Barnabas Monkeypants

(Yesterday, as you may have read, Kristen had a rather… aggressive exam by her doctor, one that she suspected would cause some discomfort later in the day. Remember that; it’s important.)

My friend Barb called me at work yesterday, asking about what was happening with Kristen and her lack of timely birthing. I explained what happened at Kristen’s appointment, how her cervix was posterior (and likely not dilated at all), how there was a good chance she’d have to be induced on Sunday night, and how that would make for a not ideal delivery. Barb said I sounded down in the dumps, and I suppose I was. I really wanted to meet my son!

Later in the day, Kristen picked me up at the train station after work, and we drove to a local restaurant for dinner. Kristen said that she was feeling really crampy, that uncomfortable feeling she expected from the exam. We got home, and started watching an episode of The Wire, but a few minutes into the show, Kristen began timing the cramps, thinking (rightly) that they were actually contractions.

After the episode was over, and the cramps/contractions were only 4 minutes apart, she jumped in the shower and I called up the answering service for her doctor. Kristen got out of the shower, the on-call doctor (Dr. Deaver) called back, and they talked for a bit. Dr. Deaver (not Kristen’s regular doctor, but one who she met before) said that while this may be something, because Kristen was able to have the entire phone conversation without grunting or pausing or being disoriented because of pain, it likely was in the early stages, and that we should wait a couple of hours and then head to the hospital.

So Kristen hung up. Ten minutes later, with the contractions now 2 minutes apart and Kristen in some serious pain, we got in the car. (That a couple of hours quickly turned to 10 minutes is foreshadowing.)

By the time we got to the hospital (not without a missed turn, of course), Kristen was in serious discomfort. A quick (and again aggressive) exam by the triage nurse revealed that Kristen was already 5 cm dilated! We were quickly wheeled (Kristen was wheeled… I walked) up to labor and delivery, where we settled in, for what we thought would be about 8 to 10 hours. (Remember the foreshadowing?)

The nurse started Kristen on an IV, and with her in serious pain, an epidural was ordered (no natural childbirth for us Chelis). The first one didn’t really work, so with Kristen still in pain, a second one was performed, which did the job. (One of the major side effects of this type of epidural is nausea and vomiting… more on that later.)

Now with Kristen feeling good — no pain and a good awareness of when her contractions were happening — we waited, turning on the TV to watch some Olympics. By then, it was around midnight, just a few hours after Kristen first started feeling contractions.

Well, a couple of things happened that made this delivery go from one that would happen Thursday morning to one that would happen in the middle of the night. Remember that nausea and vomiting side effect of the epidural? Kristen sure did, as she became very queasy, had a dry heave or two, and then vomited a few times. While this emptied out her stomach, it also pushed Barnabas’ head (he was still Barnabas until born) down under the pelvis and ready to be delivered.

At 1:30, Kristen started to push. I have to say, she was completely amazing. She bore down, pushed for long stretches while complete stranged stared into her lady region, and with only a quick, deep breath, started pushing again.

The only issue during this time was that Barnabas’ heart rate dropped to a not-ideal 90 beats per minute, which meant that about 143 different nurses, residents, and attending physicians rushed in to make sure everything was fine. It was, but it just meant that a lot more people than expected saw Kristen naked from the waist down. It also meant that Barnabas needed to get out soon.

Kristen continued with the pushing and grunting and pushing, and at 2:47, just 4 hours after coming to the hospital, Barnabas, now Henry Gabriel, arrived.

He was quickly cleaned up (he had meconium all over his cute, pink body), weighed and measured, and brought back to Kristen. (Off to the side of the room, I quietly shed a few tears. No one else the wiser.)

The doctors and nurses finished up all the other things needed to be done (I won’t get into those details), and by 4:30, we were down the post-natal room, where all three of us tried to get some sleep.

We both fell in love immediately with Henry. He’s spectacular in about 4,000 different ways, and as all of you (or many of you) meet him, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Barnabas, Health, Kristen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.