An Official Accounting of the Birth of George Wilson Galbraith

Reader, be warned. Ahead are the "gory details" which were unanimously voted for. If you are not part of the Parent Posse, you may find what you read to be Too Much Information. Turn back now if you are squeamish or have no desire to burden yourself with the mental images.

 

[Also, since I like to talk a lot, and am rather detail-oriented, this will probably be a bit of an epistle.]

It was the comment posted about how birth stories are women's equivalent to war stories that made up my mind for me. Because it's true. Otherwise, I would feel a little odd posting something so personal and detailed (and LONG) on my blog for any ol' person to come along and read. But that's silly, because I would be perfectly willing to tell the whole thing to a perfect stranger in the grocery checkout. So here t'is.

Saturday, September 20th, for the first time in months, we had nothing scheduled for the weekend. We had done that on purpose, figuring we would have a squishy baby to love and hold, and a mommy on bed rest, and a very tired-from-doing-the-work-of-two-parents daddy. But, no, we were just overdue and overwhelmed. Happily, at 8:32 in the morning, I had a very business-like contraction. I marked the time, and sat down in the comfy chair in my room where I could watch the clock. Another one five minutes later. I informed Mark, who was very glad. He went about the business of the morning, getting children up and dressed. I watched the clock, counting and praying and breathing and willing this child out.

When we were sure that it really was labor (being a little gun-shy after Wednesday), I called my dear friend, Les, who had promised to take the kids. But she was with her son at his out-of-town football game, and I couldn't reach her. Mark and I had two sets of people lined up to help: those who could come over in the middle of the night to stay with the children, and those who could take them to their house during the day. But we had mostly middle-of-the-night people, so I was stumped as to where to send the kids for a daytime delivery. God bless her, the amazing Kristin said, "oh, sure!" when I called her in desperation (and feeling sheepish that I hadn't better planned). She and her husband even cancelled an afternoon excursion they were planning just to accommodate us. So, Mark hastily fed the munchkins and loaded them into the van. I stayed at the house, pacing and counting.

When he got back from transporting children, we just sort of looked at each other in a "now what?" sort of way. My contractions were all 3-5 minutes apart, but not so serious that I couldn't walk/talk through them. For me, that's not yet at the rush-to-the-hospital stage. I prefer to labor in my own space whilst I can. It helps that we're only seven minutes from the hospital, too.

 

It's very convenient to go into labor first thing in the morning, because you have the whole day ahead of you, and you are (presumably) well rested from the night before. Having nothing better to do, Mark started cleaning off the computer desk and organizing paperwork. I puttered around, tidying this and straightening that. Still contracting. Still not incapacitated by it. Inside, I was terrified that this was all a cruel hoax, and it was just going to quit again. I kept thinking of what my friend, Kelli (whose husband happens to be my OB, and who happens to read my blog, so I have to be nicer about what I say about my opinions on the medical establishment), had said to me: "You can't stay pregnant forever. If you did, you'd go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first woman in history who ever did." It's so obvious, you'd think I didn't need to be verbally reminded. Of course I won't stay pregnant forever! But it really helped to have someone verbalize that for me, because somehow in my subconscious mind, I though I felt like that's exactly what was going to happen. So, I paced my house, thinking, "I can't stay pregnant forever. I can't stay pregnant forever."

I don't remember what time it was when I talked Mark into leaving the house for the hospital. He was reluctant to go, thinking we weren't to that point yet (he was right). I was eager to leave, somehow secretly hoping that any action was better than no action, and once we got to the hospital, somehow the ambiance of the OB ward would help move things along (what was I thinking?). And, I was bored with pacing my house and waiting for something dramatic to happen...like my water breaking. I wanted very much to check into the maternity ward, and have a nurse tell me, "Why, you're dilated to a seven! You're handling this very calmly."

 

The ride to the hospital was very surreal. The little Amber in the back of my brain that watches my life on the movie screen - booing and throwing popcorn on occasion, cheering and whistling when warranted - was thinking: this feels too normal. I can't be in labor. Everything looks too familiar, and I'm too aware of my surroundings. No way I'm going to have a baby today.

So, we get to the hospital. I walk into the hospital, check in, and we amble back to the OB ward. The nurses looked unconvinced (an ambulatory woman who says she's about to have a baby?), but there was no one else there, so they checked me in and plugged me to the monitors. Baby: good. Contractions: minimal. Dilation: three centimeters (dang!). They decided that I was indeed in labor, and that they would go ahead and admit me (oh, good, because I REALLY didn't want to go back home and pick up the kids and say, "just joking!"). So I surrendered my civilian clothing and donned that fabulously fashionable hospital robe.

