung around for a few minutes; it was very nice of them to stop by.

By this time it was around 1:30. We were still waiting to see a doctor. I forgot to mention, at around 11:30 AM the nurse came in and told us that the doctor was here and was going to come in and see us. I guess they are so desensitized to this stuff, they just aren’t in any particular hurry.

He came in soon after and asked to speak with Jen and I alone. So whoever was in the room at that time went out to the waiting room. The doctor told us that things weren’t moving very fast, I guess he got his information from the nurse, and that we should consider taking some Pitocin to help speed things along. Jen wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of using the Pitocin, and I wasn’t about to argue with her about it, so we decided to walk the halls a bit to see if we could speed things along with gravity.

So we walked back and forth around the labor and delivery unit some more, I was carrying the IV bag. Holly was walking with us too. After walking around for 30 minutes or so, some friends from our Sunday school class stopped by. We couldn’t really all walk through the unit together because we would have looked like Diddy and his entourage and we would have congested the hallway traffic. So I gave the bag our friend Tabitha so she, Colleen, and Lisa could walk with her, and went I out to the visitors room with Justin and Holly so we could walk with Jen in shifts.

It wasn’t too long before I was summoned to the room again to meet with the doctor. He told Jen that she had a beautiful smile and he enjoyed seeing it as she walked up and down the hall, but that smile wasn’t the face of a woman in labor. So he strongly urged us to start on the Pitocin. Again, if the water hadn’t broken 10 hours earlier, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but they really don’t like to make the labor go too long after that because of other complications that can arise. So we agreed and the Pitocin was administered.

And there we were again, sitting in the room watching the contractions. Jen was in a rocking chair, but she wasn’t allowed to be disconnected from the monitors anymore after that. Our friends came in and sat with us for a while, at this point Jen could still carry on conversation, but the contractions were getting more and more severe as time went on. After about an hour it got to the point where she was having pretty bad labor pains. This was coming up on 5:00 PM.

Not long after our friends left the room, my mom, dad, and my sister Ivey came in. The contractions were getting very strong by now. They hung around with us and we tried the best we could to distract Jen, she said that was what helped the most, just having regular conversation through the contractions. After about an hour of that the contractions were starting to get extremely bad, so they decided it was time for us to be alone.

So there we were. For the next hour or so, the contractions just got worse and worse. Jen definitely wasn’t into conversation anymore at all. I did the best I could to try not to do anything annoying and I kept replacing the cold washcloth on her head. I think we got into a good rhythm, when the contraction would come I would tell her when the monitor would say that it was subsiding and tell her it was almost over. As it was on the way down, I would try to help her relax by reminding her specifically to relax her arms, legs, hands, etc.

The nurse did another check at around 7:00 or so and told us that things were still progressing kind of slowly. This was very disheartening, we were under the impression at this point that it could be another 5 or 6 hours. We had about 10 family members out in the visitor’s room at this time. I went out and told them to go get some dinner and we could call them when something changed.

Eventually, the contractions got to a ridiculous level. I could tell Jen was in a huge amount of pain. The nurse had suggested Nubain several times, this is an IV drug that is supposed to take the edge off the contractions a little and help with relaxation between the contractions. The Pitocin which she had been administered earlier makes the contractions become more regular as well as more intense, so I imagine Jen was going through worse contractions than somebody who didn’t take the Pitocin at all. All I can say is it looked like it hurt horribly. I could tell that Jen was fighting the urge to have any pain killers at all, but this was seriously no problem for me. I didn’t try to sway her decision, but I was glad she decided to allow them to start it. After we started the Nubain, I could tell that Jen could relax more between the contractions, this was good.

Shortly after that, our nurse who had been with us since we checked in that morning was getting off her shift. It’s funny the attachment you can form with somebody who is being so helpful to you in such a short amount of time. She wished us luck and we said goodbye.

Jen was laying in the bed and I was sitting in the chair next to her. We had the lighting in the room way down. Most of the light was coming from the glare of the computer monitors that were showing us the contractions and the baby’s heart rate. We settled back into our routine, but now she was a little calmer during the contraction rests.

During one of the rests Jen said in kind of a broken soft voice, “There is a present for you from the baby in the suitcase.” Her eyes were closed and it seemed that she was only half way on earth. I was moved that she was thinking of me at that time and that she had packed something for me before all this started. I went and took the gift out of the suitcase, it was a book called “I love you daddy.” It was a story about some bears, very cute. I thumbed through it, but I really couldn’t concentrate on reading. But as I said, I was really moved by that moment.

Our new nurse came in shortly after for an examination. We were shocked and pleased to know that things had progressed significantly and that within the next hour or so it would be time to start pushing! We were in disbelief. I didn’t call my family yet because we wanted to make sure it was real.

Sure enough, over the next few minutes, Jen started to feel like things were happening. I ran out to the visitor’s room where her mom was the only one who stayed behind. I told her what was going on and she called Jen’s side of the family. I called my family who had just sat down at a Mexican restaurant. I told them they could probably eat their meal and get back in time.

About 10 minutes later, Jen knew it was time to start the delivery, we called the nurse in and she summoned the nurses and doctor for delivery.

I just want to take this opportunity to say that the nurse we had for the last part of the labor and for the delivery was absolutely awesome. I know she probably does this every day, but I never got the sense that this was just another part of the routine from her. She was extremely encouraging to Jen and really was a great coach throughout the delivery. I hope we’ll remember to send her a card or something.

I’ll skip the details from the actual delivery. From a journal perspective, I don’t need to write anything down in order to remember what happened. That is one of those moments that you will never forget. I will say that Jen was incredible. From what the nurses said, she was exceptional during the delivery and I would have to agree.

So here we are, at 8:49 PM Annelise Erin Tabor was born!

After they cleaned Annelise up, I was able to walk around the room with her. Her eyes were open and she was just looking around and looking at me. I couldn’t believe it. Jen was in surprisingly good spirits considering what she had gone through, she was back to herself, joking with the doctor and nurses and looking at Annelise.

Finally, after about 40 minutes we called our families in to greet the newest member of the family. That’s the end of my story and where the photos, video footage, and the rest of our lives as parents begin…