The Arrival

In case you missed the memo (and odds are, if you are not on Facebook or my mother's email list you did), Wyatt Roland Beattie made his debut on Friday, July 3rd at 9:07pm. Really, there was nothing extraordinary about his birth but because I enjoy blogging a good story I will share it anyway.

I like to think the adventure begins the day before. I had my OB appointment and he did the membrane stripping thing, which has never worked before so I didn't really expect much from it this time either. I was 3cm and almost totally effaced though, so I really felt ready to pop this kid out (despite not quite having hit 39 weeks). Later that night, we went to the Buffet Palace where I ate this really good but really spicy kung pao chicken. I had like three helpings of it, and as we were leaving the restaurant I was experiencing some serious pain in the baby-carrying area. Not like contractions, more like... well, like one really huge continuous contraction. It was not cool. It also lasted for about five hours, and when it finally went away I was both relieved (it really hurt!) and disappointed (apparently not labor). But then the next morning, bright and early, I started having regular contractions and I began to wonder if this was it.

Keep in mind that even though I've had three kids, I've been induced three times and so I've never gone into labor by myself. I've only gone into labor in a controlled environment, with people there to check my progress and give me pain meds as soon as I thought it was painful. So even though by 2pm I had been having contractions every 10 minutes for like seven hours, I still wasn't totally convinced I was in labor. However, by 4pm they were really starting to freaking hurt but weren't getting much closer together, and while I think I was finally sure that I was in fact going to have this baby, it felt like it might be days away. I took a bath in the jacuzzi tub, which helped because it made my belly float and took some of the downward pressure off. After about 90 minutes in the tub (which, incidentally, still leaks even after we had a dude out to fix it, crappy time to discover this) I was finally at 5 minutes apart. So it's about 5:30... I call the hospital to say that I'd been having contractions 5 minutes apart for the last hour, just like my doctor said, and that I'm ready to come in. The super helpful nurse says, "well, we like to recommend that you've been having them 2-5 minutes apart for two hours straight so we can make sure you're really in labor". Seriously? I am pretty sure these are labor pains, lady. So I decide not to really regard that, considering the hospital is 30 minutes away and I can barely stand. We get the kids ready, send Jake and Bean next door for the night and get in the car to bring Norah across town to another friend's house. By now it's almost 6:30 and I am not a happy camper. Not that I'm yelling, or crying, or doing anything besides counting my breaths and chewing gum through each contraction, but I was becoming more and more sure that I was going to absolutely die before I made it to the hospital.

Finally, we get to the hospital. I am so relieved to be there, because it's waving at me like this big beacon of pain relief. We get up to OB reception, where I inform the lady at the desk that I am going to have a baby now, and she tells me "a nurse will be with you in a minute". Which might have been accurate, if what she meant by 'a minute' actually meant 'forty-five agonizing minutes from now we'll come for you'. Yep, that's right. I had the joy of laboring right there in the waiting room for forty-five minutes, breathing and chewing gum. Apparently they were so insanely busy that they couldn't even get me into triage. I say this somewhat bitterly, since I was one out of two pregnant women in that lobby, and the only one clearly in labor (and a significant amount of pain). Anyhoo, finally they bring me into triage, where I start sobbing because I have discovered that I can't really stand any more and I am SO CLOSE TO THE GUY WITH THE DRUGS AND I CAN'T HAVE THEM DO THEY SERIOUSLY NOT BELIEVE THAT I AM GOING TO HAVE THIS BABY RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IF YOU LOOK AT ME YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL THAT I'M NOT IMAGINING THIS AAAAUUUGH. I may have just been delusional, but I was seriously afraid that these people (who, by the way, were a group of doctors and med students that all appeared to be about 25 and possibly auditioning for a Grey's Anatomy spinoff) didn't really believe me and might actually try to send me home. But finally they checked me, and I think we were all surprised to discover that I was fully dilated and wasn't kidding when I claimed that I was going to have this baby right now. I mean, of course I thought I was getting close, but obviously I would not have labored by myself to 10 cm if I could have showed up to the hospital four centimeters ago and requested the epidural and a green popsicle.

Anyway, they finally got me into a delivery room (magic! They had one open!) and called the anesthesiologist and a real doctor (over the age of 30) and within about 20 minutes all was well. I was back to my easygoing self, despite still feeling a little traumatized about the whole labor/lobby/extreme pain incident. They wanted to wait a little while for the epidural to really kick in, so I had like twenty blissful minutes where I just enjoyed my new pain-free self and watched a little tv while they brought in all the baby paraphernalia. I love that part, when they start bringing in the baby warmer, and the sterile kits of knives and scissors and other scary devices. It's how you know things are really happening. And then it was time to push!

Now, in the past I have been told things like, 'just a few pushes and this baby will be out' and 'this won't take very long at all'. I have never pushed for less than 45 minutes, so when these kind people informed me that this baby was on its way out, both Tom and I where like mmhmm. Yeah. Whatever you say. Which is why after three pushes when a baby came sailing out of me, we were both shocked. Here is the photographic proof of our shock:




And with this, the story of my worst labor ever turned into the story of my easiest delivery ever. And as is frequently the case with us moms, once I saw the baby it didn't matter anyway because I was happy that he was a) out of me b) not as ugly as Norah and c) healthy. (Also I was still blissfully pain-free.) He was so tiny! 6 lbs, 10 oz, and only 17.75". Just an itty bitty little thing, with a funny little nose and no chin. And a very nicely shaped head, since there was no time for a conehead or anything.

I'm trying to get around to putting up all the pictures on our Shutterfly page, but here's a couple of New Baby Friend Wyatt until that happens. Oh, and to finish the whole story, the rest of my hospital stay was awesome-- they didn't try to kick me out at 24 hours, it was a nice room with nice nurses and great care. Overall, it was a 1000% improvement over my last two military hospital births. Yay civilian health care!