Inducing Impatience
Mommy Pregnant with Baby J.
Baby J. has been out of the womb about the same time she was in it. It's kind of crazy to think about how long we waited for her. All of those months of waiting and waiting, wondering what she would like, wonder if she would be perfectly healthy or not. By the end, my wife and I had become delirious, completely and totally impatient. The last two weeks ticked away so slowly. I remember every time my wife would have a Braxton Hicks contraction, we'd rush to get a watch and start timing between contractions, hoping that this time would be the time she would go into labor. One time I remember really well, it was about a week before Baby J. was born, my wife started having contractions, they were roughly four minutes apart, they kept worsening, and we both really thought that it was finally time. After an hour of these contractions, they suddenly stopped, and they didn't return the rest of that day. We were so disappointed.
My wife tried a lot of the tricks to induce labor. Of course, none of them worked. Do they ever work for anyone? I'm curious to know. After being about a week overdue, my wife went to the obstetrician for a checkup, and she told my wife that it was ok to induce. So, my wife thought about it, and though she had wanted the birth to be as natural as possible, she conceded that she couldn't wait any longer. And so, we checked into the hospital later that day.
Everything went so well, but we have both wondered on occasion how much longer it would have taken if we had decided to just wait it out. Another week? Another two weeks? We joke that maybe the reason Baby J. didn't want to come out was because it was so cold; it was January after all, and the day we left the hospital was one of those bitter cold days, where it burns to breathe, and your hands go numb after only a minute or two of exposure. However, whatever the reason she was waiting, she was forced out, and we were glad for it.
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.
