#006: Labor and Delivery
As promised, here’s “the rest of the story.”
Okay, so where did we leave off? If I recall correctly, we had just gotten checked into the labor and delivery room, right? Okay, so let’s talk about labor and delivery, from the perspective of an expectant father.
October 27, 8:30am: We finally get ourselves settled into the labor and delivery room, and I get to work on my “setup.” Out comes the iPod with the portable speakers. I take my nice flannel blanket out and set it aside. I put my camcorder next the TV and my digital cameras (two of them) next to it. Why do I have two? My digital camera seemed to develop picturitis during one of our vacations and decided to turn all my pictures into something resembling Van Gogh’s “starry night.” Great artwork, but lacking in clarity. Interestingly enough, the problem simply “went away” a couple months later, but intuition told me that good things like that don’t go away for long. To account for this, I also packed my son’s camera.
I put on my sweater to keep warm and then I took out my munchies and prepared to enjoy a light snack. My wife looked at me with a look that doesn’t say “you’re doing everything right.”
I think the munchies was a bit too far. I sheepishly put them back into the bag. I think this is one of those times when you need to endure the hunger right along with your wife.
The nurse comes back with a ball for my wife to sit on. Does anyone know of this ball? Apparently, it is much better than laying on the bed, and helps to take the edge off the contractions. Hey man, whatever helps. Livonia rolled around on that and was feeling much better.
We continued to check her dilation, but only seemed to be advancing one centimeter per hour. At this rate, we’ll be here forever! I look longingly at my food, and my wife relents and tells me to eat something. I pick up the first item she bought for me: beef jerky. I open it up and the smell is too strong for her, so I put it back. I grab the next thing she bought for me: sunflower seeds, the in shell. In retrospect, there is probably no other food more annoying to watch someone eat than sunflower seeds in the shell. As I throw handful after handful into my mouth, and then spit the shells into a cup, she looks at me with a look not too dissimilar from the one she gave me earlier.
October 27, 11:30am: By this time, I had taken several pictures, and decided to start taking pictures of Livonia with the clock in the picture. I thought it would be neat to see the time of the picture. I took a look at the picture, and all I could see was “starry night.”
Curse you Van Gogh!
So, my camera is dead. I look at some of the other pictures taken, including the one taken of my wife and I by the nurse, and have all been “starry nighterized.” I now have to figure out how to use my son’s camera.
My wife’s contractions were getting pretty strong now. Plus, they were coming much faster. What seemed to help the contractions was for me to lean over her so she could grab the back of neck and pull against it. This is when I learned that my wife is very strong, and I am very weak. As she pulled against me, I felt pain in the back of my legs, and felt my arm trying to buckle as I gripped the side bar. After the contraction subsided, I would go to sit down and give my legs a rest while I rubbed the back of my neck. However, the contractions were too close together. As soon as I sat down, she would ask me to come back. She continued to pull, and I continued to wonder the point in time where my neck would break. She asked me if I was okay, and so my answer, of course, was “honey, I’m fine. Let’s just worry about you for now.”
Each time I sat down, I would throw another handful of seeds into my mouth, and each time she would call me back up, I would try to crack just one more seed before leaning over her. This is when I learned that when a women in labor requests your presence, it doesn’t mean “when you have a moment.” It means “RIGHT NOW!!!”
I am sometimes amazed at how patient my wife can be with me. However, at that time I was amazed at how tasty sunflower seeds were.
Side Note: When we delivered Nathan 6 years ago, the hospital had a really nice bar across the bed that Livonia pulled against. It worked out beautifully. It was exactly what she needed. This bar has since been removed from the bed, so I got to be the replacement. Judging from the strength of her pulling, my guess is they weren’t removed by the hospital. They were removed by expectant mothers who were pulling so hard against them that they bent them into wet noodles.
That’s what I’m guessing.
October 27, 12:30pm: Things are heating up now! We are only dilated 8-9cm, but Livonia cannot wait any longer. She needs to push. She tells the nurse that she needs to push and the nurse tells her she can’t push. She needs to wait for the doctor. She tells her to breathe.
Breathe?
So, my wife starts breathing. As she’s breathing, she tells the nurse that she really needs to push. The nurse tells her again, she can’t push, she needs to wait for the doctor. I stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall. My wife continues to breathe, and tells me to breathe with her. What does she mean by that?
