What once was two. Is now three!

Yesterday at 11:47 AM I became a father. The birthday was a bit of a surprise. The due date wasn't until next week. We thought that we had at least a week until the baby came. To be honest we thought it would be even longer. Especially with first baby's labor usually starts after the due date and sometimes even requires being induced. So the labor caught us by surprise.

Wendy has been having Braxton-Hicks contractions almost constantly for the past couple of weeks. Thursday night Wendy started to have some contractions. I thought that they were just her normal nightly contractions that keep her awake all night then disappear. Yea, I was so wrong on that count. Wendy knew the difference however. She told me, "If you have anything to do before the baby comes you might want to do it now." I thought she was joking; facts have shown that she definitely wasn't.

That does explain a little bit about my next reaction though. Wendy got up to try to relax and deal with the contractions. I thinking that it was the normal "practice" contractions went to bed and slept. Four hours later Wendy woke me up saying, "Ben I need you!" It became immediately obvious to this trained nurses eye, and any other random person's eye, that Wendy's contractions were not practice. I still didn't quite understand the situation because I thought that Wendy had just started having the contractions. Nope, she'd been dealing with the contractions since midnight. I felt so terrible. Felt like I had abandoned her. She stated she wanted to let me rest so at least one of us would be awake the following day. Makes sense but I still felt bad.

Once I realized that contractions were real, and coming fairly quickly I downloaded a quick iPhone app to time her contractions. After six or so iterations we found that she had contractions lasting 1:07 and they were coming 2:47 apart. Because I was fuddled and hadn't quite realized how long Wendy had been going alone it took me a while to realize that it was time to go. I had to look it up on the internet just to make sure that it was OK to go to the hospital. When I finally had the realization we hurriedly packed up the bags and drove to the hospital.

Arriving at the hospital

I was going to park at the front entrance of the hospital but Wendy insisted on walking to the entrance herself. I later caught flak from the nursing staff because I allowed her to do so. Wendy claims however that it was better because it allowed her to walk a little more and that it helped. I'll take her word for it.  On the way in though she told me, "I hope they don't send us home!"  She was worried about not being dilated enough to be admitted to the hospital.

That was a needless worry. Once we got in the labor and delivery room they checked her dilation. She was at a seven. We had mentioned to the nurses the possibility of doing the labor naturally. The nurses statement as she got up from checking Wendy, "Oh yea, you got this. You can do this easily unmedicated." We decided then that since Wendy was already so progressed it didn't make sense to do an epidural. So Wendy delivered completely natural.

Not to say that even with her being dilated so much before coming to the hospital that it was easy. The labor still lasted eight hours from the point. I hate to admit it but I was really glad that we went to the birthing class. It was painful to go to but we were able to use so much of what was taught. A lot of the things that helped the labor go a little better we learned there; and almost all of them I never would have even thought about trying out on my own. The position changes, the way to support Wendy, they way to encourage her, worked well. We were especially grateful that we were able to get a jacuzzi tub with jets. It worked great for Wendy. The hardest part for me was to continue coming up with superlatives to encourage Wendy. After saying "you're doing great," "You're doing awesome!" for four hours I had to find other things to say. I had to dig deep. At a certain point I'm pretty sure I was so desperate that I told Wendy that she was doing "gnarly." It was at time like these that I was grateful there was a nurse in the room with us almost the entire time. She was able to help encourage Wendy when I was faltering.

Helping Wendy Labor

The last part after the head crowned was the hardest. Andrew's head was too big, and Wendy's channel too small so it took a long time to get him out. Wendy had to actively push for an hour and half before the birth occurred. Again, the birthing class was helpful for this. We were able to get a squat bar for Wendy to lean on so that gravity was helping her and it was more comfortable to push. We had to switch from the squat bar near the end because her legs were tired.

It sounds bad but I'm actually somewhat glad that Wendy's legs got tired. The position that we moved to allowed me to be behind Wendy, supporting her. It made me feel more like a participant in the process in addition to being the cheerleader. It made the process feel a lot more intimate and personal to me.

After nearly twelve hours of labor and a lot of pushing Andrew Dylan Stuart was born. 7 lb 10 oz and 19.5 inches in length.

Ironically we had decided on the name at 11:15 the night before. Yes, that would be about 45 minutes before labor started. It appears Andrew was just waiting for us to name him so he could come.

Andrew Dylan Stuart immediately after being born

I cannot express how proud I am of my wife. Going natural with no pain medication was not easy and she did it with no complaints, no swearing, no hitting, no biting, no screaming, and never even complained about her pain. The closest she ever got was to say, "I want this baby out." "Come out baby!" and only at the very end, "Ow" spoken softly. In fact she did so well that the midwife told us that he had to keep reminding himself that she did not have an epidural.

Happy Family

Footprinting