Justin's Birthday

On Monday, June 16th, the day after Father's Day, Heather started contracting at 4:45 AM. I was not aware anything was going on until I awoke to find her sitting up in bed staring over my head at the alarm clock, timing contractions. I felt certain at that moment that this was the day, but that the actual delivery was far off, so I asked if she was okay, rolled over, and waited until further notification. (Yeah Dad, what a chivalrous hero). Neither of us slept terribly well from that point, as I think we both really knew it was time but I chose to take advantage of sleep while I still could.

Heather never did go back to sleep, but she woke me periodically to ask what I thought of the situation. We finally got going as morning broke. Heather was happy as always, but was also frustrated as we did not have the definitive "water has broken" certainty to send us to the hospital this time. She didn't want to get to the hospital only to be sent home, and wanted to be certain that it really was time.

Heather had been predicting the delivery to be imminent and I had taken her seriously, so much so that when she had contractions the Friday before, I had started packing the hospital bag at midnight on a work night. Heather is in tune with her body. When she expresses her feelings, you need to take her seriously whether you are her husband, her doctor, or whomever. She had told a friend at church that the baby would be born in two weeks (she was 36 weeks at the time). I should have known that night was a false alarm, because she had her mind set against delivering on Friday the 13th. She's not a superstitious woman, but she's not about to mingle a special day of celebration with an ordinary and goofy superstition. I packed the bags anyway.

At 8:30 we finally called Debbie to initiate the plan of the day. She said it would be be a minute but she needed to do a couple things. At 8:45 she was at our front door. I don't know what kind of superhuman "grandma powers" she utilized, but she showered and did "a couple things", and still managed to get to the house in 15 minutes. For a woman notorious for driving 5 mph or more below the speed limit, she made impressive time. I partially attribute this to the rented red Cadillac, I hear she made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, and her hair still looked great! (Sincerest apologies for the Star Wars reference. Correction, apology retracted.)

We arrived at the hospital at 9:15 (after running a quick errand) and were checked into Labor and Delivery Room 23. Heather changed clothes, vitals were taken, and heart monitors were set up. The baby's pulse rate was elevated (170 beats per minute) so Heather was immediately put on an IV drip and given an oxygen mask. Much to the amusement of the staff, I attempted to get her to do a Darth Vader impression with her mask on, but it was to no avail. Heather's blood was taken, and the baby's pulse rate gradually normalized.

Up until now we still had not been officially admitted, but when the doctor considered that the contractions were consistent and steady, the baby was full term, nobody had anything in particular to do that Monday, and they knew that (based on the contractions) we would be back that evening, we were finally admitted. Finally we knew for sure, we were having our baby that day!

At that point some spare technician came in and took a blood sample out of Heather's other arm. By Heather's reaction, the nurse must have either had "a thing for pain", or fool-heartedly decided to use a javelin in lieu of a needle. After completing her task, our first nurse, Tara, returned and chastised her because all she needed was a sample "pick-up," not a sample "collection." Thank God Heather isn't bothered by blood work, because if they had needed my blood twice I would have passed out or sought retribution for the needless gouging.

Despite the fact that this would end up being a longer labor than her first one, the day flew by in a blur. At 1:10 PM they finally decided to break her water, which accelerated things somewhat. This made the contractions more intense and by 3:30 she had decided she had waited long enough, and asked for the epidural. At 4:30 Heather was checked and was still only at 4.5cm so she was given Pitocin because even though her contractions were regular, they still lacked the intensity necessary to further progress labor.

It was obvious that the Pitocin had done the trick because by 5:50 she was at 8.5 centimeters and at Station + 1 causing the doctor to predict that within the hour the baby would be born. At 6:25 Nurse Gail checked Heather, and told her she had reached the coveted 10cm mark, and that it was finally time to start pushing. At 6:25:02 Nurse Gail said "Don't Push or he's going to be here before the doctor." At that point she had the doctor paged and began making final preparations for delivery. Despite their very casual demeanors, the preparations actually took very little time, the doctor arrived, and the pushing commenced......but just for a moment. The doctor asked for one push (lasting 10 seconds), saw the baby and told Heather to stop.

At the last office visit we asked for a size approximation. The doctor didn't want to do an ultrasound, so he just felt Heather's abdomen and approximated that the baby was going to be much smaller than Norah, probably around 7 lbs 12 ozs IF his birth was delayed to the induction date of June 24th.

On delivery day, June 16th, after just a few seconds, the doctor looked at us and informed us it was pretty obvious that this was going to be a big baby, much bigger than he had guessed.

At 6:34 PM, after pushing through just 3 contractions, our baby boy was born. He was silent for just a few seconds, caught his first breath, and let us know it was cold and he was terribly unhappy with his change in living conditions. I stayed with him as the nurses examined him and cleaned him off. Justin held my little finger as the nurses examined him. Once both he and Heather had been taken care of, what was previously an active room with multiple people emptied out, leaving us to share some quiet time together.

Finally Justin was taken to the nursery where he unenthusiastically received his first bath and Norah, Grandma, Phillip, Russell, and Alyssa watched through the glass. About an hour and a half after delivery, we were moved to our room where we were able to officially introduce Norah to her new baby brother.

Looking back, both our children were born on Mondays in June after a day at church, and a late evening discussing our plans for the coming week. Either Heather's mind and body are buoyed by the day of rest and reflection or my obsession with planning initiates labor.

Justin's estimated due date was June 30th, his scheduled induction date was June 24th, but he decided to join us on his own terms and on his own time. We welcomed him into our family at 6:34pm on June 16th, 2008.