Happy 1st week anniversary, Button!
I changed my facebook profile picture to this this week.
Mommy is in the bedroom nursing you right now. I’m hanging out until you’re done to change and soothe you before we try to get you to sleep for another 2-ish hours. That’s how our first week together has gone…..planning around your feeding schedule, charting your diapers, and entertaining visitors who are wanting to meet you.
The last time I checked in, we were spending the day at home after being turned away by the hospital on Saturday. Mommy was given a morphine sleep to give her some rest from the pain but to keep the contractions happening in hopes that she would dilate enough to be admitted. Well…..she woke up from the sleep around noon on Saturday and spent the afternoon and evening in a post-morphine stupor with contractions. We finally returned to the hospital around 8:30 on Saturday night.
When we returned to OB Triage and Mommy was getting into the rear-closure hospital gown, she thought her water had broke. There was something wet down there. It turned out it was her mucous plug, the snot-like collection that plugs up her uterus; losing it is a sign that labor is near and the water is about to break.
When Mommy was measured, and the nurse said “five,” we all cheered, hoping that it would all be over soon. But we were in for a long night.
Saturday night was rather stressful. Mommy had an epidural injection to numb the pain at 11pm, but the cervix was taking much longer to finish dilating than normal. Typically, once a mommy gets to 5, it takes about 1-2 hours to dilate another centimeter. So when Mommy was at 5 at 9pm, we were hoping she’d be ready to push by early morning. Unfortunately, she was 6cm at 2am and 7cm at 5am. It was excruciating! Auntie Ka and I took turns sleeping on the comfy part of the couch while Mommy was in bed waiting. During one of my sleep shifts I had the Ham Burrito Dream:
I was in the birthing room with my wife, 1 nurse, and sister-in-law Ka. We were all discussion the best possible decisions for mother and child. Another nurse entered with a plate full of food….it was a ham and egg burrito with a side of tater tots…..because I’d been eating trail mix and power bars for half a day I was very interested in it. But the nurse explained that it was for Ka and not for me because my wife signed to have Ka be the one to adminster CPR if something happened to Wifey. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and felt left out…..how could she do this to me? I woke up feeling replaced and low. Interpretation: My wife was in labor and there was NOTHING I could do to help her feel better, help the baby descend, or help labor progress. I think it was a typical male feeling….especially in the delivery room…..helpless. Males are not invited to the sisterhood ham burrito parties because they’re male, they don’t know their bodies as well, and they can’t have babies.
Mommy in the delivery room, waiting.
Around 5am was when we had the “C-section talk,” from the nurse. Mommy’s contractions were strong, you were turning and placing yourself in the proper birth delivery position, but Mommy had been in labor for so long, we weren’t sure she’d have the energy to push you out.
Next chapter…..a drawing of Mommy and all the tubes she had in her, and the miraculous story of your birth!
Love, Daddy