[ridiculously impertinent side note: you can get your own stylish and hip labor & delivery gown here from a place called B.Y.O.G. - bring your own gown - for a mere $95. Come on! Isn't that reasonable? Isn't it worth it for you to feel gorgeous while you sweat and pant and push? After all, Gwen Stefani and Tori Spelling did it. That means the rest of us have to, right?]

And, of course, as soon as I sit on the bed, everything goes away. I mean, it tapered off. Whatever. It certainly wasn't considered progress. Mark just sort of sat there in the armchair, watching the nurses fuss over me. We kept just looking at each other, not really knowing what to say, just hoping that things would move. So I told the nurse - who, by the way, was a wonderful woman. I'm so glad I labored on her shift! - I needed to go walk. She got me a second gown - to make up for what the first one lacked in the back - and Mark and I set off down the hall. We walked for half an hour, and then went back to see how things were going. Things were going, but not enough for me to feel happily in labor (is that possible?).

 

So we went walking again. We chatted as we walked up and down the halls of the hospital. People smiled at us as they passed by. Inside of me, there was this battle going on: I wanted so much to be done and to be delivered and to have this baby. I also wanted so much not to hurt, and I knew that it was going to hurt a lot, and I was having a hard time talking that little Amber in the back of my head into making actual effort to hurt more, and working harder to keep it going that way. Weird, huh? You'd think that with Baby No. Six, we'd be beyond that. It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into. I was very much struggling emotionally, but physically, I was still walking.

It's a good thing Mark was there with me. He's amazing when we go into labor. He could seriously teach classes (the OB nurses always say something like that to us...). If he hadn't been there beside me, I would have said, "Just kidding. I'd like to go home. Cancel my subscription. Check, please!" But he was there, thank Heaven. So we kept walking and making silly small talk. It was on our third or fourth time out and around that I started having to pause in my march during contractions, which was noteworthy. So, we went back. Dilated, but not enough. Mark ordered lunch from the hospital cafeteria, since he hadn't eaten anything the whole day (neither had I, but I didn't want to add losing my lunch to the list of sensations and experiences that day).

Gaile - that fabulous nurse - brought out the laboring ball. That was a nifty do-dad. It worked well, too. That's where my water broke...only a little, though. So, they wanted to move me to the bed for more checking. It was so hard to move, and it hurt so much, that I knew we were down to business. I wanted to keep laboring on the ball thing, but I didn't want to have to move again. So I stayed on the bed. Of course, I lost all track of time. Mark could tell me how long we were at each point, but I was just living through it, not timing anything.

 

Now, I've read a lot of birth books. I had my first two children at home. I know about the visualization stuff, and lots of helpful relaxation techniques. My oldest sister has raved about hypno-birthing, and it sounds a lot like some of the stuff we've done before. But all that knowledge seemed impotent this time. My memory of what was going on and what I still had to do was too strong, and I simply could not make myself relax into the contractions and work with my body. Mark was right there, watching me, telling me to breath, to relax, to hold on, to breath some more. Later, he apologized, because he felt he was being too forceful (he was being ardently firm), but it was exactly what I needed. If he had lightened up at all, I would have shut down, I think. I was at the point where the only things I could get myself to do were the things he was telling me to do.

In those helpful what-to-expect-while-you're-in-abject-physical-agony books, they talk a lot about "pain with a purpose" and visualizing what your body is doing: imagining your cervix opening up, or thinking of a flower blooming open or some other positive, lovely, opening mental imagery. All I could see in my head, each time a contraction hit, was a huge tree trunk that I had to will up a cobblestone street hill all by myself, with just my thoughts. OK, that's a little off-beat, I know, and I have NO idea where it came from but that's the mental image that kept coming to me. A contraction would start, Mark would remind me to breath, and I would breath and will that huge piece of wood up that hill with all my heart. And as the log hit the top of the hill, the contraction would subside. I don't know how else to describe it. Here's me, moving lumber while I labor.