History Lesson: I have had two babies with my wife, and this was now my third child with her. In the previous pregnancies, I never learned how to breathe. I asked about Lamaze classes when we were pregnant with Christian (her second; my first), but my wife assured me that she knew what to do already. After all, it wasn’t like Christian was her first child.
So now we are at baby number 3, and I need to breathe. In my nervousness, I laugh because I don’t know what to do. Health tip: Never laugh when a women in labor asks you to do something. Okay, I need to breathe. I don’t know how to do this, so I tend to match whatever she’s doing. Apparently, if I breathe, it helps her keep her focus. So I breathe. I notice she starts to breathe faster, so I start to breathe faster. Okay, so now she’s breathing even faster. I breathe a little faster. Wow, this is making me a bit light headed.
I wonder what it’s doing to her?
Sure enough, she’s starting to hyperventilate. As this is occurring, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have changed my breathing. She cups her hands over her mouth to stop hyperventilating, and the doctor finally arrives. Good thing too, because now I’m feeling a bit light headed.
October 27, 12:49pm: Okay, this time is merely an estimate, but judging from how quickly things happened, I think I’m pretty close. The doctor comes to break her water. Not sure exactly what happened there. All I know is I’m very thankful he told me to “turn my head.” As she made her first push, the doctor noticed Gabriel’s heartbeat was slowing down, and it wasn’t picking up. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his body and was squeezing him. He mentioned this to Livonia, and that’s all it took.
She pushed again and Gabriel’s head crowned. He asked her to wait a second so he could fix the cord, but her push was so strong that Gabriel made his way into the world. Amazing!
I have to tell you something. It doesn’t matter that I’ve now seen this miracle of birth three times. Every time I see it, I cannot help but start tearing up. I can’t explain it. There is such a rush of emotions at the site of his little head; it is all I can do to hold them all in.
After some suction and a quick examination, the doctor set me up to cut the cord. Gabriel came out just as perfect as could be. You all know this information already, but I need to put it here as my document of record:
Name: Gabriel Lee Winkles
Born: October 27, 2005, @12:51pm
Weight: 7lbs, 13oz
Length: 21 inches
Location: Chandler Regional Medical Center, Labor and Delivery Room 7
Hospital Room: 220
I think that about covers the delivery. Next, I’ll tell you all about our lovely accommodations and what sleeping in a chair/ottoman/chair feels like.
Until next time…
Okay, so where did we leave off? If I recall correctly, we had just gotten checked into the labor and delivery room, right? Okay, so let’s talk about labor and delivery, from the perspective of an expectant father.
October 27, 8:30am: We finally get ourselves settled into the labor and delivery room, and I get to work on my “setup.” Out comes the iPod with the portable speakers. I take my nice flannel blanket out and set it aside. I put my camcorder next the TV and my digital cameras (two of them) next to it. Why do I have two? My digital camera seemed to develop picturitis during one of our vacations and decided to turn all my pictures into something resembling Van Gogh’s “starry night.” Great artwork, but lacking in clarity. Interestingly enough, the problem simply “went away” a couple months later, but intuition told me that good things like that don’t go away for long. To account for this, I also packed my son’s camera.
I put on my sweater to keep warm and then I took out my munchies and prepared to enjoy a light snack. My wife looked at me with a look that doesn’t say “you’re doing everything right.”
I think the munchies was a bit too far. I sheepishly put them back into the bag. I think this is one of those times when you need to endure the hunger right along with your wife.
The nurse comes back with a ball for my wife to sit on. Does anyone know of this ball? Apparently, it is much better than laying on the bed, and helps to take the edge off the contractions. Hey man, whatever helps. Livonia rolled around on that and was feeling much better.
We continued to check her dilation, but only seemed to be advancing one centimeter per hour. At this rate, we’ll be here forever! I look longingly at my food, and my wife relents and tells me to eat something. I pick up the first item she bought for me: beef jerky. I open it up and the smell is too strong for her, so I put it back. I grab the next thing she bought for me: sunflower seeds, the in shell. In retrospect, there is probably no other food more annoying to watch someone eat than sunflower seeds in the shell. As I throw handful after handful into my mouth, and then spit the shells into a cup, she looks at me with a look not too dissimilar from the one she gave me earlier.
October 27, 11:30am: By this time, I had taken several pictures, and decided to start taking pictures of Livonia with the clock in the picture. I thought it would be neat to see the time of the picture. I took a look at the picture, and all I could see was “starry night.”
Curse you Van Gogh!
So, my camera is dead. I look at some of the other pictures taken, including the one taken of my wife and I by the nurse, and have all been “starry nighterized.” I now have to figure out how to use my son’s camera.
