How It All Went Down

Now I’m no expert at birthing babies, but I’m pretty sure there were some anomalies present in little Hudson’s debut.  For example,

Being asked for your birth plan after you’ve already given birth…

Arriving at the hospital already 10 cm dilated…

The nurses not letting you push because the doctor hasn’t arrived yet…

The time elapsed between arriving at the hospital and delivery equaling approximately 27 minutes…

Yup, I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.  But that’s how things went down on a rainy Tuesday morning here in ATX.  Here’s the scoop for all of you who are into the whole birth story…

I woke up a few times Monday night with less than pleasant contractions.  Nothing intense enough to make me roll over and kick Kevin but enough to make me remember them in the morning.  I tried to get the day started like normal, but contractions got the better of me.  We started timing them and practicing the relaxation techniques we had studied but after being reminded by my sis-in-law that “early” labor could last for an entire day, I decided to go about life as usual.  So I sucked it up, took a shower, got dressed, and joined the buddies on the living room floor to play.

Kevin took the boys downstairs for lunch, but I stayed upstairs on the couch.  And that was when my water broke.  Thankfully, I made it to the hardwood floors because it’s very awkward to spill your baby juices all over your parent’s couch.  Not that it's any less strange to go into labor in your childhood bedroom.  I mean, this was the place where I drew braces on my Barbie dolls.  These were the walls where I hung Leonardo Dicaprio posters.  And now it was where I would work to bring my son into the world.  My life has come full circle indeed!

We called the doctor, who said we could keep laboring at home until my contractions got more intense.  So that’s what we did.  I guess I needed a more specific definition of “intense” because within the next few hours, I wanted to push.  And that is not a good thing!

My dad drove us very “intentionally” to the hospital so Kevin could sit in the backseat with me.  Since the hospital wasn’t expecting us, we were put in a triage room in L&D.  A nurse finally (and I say finally with a very dramatic intonation, even though it probably wasn’t very long at all) came to check me. To my surprise, I was already at 10 cm.  So off we went to the delivery room to have a baby.

But what really happened was that we went to the delivery room to wait for the doctor.  For anyone who is curious, it is not a pleasant feeling to want to push out a baby but having ten people tell you that you can’t.  Not a pleasant feeling at all.  But what is pleasant is watching several nurses scurry around, trying to accomplish in five minutes what they usually do in an hour, including setting up an IV in a patient with notoriously tricky veins like mine.  It’s just plain ol’ good entertainment (for everyone except the suffering mama of course).

To spare you all the gory details, the doctor showed up. Pushing occurred.  A baby was produced.  He was gross & cheesy & I loved him at once.  We spent the next few hours in the delivery room, swooning over our little man.  My parents came to the hospital with the boys, who were more excited about wearing mama’s shirt and spinning around on hospital stools than they were about meeting their brother. 

At least there were some people who were actually excited about Hudson…

My two days in the hospital were like a vacation (except instead of bringing me drinks with wee umbrellas, I was asked to sign forms at 4 AM) but we were ready to come home and start our crazy life with three under 3.  Let the games begin!