After what seemed like enough wood to build a town, I was sure I was dilated and effaced and ready to roll. So, they would lay me back (ow!ow!ow!) and check. Nope, still at an 8; or, dilated but not effaced. And back we'd go, rolling logs uphill. Mark held my hand and gave me something to pull against. At one point, I asked if his arm was getting sore. He said, no, but he was pretty sure mine was going to be sore in the morning (he was right). His hands were very cool and between logs, he'd put his hands on my face - which felt marvelous, much better than the cold washcloth the nurses kept offering - and say wonderful things to me about how amazing I was and what a great job I was doing and how beautiful our baby was going to be and how I was almost done. The Amber in the back of my head argued with him about everything he said, because she knew she was doing a terrible job, otherwise we'd be done and the baby would be here already. The rest of me believed every word of it, and was just so grateful he was there.

 

Through all of this, I still wasn't able to completely relax my legs and my butt, so I think that's why I wasn't effacing. And there was a muscle in my abdomen that I think I tore or something, because with each contraction, there was a shooting pain that had nothing to do with pushing out a baby. I was hurting more than I could breathe through or visualize my way out of. So, for the first time in six babies, I asked for pain killer. They gave me some stadol (how do you spell that?) to take the edge off, which it did, and five minutes later George was here. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't asked for it, we would have been there a lot longer.

So anyway. Finally, Gaile The Nurse said she was going to try pushing the not-effaced stuff out of the way during the next contraction. So, she put her hand up there and did just that. It was way more than I could cope with, and I'm pretty sure I hollered. But the second she moved the cervix out of the way, the baby's head hit her hand. "That's the baby!" I said (shouted). It sure was. Mark says the baby was born less than a minute later, but it felt like an hour to me. There is a particular sensation that is unmistakable, that feeling of the baby moving down the birth canal and out into the wide world. I could feel it, and I could remember it. And my initial reaction was: that hurts! stop whatever you're doing that is causing it so it stops hurting! It took me a moment to realize what I was saying to myself, because, hello! That was the baby, and if I could just push a little harder and a moment longer, we'd be done! So, I did. And he was born. But it didn't stop hurting. They lifted him up and out and put him on my tummy. And started rubbing him vigorously. Instead of thinking, "Oh, my sweet baby, he's finally here!" I thought, "Ugh! They're wiggling and squishing me with all that toweling....move it to another spot, folks!" Dr. Jane offered to let Mark cut the cord, but he declined, saying he had done that before and didn't really care either way. So, the doctor and I worked on the placenta (which was why I was still hurting) while the nurses worked on George. Mark stayed with me until I told him I was OK and sent him across the room to check on the baby.

It wasn't my doctor who delivered George. He was out of town for the afternoon (on the same excursion Kristin and her husband had planned to go to). So, it was Dr. Jane, whom I have decided I really like. It was a little different, because I was sitting up enough to see my baby slide into the doctor's hands (when I opened my eyes, that is, because they had been squeezed tightly shut, seeing that log rolling up that cobblestone hill...), and watched her saw through the umbilical cord. Thinking back on it, I haven't seen that since Gabriella was born. At the hospital where I had Lucy, Eliza and Yvette, they insisted I be on my back with my feet in the air to deliver (boo! hiss!). Here, they managed to catch the baby while I was still mostly upright (huzzah! hooray!), so I could actually see. Am I a bad mommy that my first reaction to my babies is that they're grey and slimy and dirty and funny-smelling? I don't really have to hold the baby right away. It's OK with me if someone else holds and cleans up and wraps up the child I worked so hard to get out into the open. I'll take the baby and snuggle the baby and enjoy the baby after someone else has cleaned them up a wee bit for me. And after I'm more comfortable, myself.

 

After they weighed and measured George (nine pounds, 21 ad 1/2 inches long, 14 and 1/2 inch head), and he pooped on the obstetrician, the pediatrician, and the end of my hospital gown; and I was cleaned up and they put my bed back together, everything else kind of runs together in my mind as a blur. I remember he was a good nurser, and latched on in the first few minutes. I remember a very uncomfortably cold shower (the water was warm, but the nurse left the door to the bathroom open, and then someone else left the door to my room open, so there was a nasty draft), and being wheeled in a wheelchair to a different room for R&R. I remember thinking it was the middle of the night - surely everything had taken longer! It sure felt like it! - when it was only early evening. I remember Mark leaving with a list of things to bring back and a promise to bring the kids. I remember thinking he looked pretty beat, and that he should just go to bed. I remember being so glad it was over.

Of course, there's more to the story: people who helped out and came to visit and brought food. But that's the story about transitioning him from tenant to roommate. He's two weeks old today. We still haven't settled on a pet name. We call him George, George Wilson, Mr. Wilson (think Dennis the Menace), Master George, and the girls still call him Squid. I like calling him son. For some reason, it's nice to be able to say that to someone else besides Hyrum.