Well, the inevitable happened. The day came. The moment we've all been waiting for. A tiny human was born. My baby vacated my magic uterus. He is born. World, this is Dario. Dario, World.
Right now he is sleeping. If that isn't happening he is eating or having his diaper changed. There are small amounts of time where we visit and I talk to him and he looks at me with big dark blue-grey bloodshot eyes and makes funny faces. I am completely, utterly, obsessively in love.
How did it happen? There was so much time I spent just thinking about all the different ways I could bring him into this world. No matter how much I thought about it, no matter how much I wondered or how many stories I read, nothing could prepare me for the actual day.
It was Saturday night. We went to bed early. Paul wasn't feeling well, he had just come down with a cold. We were both asleep by 8:30 or so. I woke up to use the bathroom a couple of times. Paul woke up with me at about 2:30am. He took some Tylenol and drank some water. His cold was really manifesting itself. It's strange because he's rarely sick. He has only had a cold one, maybe two other times since we met. We joked about how it wasn't convenient to be sick when we were so close to expecting the baby to arrive. Then we talked about how we would need to make a plan to be induced at our appointment on Thursday since nothing was happening. I got up to use the bathroom before we both drifted back to sleep. I felt something funny in my belly and when I got to the bathroom I thought I had already started to pee. Or was it?
Sure, I thought I was a little leaky. No big deal. The baby was napping on my bladder again and he was really running out of room. I could only hold a few tablespoons of urine at a time it seemed. I'm bound to accidentally squeeze some out, right? I went back to bed. I woke up again at about 6:30am. I was wet. I knew I did not wet the bed. I was dreaming of having contractions and doing a great job staying calm and relaxed through each one. I was well rested after about 10 hours of sleep. I knew that my water had broken. It was a slow leak, not the tsunami you see on the movies, but I knew what it was. Just after standing up I started to have some light contractions. This is it. It is? I woke up Paul.
I told him softly that I thought my water had broken, and that I needed to call the childbirth center to see what we needed to do. I told him to take a shower and to get the hospital bag I had packed along with the diaper bag ready. I got dressed, ate a bagel and cream cheese, fed the dogs and called my mom. I told her we'd call her if we were admitted to the hospital and she could come down if she wanted to. I was sitting on a chair on my back porch when I realised I was totally stalling. I didn't really want to go to the hospital. I had hoped that my labor would start and get strong without my water breaking so I could spend all my early labor at home. Oh well, I cannot choose. I just have to go in and see what will happen.
I went back inside and realised I hadn't even called the child birth center yet to tell them we were coming. I called and they said they could check the fluid to see if it was my water and they'd go from there. We put our things in the car and left the house around 7:30am. We got the the hospital before 8am and were in a room talking with a nurse shortly after. She checked and said it was, of course, that my water had broken. They hooked me up to the monitors and saw I was having regular contractions and they were only about 3 minutes apart. She went and called my doctor.
The nurse came back in the room and said she'd called the doc and told her my water had broken, I was having regular contractions that looked strong on the machine but that I couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel them? What? I asked. She said, since I was calm and still able to talk with her that I must not be feeling them. I assured her that I was definitely feeling it, I was just choosing to stay calm and focused. She was surprised and seemed skeptical and took us to a labor and delivery room to get settled. My doctor would be there soon to check me. We called my mom.
When my doctor got there it was just before 11am. I was dealing really well with the contractions. Paul, my mom and I were talking and laughing and just wasting time while we waited. The doc checked and said I was already 6cm dilated. Nice. Everyone was shocked that I was that far along and I wasn't complaining or crying or asking for drugs. This was going to be a piece of cake.
Ha!
To Be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment