Aug 25 2001
The Birth Story
I went to work just as usual, without any idea that something momentous would occur. I wasn’t bothered by the mild contractions I was having since I’d been having similar pains on and off for the previous couple of weeks. They might have been stronger than those I experienced previously, but if they were, I didn’t realize it. Keeping busy kept my mind off the discomfort.
At about 2:30 in the afternoon, I decided to call BabiesRUs and find out whether or not the bureau I had ordered at the end of May had finally arrived. I had been checking in with customer service every couple of weeks and each time I was informed that they had one in their warehouse. All I would have to do is wait an additional 10-14 days before it arrived at the store. This time, however, the customer service rep informed me that they no longer had any of the dressers in their warehouse–that they had sold them all to other customers. Naturally, I lost my temper. I told them I was extremely upset with how this transaction had been handled and that I thought it would only be fair if they sold me their floor model. The rep put me on hold to speak with her manager about my request. When she came back on the line, she said her manager had agreed to allow me to take the floor model. In addition, the sale price would be reduced by 10%. I thanked her and let her know that my husband and I would drop by the store later that evening to pick it up. After that, I called Robert and told him not to get too involved playing Diablo because we had an errand to run as soon as I got home from work.
At about 3:30, I grew too uncomfortable to remain sitting at my desk. So, for awhile, I stood up and continued typing away at letters, memos and e-mails. This did not work for long. I ended up sitting hunched over in a well-padded chair located next to my office door. Not until Cassie stopped by and asked me if I was OK did it occur to me that I might be in labor. I started crying and told her that it was beginning to hurt. She calmed me down and urged me to call Robert and then either go to the hospital or go home. Following her advice, I tried calling Robert, but couldn’t get in touch with him. He was no longer at work and not yet at home. I told her that I would go home and meet him there.
Just as Cassie was getting ready to leave my office to help me make arrangements for taking the rest of the day off, Jack, one of the attorneys, poked his head in my office and requested that I stop by his office after I was done speaking with her. Cassie, my wonderful protectress, snapped at him, “she can’t! The baby’s coming!” A panicked look came over Jack’s face, but he recovered quickly, gave me a shakey smile, and hightailed it out of there.
I finished up a few last things and then hurried down the hallway to inform others that I would be leaving soon. Carol called me into the conference room as I was walking by and asked me how I would be getting home. Just as I finished telling her that I would be riding the bus, Cassie came in. They both coerced me into promising that I would not take the bus, that I would allow someone to drive me home. At the time, I was rather embarrassed. I was sure the pains I was experiencing were nothing more than symptoms of false labor and that everyone was making a big fuss for nothing. Later on, I was glad they made the big fuss.
So, Cassie drove me home. As soon as I got inside, I went to Robert and told him that my contractions were about six minutes apart and lasting for a full minute. I had not done any scientific timing of the contractions, so those numbers were probably pretty far off. I also told Robert that we needed to go to BabiesRUs as soon as possible. He looked at me as if I were insane, but complied. On the way out the door, he grabbed a pen, paper and the digital kitchen timer. He started timing the contractions on the drive up to the store. I had a hard time identifying when they were starting and stopping. Sometimes I would forget to mention that the pain had subsided after he started timing a contraction. Be that as it may, we estimated that the contractions were lasting about a minute and a half and they were three minutes apart. He continued timing the contractions while we waited for the store clerks to shrink wrap the dresser and to move it into the back of our pickup. We wondered if the clerks had any inkling as to what was going on, but none of them said anything. They just worked quickly.
Robert and I sped back home. I held the front door open as he prepared to single-handedly carry the bureau into the house and set it up in the baby’s room. I must have been quite impossible to please at that point. I’m never nice when in pain and the pain was getting quite intense. Robert didn’t know what to do–to carry the bureau into the house quickly and risk dinging it up in the process or to take his time getting it inside scratch and dent free. I don’t know what he decided. I was growing increasingly frantic. I tried calling the doctor’s office, but no one answered. I apparently didn’t wait long enough for the answering service to respond. Robert eventually got through to them and they notified Dr. Burdock of my condition. When I spoke to the doctor, I felt I was being coherent. I didn’t think I was having any trouble talking through the contractions. Apparently, the doctor thought otherwise. She instructed us to hurry to the hospital.
