Sunday, March 13, 2011

Baby girl. . .

We were sitting on the couch a couple nights ago and my wife was having contractions. That wasn't anything new, she's been having a steady stream of Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks. She's also been dilated go 3 cm for several weeks. So we take all contractions seriously.

These were different, these were starting to get uncomfortable for her and seemed to be a little more regular than the others.

So we loaded up the car, dropped off our sick preschooler at his grandparents, and went to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and we escorted to a maternity triage room. My wife was hooked up to the monitors, we got started asking questions, and the contractions stopped. Not stopped so much, but changed to 20 minutes apart. This was first pointed out by the on-call OBGYN who told us he had just sent home 6 women that night we were not in labor.

Then he examined her. . . "oh, you're a keeper," he said. Not many contractions but she was in labor.

So we were landed in a delivery room and moved through the process: IV, blood draw, questions, monitoring, and suddenly regular contractions. . . painful ones. Another examination showed my wife was at 6 cm and it's about 1 a.m., if she's going to get an epideral now is the time. So she elected to have it. Nothing is really felt by my wife from this point on.

And then we (or mainly I) slept—off and on—until 6 a.m. when it's announced that it's time to call the doctor.

The doctor arrives at 6:50 a.m. prepares everything she might need to work and at 6:58 my wife is informed to push during the current contraction (which she can't feel). She pushed 3 times and the head is half way out. It's decided that she'll stop and push again on the next contraction. . .

Only our daughter doesn't want to wait that long. So she wiggles a little and pulls herself out at 7:01 a.m.

And just like that our newest family member is here. Now the real hard part starts.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Worst timing ever. . .

Our son is sick. He's 3, it happens. He's got a fever of one hundred and three. . . four actually on one night. It's now lasted 4 days, and he's got a bad cough (so bad it made him throw up one day). According to his doctor, it's a croup related thing that is going around. It lasts a long time too.

Why is it the worst timing ever? Because this morning his baby sister was born. I don't want to detract from the miracle of her birth (more on that soon) and let him steal her spotlight, but as I'm sitting her in this hospital room watching my beautiful wife hold our adorable new baby girl I feel like we're all incomplete.

Whatever he's got isn't worth risking the health of a 1-day-old. But knowing that one quarter of our family isn't able to participate in this moment is breaking my heart. It's all I can think about. He's with his doting grandparents and they are taking good care of him, but he shouldn't be with them, he should be with us.

It really sucks.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Off my game. . .

I pride myself on two personality attributes. I learned the hard way to be modest. . . not modest in the prudish meaning but modest about my accomplishments. I know that goes against saying "I prime myself on" but still I do. So I always try to be humble.

The other thing I always strive for is calmness. I try to never get stressed. Being stressed (aside from the many health problem it can caused) often forces people to make foolish mistakes. They get rushed and frantic and don't work to the best of their ability. So I decided a long time ago to not get stressed out about things.

Sure a project disaster (a plumbing one jumps to mind at the moment) or a looming deadline might get me worked up now and then, but once the initial panic wears off I calm down and get the job done.

Which is why the prediction of an early baby has me so flustered. With our son it was 7-10 days which somehow seemed doable. Being given to the end of the weekend was a bit more urgent. So for at least 3 days of work and a weekend which produced no baby, I was stressed, which as I said isn't normal for me. Since then the panic has died down and I'm able to work quickly and efficiently without stress.

And still we have no baby. I'm going to have to talk to the doctor about that today.