The Caulbearer

I thought I would go back a little over 9 months ago and discuss Baby J's birth. If I had only one word with which to describe it, I would probably say it was "surreal". For over nine months, my wife and I knew there was a baby inside of her. We watched her belly grow. We looked at all the sonograms together. We took home the sonogram videos and played them for everyone. But still, being in the hospital, actually witnessing her birth, was pretty unbelievable.

Baby J. at the Hospital

My wife had decided to be induced. She was over a week late, and the doctor had told her if she didn't induce that day she'd wait at least another week. In hindsight, my wife has said she would have waited. After arriving at the hospital, signing in and getting a room, my wife was given a drug for softening the cervix. Baby J.'s grandma was at the hospital with us. We spent most of that day and night watching TV, talking, wondering how the labor was going to be. My wife spent most of the time having mild contractions.

By morning, the contractions had gotten stronger. The doctors determined that the drug to relax my wife's cervix was enough to get the labor going, they wouldn't actually need to administer the drugs that started the contractions. This was a relief. As morning drew closer and closer to afternoon, the contractions were becoming much stronger. My wife asked for an epidural, when the pain started becoming too much for her. We were blessed that day to have a rookie resident learning how to administer epidurals come to our room. This didn't exactly instill us with confidence, especially since we signed all those papers saying the hospital wasn't responsible if my wife died or suffered severe nerve damage from the epidural (how comforting). After they administered the first epidural, they performed a test to see if there was any feeling in my wife's lower body...there was. It hadn't worked. Seeing as my wife had gone from 3cm dilated to nearly fully dilated, the doctors quickly scrambled to administer a second epidural, which...get this...didn't take either.

Then, it was too late. There wouldn't be a third try. At roughly 11:30 in the morning, my wife felt the overwhelming need to push. She was scared. I was scared. I held her hand, and I reassured her as best I could, while the nurse explained what to do. The doctor came in for the delivery. Wasn't it only a few hours ago we were discussing what would happen? Wasn't it only a few hours ago we were still convinced there wasn't a baby in her belly?

Now, this is where I can't exactly explain what it was like. For me, it wasn't real at all. The next thirty minutes went by in about half a heart beat. When the pushing had only started, something fell out of my wife. She started yelling, "What was that? What was that?" She was panicked. It wasn't the baby. It was the caul (the amniotic sac), and it was fully intact. It was a weird thing to look at it, like a big yellowish ball of jelly held in a plastic encasing. I read that babies born with the caul intact are referred to as caulbearers, and they are said to lead lucky lives. So, I guess right from the start, Baby J. was blessed in her own way.