| 3/8/2007 2:00:00 AM | |
| Birthin' The Baby, Take II, or Nah Nah Da-Boo Boo, We Were Right | |
| We arrived at the hospital around midnight I guess. Hannah was whisked right upstairs while I dealt with the paperwork aspect of the admission. It was during that grilling that I realized how little I actually know about my wife. After the ordeal I braved the ramparts and made it up to the uber-secured maternity ward. I found Hannah in her typical position of lounging with wires attached and many machines that go "PING!” The hospital peeps were waiting to get a good trace before waking the resident. After twice as long as they were going to wait they stopped waiting and awoke the doc. She checked out Hannah's privates and determined that she was, in fact, in labor (there's a shock). 24 hours later they finally agree with us. She was at 5cm and -2 station and was offered an epidural. Hannah jumped on that faster than Mark Foley on a congressional page. Of course she had to wait for the IV and 1/2l of saline to be pumped into her, which took another hour, or in Hannah's terms, six more @^#%$ contractions. By now it was about 2:30 AM (why does this always happen in the wee hours?). It was about time to make some phone calls. It's nice to be able to make 2:00 AM calls like that and have an excuse. With my 'rents and Hannah's mother on their respective ways we could relax (sort of). We moved into the labor/delivery room where there were even more machines that go "PING!” The anesthesiologist arrived to install the epidural. She was a bit more rigid than that that installed the one with Juliet, but happily she also turned out to be more competent. My involvment was reduced to observer rather than the support person I was last time. All I was allowed to do was watch from a chair off to the side and out of the way. Anyway, the epidural was installed and Hannah was feeling much better. To counter the slowing effects of the epidural they administered Pitocin. It was nice because this time the needles were actually placed correctly. Hannah Sr. arrived circa 3:00 AM. It was about then that the resident checked Hannah Jr. again. She was at about 7cm. The attending doc stopped in and said that it usually was about 1.2cm dilation per hour and that we should have a baby around 7:30 or 8:00. That worked out well since my 'rents would be arriving before that. It was about an hour and a half later that, when checked again, Hannah was found to be at 10cm. So much for the 1.2cm/hour theory. It was time to push. After some preparation we got into it for real. For the most part everything went smoothly, a sharp contrast from Juliet's birth. The one snag was when the baby's heart rate dropped once or twice. The docs (not from our practice, which was kinda unnerving, but they seemed very nice) were concerned by this and whipped out the vaccu-suck device. This is basically a suction-cup handle that they stick on the baby's head. They applied the device and assisted Hannah during the next two or so contractions. Bang-zoom, baby. At 5:46 AM on March 8, 2007, Sonja Diane Steff entered the world. She was screaming like a mad woman from the get-go. After a few minutes of hanging out on Mommy's tummy (and dropping her first load there at age two minutes, ew) Sony was taken to the warming table. She was a bit of a mess given the delivery goo and the fresh first poo, but she was still adorable. Both her one and five minute Apgar scores were a very health 9. She weighed in at 7 pounds nine ounces. We found out later that she measured 20 inches (they measure in the nursery). It was right about then that my parents arrived. After one stitch, collection of the cord blood, some clean up of room, baby and mother, they allowed my parents into the LD room where we hung out before heading to our recovery room. |
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