My wife’s contractions were getting pretty strong now. Plus, they were coming much faster. What seemed to help the contractions was for me to lean over her so she could grab the back of neck and pull against it. This is when I learned that my wife is very strong, and I am very weak. As she pulled against me, I felt pain in the back of my legs, and felt my arm trying to buckle as I gripped the side bar. After the contraction subsided, I would go to sit down and give my legs a rest while I rubbed the back of my neck. However, the contractions were too close together. As soon as I sat down, she would ask me to come back. She continued to pull, and I continued to wonder the point in time where my neck would break. She asked me if I was okay, and so my answer, of course, was “honey, I’m fine. Let’s just worry about you for now.”
Each time I sat down, I would throw another handful of seeds into my mouth, and each time she would call me back up, I would try to crack just one more seed before leaning over her. This is when I learned that when a women in labor requests your presence, it doesn’t mean “when you have a moment.” It means “RIGHT NOW!!!”
I am sometimes amazed at how patient my wife can be with me. However, at that time I was amazed at how tasty sunflower seeds were.
Side Note: When we delivered Nathan 6 years ago, the hospital had a really nice bar across the bed that Livonia pulled against. It worked out beautifully. It was exactly what she needed. This bar has since been removed from the bed, so I got to be the replacement. Judging from the strength of her pulling, my guess is they weren’t removed by the hospital. They were removed by expectant mothers who were pulling so hard against them that they bent them into wet noodles.
That’s what I’m guessing.
October 27, 12:30pm: Things are heating up now! We are only dilated 8-9cm, but Livonia cannot wait any longer. She needs to push. She tells the nurse that she needs to push and the nurse tells her she can’t push. She needs to wait for the doctor. She tells her to breathe.
Breathe?
So, my wife starts breathing. As she’s breathing, she tells the nurse that she really needs to push. The nurse tells her again, she can’t push, she needs to wait for the doctor. I stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall. My wife continues to breathe, and tells me to breathe with her. What does she mean by that?
History Lesson: I have had two babies with my wife, and this was now my third child with her. In the previous pregnancies, I never learned how to breathe. I asked about Lamaze classes when we were pregnant with Christian (her second; my first), but my wife assured me that she knew what to do already. After all, it wasn’t like Christian was her first child.
So now we are at baby number 3, and I need to breathe. In my nervousness, I laugh because I don’t know what to do. Health tip: Never laugh when a women in labor asks you to do something. Okay, I need to breathe. I don’t know how to do this, so I tend to match whatever she’s doing. Apparently, if I breathe, it helps her keep her focus. So I breathe. I notice she starts to breathe faster, so I start to breathe faster. Okay, so now she’s breathing even faster. I breathe a little faster. Wow, this is making me a bit light headed.
I wonder what it’s doing to her?
Sure enough, she’s starting to hyperventilate. As this is occurring, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have changed my breathing. She cups her hands over her mouth to stop hyperventilating, and the doctor finally arrives. Good thing too, because now I’m feeling a bit light headed.
October 27, 12:49pm: Okay, this time is merely an estimate, but judging from how quickly things happened, I think I’m pretty close. The doctor comes to break her water. Not sure exactly what happened there. All I know is I’m very thankful he told me to “turn my head.” As she made her first push, the doctor noticed Gabriel’s heartbeat was slowing down, and it wasn’t picking up. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his body and was squeezing him. He mentioned this to Livonia, and that’s all it took.
She pushed again and Gabriel’s head crowned. He asked her to wait a second so he could fix the cord, but her push was so strong that Gabriel made his way into the world. Amazing!
I have to tell you something. It doesn’t matter that I’ve now seen this miracle of birth three times. Every time I see it, I cannot help but start tearing up. I can’t explain it. There is such a rush of emotions at the site of his little head; it is all I can do to hold them all in.
After some suction and a quick examination, the doctor set me up to cut the cord. Gabriel came out just as perfect as could be. You all know this information already, but I need to put it here as my document of record:
Name: Gabriel Lee Winkles
Born: October 27, 2005, @12:51pm
Weight: 7lbs, 13oz
Length: 21 inches
Location: Chandler Regional Medical Center, Labor and Delivery Room 7
Hospital Room: 220
I think that about covers the delivery. Next, I’ll tell you all about our lovely accommodations and what sleeping in a chair/ottoman/chair feels like.
Until next time…
posted by Roger Winkles | 9:19 AM
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