Sunday marked my 39th week of being pregnant. My back was hurting, my face was fat, and my maternity clothes stopped fitting days ago. I was dilated two centimeters at my last appointment. I was counting down the minutes until September 25th - D Day. Friends and family were constantly calling or texting me:
Did you have that baby yet?
I have never delivered (or adopted) a kid before the due date. My babies always come after the doctor's guess. When people would ask me how much longer, I would say another week or two. I assured Brian he could go out of town my last week of pregnancy because nothing was going to happen. My mother-in-law planned on coming up to La Crosse Thursday September 22nd. I even thought that was premature.
That Sunday we walked up and down the bluff to Latin Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Martin was serving and Brian & I were in the pew wrestling the other kids. A few ladies stopped and asked me when the baby was due.
Another week or two, I would say. After Mass on our way down the bluff, my back was more sore than before and I was having irregular and very minor contractions. Braxton-Hicks, I told myself. When we made it home, I laid down for a bit. I was starting to get grouchy (Brian can confirm that). We had planned on company coming over for dinner, but we called and cancelled. I was in no mood to entertain. I getting more miserable by the moment.
I decided to go for a walk and Helen tagged along. She loves nature, so we walked through the small wooded part in our subdivision. The mosquitoes were horrible.
I'm probably contracting Zika, I thought to myself as Helen stopped to look at every leaf, rock, and stick. We headed home and I laid on the couch for awhile. Brian started to panic and called his mom to come early.
I remember waking up at 2am the next morning with irregular contractions. I started to worry this was going to go down in a few hours and I would have to call the neighbor at a ridiculous time and ship my kids over there. I was praying to God nothing serious would happen until after 7:15am, when Martin and Helen were picked up for school. Then I started to worry about packing their lunches, making sure they had their uniforms ready, and not being there to see them off to school. I started to convince myself I needed to get up right then and there to get things ready. I nudged Brian awake to tell him we were probably going to have to go to the hospital right after the kids left for school. This caused him to lay awake all night. Not me. I went back to sleep.
The morning came and went. No trip to the hospital. No more contractions. Suspicious looks from Brian. My mother-in-law was on the road heading North. I was thinking this was a lot of fanfare for something that I accepted wasn't really going to happen for another week or two. Now everyone was going to sit around and stare at me for fourteen days. I spent the afternoon going on walks by myself, with Peter, or with the neighbor. Brian said I was more miserable than I realized. I picked the kids up from school. Martin hopped in the front seat and said,
So you didn't have the baby yet? I told him he was grounded for a month.
Later in the early evening, the contractions started again. Brian's mom arrived around six o'clock. We sat down to dinner. Brian cleaned up the kitchen. I folded clothes and gave Peter a bath. Martin had his hunter's safety class. I didn't want him to miss it, otherwise he would have to retake the entire course again. Thankfully, he did not miss it, and Brian picked him up at 9pm. I've learned that I worry about the silliest things while in labor, even though I tell myself I'm not actually in labor. Around 9:30, I decided to admit things were serious and we needed to head to the hospital.
When I was
in labor with Peter, there wasn't much time to "pack a bag". Brian did it for me. He packed a cover to the boppy pillow (no boppy, mind you) and an old ratty Rolling Stones t-shit I forgot I even owned. This time, there were several changes of clothes, the laptop, a copy of the Wall Street Journal, and a few hunting magazines. Well thought out, sir. As we carried our luggage to the van I said that it felt like were going on vacation.
We are, Brian said,
we're going someplace without the children.
We arrived at Mayo Hospital at 10pm. I made Brian park in the 30 minute parking space (I was over confident) and told the night clerk we parked there, I was in labor, and it better not be a problem. The check-in process was a lot slower than with Peter. No flying through the emergency room doors. No panicking nurse wheeling me though the hospital. No emergency delivery kit for Brian to carry. I remember thinking,
Where is the sense of urgency? Finally a resident (a first year, I later learned) came in to check me. He couldn't have been older than twelve. He wasn't sure how many centimeters I was dilated. He even consulted a chart with circles on it. The labor and delivery nurse assured me my doctor was on her way. She could read the look on my face.
Seven centimeters dilated and I kept my cool by picturing the joy on Helen's face when she (finally) learned to ride her bike. That worked until 9.5 centimeters, then I lost it. It was a scene from The Exorcist all over again. There was a room full of strangers and I was screaming my head off. At one point my doctor said,
Hey, Andrea, why not use some of that energy from screaming and put it into pushing? She has a good sense of humor, my doctor. We get along very well. I probably could have pushed the baby out in one try, but I decided to let the pain linger for three pushes. It was awful, until my doctor said: IT'S A BOY!
Without any drugs or an epidural, Stuart Xavier was born at 11:48pm, only an hour and 45 minutes after getting to the hospital (about three hours in total labor). I told Brian that was too long and we could have stayed home another half an hour. He didn't think that was very funny.
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| Still pink! |
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| About an hour old. |
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| Clearly, he has the Dilliner nose. |
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| Very proud Big Brother! |
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| Helen (or Hermione Granger?) is in complete love. |
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| Wait...Am I being replaced? |
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| My small herd of children. |
