Hi, Five.
Today Alex turned five. He says that being five "feels good because I am bigger, faster, and have more toys." His favorite new toy was a Blue Lightning Storm McQueen:
Anyway, look for a follow-up post after Sunday when he is having his party. In the meantime, read the first comment for the previously unpublished and unfinished story of the the days leading up to his birth.
2 comments:
It was a Wednesday morning not unlike any other. Though it was the babies original due date, Shelley and I had become convinced that the kid was going to be late. It was a bit before 8:00 and I was already at work when my phone rang. There was a familiar voice on the other end, but since it was out of context, it took me a second to realize it was my good friend and college roommate, Dave. He and his wife, Kristi, were expecting their second child in about two weeks. Dave had called to inform me that young Joshua was early and had been born in the wee hours that morning. As I was talking to Dave, a call came in on my other line. Figuring it was Shelley calling to see if I’d heard from Dave and Kristi, I did not answer it.
About 5 minutes after the conversation with Dave wrapped up, my phone rang again. As I thought, it was Shelley. She wasn’t calling to tell be about Kristi and Dave. She was calling to tell me she thought her water had broken. Once it all clicked, I realized that if my to-be offspring could arrange to show up within the next 16 hours, she would share Josh’s birthday. A mental countdown timer appeared in the air above me, counting down the time. As an aside, I say “she” even though we didn’t actually know the gender of our baby. Based on over vigorous scrutiny of the ultrasound video from December as well as intuition, we were very sure the baby would be of the female variety.
After some calls, Shelley was able to talk to the doctor who told us to come into the hospital to verify if her water had indeed broken. In the best sit-com tradition, I hurriedly packed up my stuff and drove home like a madman ready to quick get Shelley and rush to the hospital. Shelley was calmly and methodically getting things together and getting ready to go. I tried unsuccessfully to instill in her the same sense of urgency I felt. I thought the baby might pop out at any time, but she didn’t seem to think so. She must have been watching different shows.
Finally we were ready to go. At least we would be once we stopped at the Fed-Ex box to drop off her time sheet and then went to the ATM. With those errands done, we set out for the hospital, but my desire to drive really fast was thwarted by getting behind Pokey Slowington whom Shelley would not let me pass. It seemed like it took forever to get there, but it probably was only like 15 minutes.
We arrived at around 9:30 and had to wait in a triage room since all the labor & delivery rooms were being used. In another bed in this room a lady was yelling and screaming in the exact way that Shelley wasn’t. We met our nurse, Gretchen, who used litmus paper to verify that Shelley’s water was indeed broken. That meant it was showtime, or at least it soon would be. The nurse put two monitors onto Shelley’s stomach. The first monitored the baby’s heartbeat, and the second was what I called the “Contracto-Meter” which measured contractions. We soon learned that the baby was doing fine and that Shelley was not having any contractions to speak of.
I was sent to the car to bring one of our bags in. By the time I returned, Shelley was discussing strategy with her doctor, Kristi Kerr. The decision was that she would need to be induced since once the water is broken, there is a threat of infection if the baby stays in too long. We considered waiting a few hours to see if contractions would start on there own, but the doctor felt it was best to start sooner since in usually takes about 12 hours once the medicine is started, and would be better to deliver the baby at 11:00 PM rather than 2:00 AM. We agreed to wait until a room was available.
A room became available right away, so we checked in. This was about 10:30. Shelley got hooked up to pitocin. The IV coupled with the monitors had the effect of vastly reducing Shelley’s mobility. So much for all the activities we learned in birthing class to speed along labor. Shelley’s range of activity was now limited to lying in bed, sitting in a chair, sitting on a ball, and going to the bathroom. The last of these was quite an elaborate procedure. Shelley was also not allowed to eat. You can imagine the effect all this had on her mood.
The afternoon went by and we watched the monitor to see when the contractions would kick in. Every so often Gretchen would come in and up the dosage of pitocin. The doctor also visited a couple of times to check Shelley. In a nutshell, no progress was being made. My brother Dave and our friend Sue also came by and helped us stare at the monitor.
Happy Birthday to our favorite nephew! Sorry we didn't call today. We'll make it up soon! It's not every day your young man turns five!
Post a Comment