The Post Where I Tell the Story

Having a baby is kind of like every other milestone in life, like moving out or getting married.  You think it’s going to be really weird, and then it happens and it isn’t.  It’s just normal.  Except now someone else lives with you in your house and every once in a while you look down and realize, holy cow, that baby is mine.  I made that.

If this post is too much info, I apologize.  But I love reading other people’s labor and delivery stories and I just want to write it out because my memory is already getting foggy.  I’ll blame those amazing hormones that my college biology professor told me actually do dim the memories of labor, hence people have more than one child:)

So I was 8 days overdue.  There was some speculation at the last minute about my due date being 2 days earlier than it should have been but September 24 was the date I had been waiting for and it was the date that came and passed and in my mind is my due date.  I was supposed to go to the doctor at 11:40 on Tuesday October 2, and the plan was to induce me the next day.  Only I pretty much hadn't told anybody that. 

On Monday I decided I had been living on borrowed time for too long and I needed to get stuff ready, especially Logan’s birthday presents and some grocery shopping.  So I got that done, luckily.

Anyway, so I woke up about 4am on Tuesday because I felt funny.  Not sick, but not what I had imagined labor to feel like either.  I got up and went and laid on the couch.  Just for kicks I decided to time my “sickness” and found out that I felt gross about every 7 minutes or so.  Then I got bored of that and I tried to go to sleep.  Only as time passed my feeling sick started to hurt.  Around 6am I went back to bed and I decided that this probably was fake labor but I was tired of being the only one concerned about it so I woke Logan up.  By now it was hurting fairly bad.  Not unbearable but enough that I was pretty bugged about it.  (I wonder how Logan remembers these events, especially since his memory isn’t foggy).   

Just before we went to the clinic

Logan started to worry.  He went and got his bag and packed it.  He grabbed the car seat.  He started reading about early labor in my pregnancy books.  I did a load of laundry.  Weird I know.  I also wanted to shower before we did anything. So I got in the shower.  Logan called the doctor.  By the time all of this had happened it was about 7:30ish.  By the time I had blow dried my hair and got ready it was about 8.  The doctor still hadn’t called back.  Showering had made the contractions a lot less painful.  So now I was thinking I was being dumb and that we shouldn’t have called the doctor.  But then they got worse again.  So Logan decided to just take me to the clinic and we would see.

 

I think Dr. Chamberlain thought I was crazy.  He had seen me just a couple days before and there was absolutely nothing happening.  But he saw me right away anyway. I was at a 3+.  I was so relieved I wasn’t crazy.  By now I was really really feeling it.  It sucked way more than I had imagined.  Anyway, the doctor sent me home with a prescription for Loratab to wait until I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I know, everyone I have told that to has had the same reaction I did.  I couldn’t take so much as an Advil for 41 weeks and now I can have painkillers?  Weird.  So we headed home and went to the Walgreens drive thru.  They told us it would take 20 minutes to fill the prescription for 2 little pills that I desperately needed.  I was dying big time now every time I had a contraction.  Logan was getting worried.  So we dropped off the prescription and went home.  Then I decided that I wasn’t waiting until I couldn’t stand it anymore because I already couldn’t stand it anymore, they were about 3 minutes apart and very painful.  We stayed home for 20 minutes and then got the Loratab and I took some on the way to the hospital.  It was amazing.  It didn’t fix anything by any means but it took the edge off enough that I could walk into the hospital without crying.  By the time I got to the hospital at about 10am I was a 4+.  They got me into my room and then promptly blew a vein in my hand trying to get my IV in despite my many warnings that they needed to be really careful with my sucky veins.  They got it in the second time.  Then they came and drew my blood.  And they left us. 

Time went by really really fast.  I got my epidural around noon when I was almost a 6.  It was amazing.  I didn’t even feel it.  It worked perfectly.  I could still move one of my legs really well and I couldn’t feel anything.  Logan went and got lunch about 1:00.  While he was gone the doctor came and broke my water.  The afternoon flew by.  I was so excited that I didn’t need any Pitocin to keep my labor going.  We decided to call my mom at 3.  Then 3 came and went and we decided to call her at 4 and we did.  She left to come immediately.  My nurse (who was kind of grumpy) got off at 6.  I was really kind of nervous because I knew I was getting close and as much as I didn’t love my nurse I was getting used to her and I knew all the other people were going to be strangers.  At 6 when they did shift change I knew immediately that I loved my nurse.  Then I realized I was getting really close because another nurse came in and told me that she would be my baby’s nurse.  Then all the closets started opening and baby stuff started coming out of them.  And then Dr. Chamberlain came in wearing scrubs and I was like holy cow, shouldn’t this feel weirder to me?  Why am I not panicking?  And then they were like “Okay it’s time to push.” I was like, “Okay, no big deal.”  They asked Logan if he wanted to hold my leg and we said no, to go get another nurse.  I said if he holds my leg you are going to need 3 more nurses to take care of him when he passes out and it would be easier to just start out with one extra. 

Everything was calm and relaxed which I liked.  My new nurses were funny and they kept joking and stuff with us and the doctor.  It wasn’t weird at all.  Then after about a half hour or so out pops a baby.   I looked down and I was like, “He has Logan feet!” and Dr. Chamberlain looks at them and says, “He does have Logan feet.” (Dr. Chamberlain is the one who got Logan through the foot fiasco last year).  So here I have this beautiful baby boy with lots of dark hair and Logan feet. 

And we still have no idea what to name him.  We start chatting about names and Dr. Chamberlain says the weirdest name he has ever heard was a baby girl name Urethra.  Anyway, we decide to name him Frederick.  And I’m not completely sold on it, but I’m not completely sold on anything because it’s still weird to me that this little bun is ours.  Logan starts taking pictures and keeps saying stuff like, “Hey, turn Chapter toward the camera.” or “Hey little Chap.  Daddy’s taking pictures of you.” And I said to Logan, “Isn’t his name Frederick?” Then we realized that his name was Chapter.  His name had always been Chapter since the day when we were dating and Logan told me that if we ever had a son his name would be Chapter. 

 But that’s the story.   Maybe another day I’ll write about that night.  About our paranoid nurse on the post-partum floor that made our night terrifying.  Or the wonderful nurse we had the next day who did everything she could to help.  But either way this is definitely just the beginning of our story.