We raced around the house packing a hospital bag. Everything was chaos. Finally, we got into the truck and Robert drove to the Park and Ride where I had left my car that morning. We transferred everything into the car and then started heading down I-90 toward downtown. Our progress was not very quick, considering that it was six o’clock on Friday evening. The traffic was stop and go the entire way. Everytime we pulled up to a stop light, I opened the car door so I could spread my legs farther apart. I was desperate to get more comfortable. At one point, I made Robert pull over by the side of the road so I could get out of the car to walk through a contraction. After what seemed like an eternity, we concluded that we weren’t making quick enough progress, so we switched over to I-5. The traffic was just as bad there. At 6:20, we arrived at the hospital and checked into triage.
I wish I could claim that I faced the ensuing events calmly and collectedly, but such was not the case. I was terrified. The nurse on duty did her best to calm me down. She reminded me that my body knew just what to do–that giving birth was the most natural thing in the world. I tried to believe her, but my conviction was short-lived due to the amount of pain I was in. She determined that I was very effaced and about 3 cm dilated. In addition, I turned out to be extremely dehydrated. It had been a hot day and I hadn’t consumed as much water as I should have. Because of this, the medical staff decided that I should be hooked up to an IV. Once that was done, the world seemed to go on fast forward. I developed a case of the shivers from the difference in temperature between my body and the fluids they were pumping into me. Moreover, I was in an extreme amount of pain. I was uncomfortable standing up and I was in agony sitting or laying down. The intern asked me if I wanted an epidural. I had not made up my mind on that point before experiencing labor, but I felt no hesitation in responding to her with an emphatic “yesss!” Bear in mind that I thought I was in the early stages of labor and that the pain was going to get much, much worse. In the end, it turned out that there wasn’t enough time to administer the medication.
Because of the pain and how it seemed to intensify when I laid down, I resisted being put on the bed with every fibre of my being. At one point, I actually screamed, “no! I won’t lay on the bed.” Somehow, the nurse and intern got me to comply anyway. They had to check how far along I was. It couldn’t have been more than an hour since we checked in, but I was already eight centimeters dilated and my bag of waters was bulging. The intern looked very nervous when she reported this to the nurse. They forced me to stay on the bed and started wheeling me towards the labor and delivery room. The trip through the halls seemed like something out of a bad movie: I was screaming and crying; Robert and the nurses were pushing the bed as fast as they could and were shouting at people to move out of the way; they actually ran past the room in which I was supposed to give birth and had to turn around and go back. Once inside, they shifted me from one bed to the other. This is when my bag of waters broke. I remember being upset because I was still wearing the dress I had worn to the hospital. I hoped it wouldn’t be stained and smelly. (It’s funny what unimportant things I fixated on.)
From this point forward, the exact sequence of events escapes me. I remember Robert exclaiming, “oh my god, I can see the head!” I also remember the doctor rushing in. She apparently had her swimsuit on underneath her scrubs since she had been called away from a swimming party with her kids. I remember her telling me she wanted me to start pushing and I remember thinking, “no, that can’t be right. It’s far too soon!” But I pushed anyway. I pushed as hard as I could. And then a nurse (or was it the doctor?) asked me if I wanted to feel the baby’s head. When I had thought about that moment before being in labor, I thought it would be wonderful to reach down and feel the baby’s head as it was crowning. When I was actually in labor, I felt much different. I did not want to feel the baby’s head. I was not ready for that. I was scared senseless and just wanted the pain to be over with. So I kept pushing.
And then, at 8:05 PM, Samuel Reid Nelson was born. Robert told me to open my eyes. For a moment, I wondered why he was telling me to do that. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I wanted to keep them tightly closed…to shut out all the scary sensations. But I opened my eyes and saw Samuel for the first time. He was crying and his eyes were scrunched up like mine had been moments before. I felt an intense rush of sympathy for the little being. I wanted to hold him close, to comfort him. I forgot my pain through easing his. “So this is what it’s like to be a mother,” I thought.
