About 2 weeks before Eliza was
born, Natalee started having contractions. She may say it was different but
that’s when I started noticing. I remember getting really excited when she
would have one and I would pull a face at her that would warrant a very angry
look and the response, “This isn’t anything! Stop making that face!”. I tried hard not to make a face but I
couldn’t help it. Every time she had a contraction, I kept imagining what the
hospital experience would be like. I kept thinking about driving to the
hospital. Watching Natalee in the hospital is my favorite thing. She always
handles childbirth with such grace.
A week before Eliza was born,
Natalee had a doctor appointment and I was lucky enough to be able to come. The
doctor checked her and stripped her membranes. He informed us that she was
about 75% effaced and 3 cm dilated. He said that we would likely see some
action that week. He is a very stoic individual so when he said this, I don’t
think Natalee picked up on it. I barely did. But we left and I kept reiterating
what he said to Nat. She was concerned that with all the contractions she had
had the week before that she wasn’t more dilated.
Later in that week, Nat was having
more contractions. I was positive that she would go into labor before the
weekend. It was my hope anyway. Watching Natalee in pain is the worst thing
ever. The weekend came and went with contractions starting, getting closer
together, and then fading. I was shocked every morning when I woke up to an
alarm and not to Natalee telling me we needed to go to the hospital. She decided to go into her doctor’s office on
Monday to get checked and schedule an induction. She was in so much pain and I
was praying that she would go to the doctor and he would say that she had
progressed enough to go to the hospital. She called me in tears saying that
there was no change. I was heart broken for her.
That night, she started having
contractions again around 5:00. This time was different. She was having a lot
of pain in her lower back. When a contraction started, it would halt her in her
tracks. I knew this was it from the get go. That didn’t stop Natalee from
getting mad every time I asked her how she was during her contractions. HAHA. She
cooked dinner, played darts, and played with the kids all while enduring the
increasingly intense pain that came with each contraction. I started timing
them around 6:00. At about 6:45, Nat finally asked me to start timing them. I
smiled and told her that I have been and that they were 6-7 minutes apart. She
still tried to convince me that it would fizzle and this wasn’t it. A half hour
later, I asked if we should call her parents. She was opposed to that because
she was afraid she would never hear the end of it if she got turned away from
the hospital. We called my mom and when she came over, we were on our way.
About 3 minutes into our drive, Nat
started to say how since we left she hadn’t had a contraction. In the middle of
her sentence, she started to have a big one. I laughed and told her that we had
only been driving for a few minutes. It was then that Natalee got serious with
me. She told me that if she got turned away from the hospital, she would be
absolutely devastated. This pregnancy really did a number on her and I was not
ready to see her hurt like that. I prayed pretty hard for her on that drive.
When we got to the hospital we went
into the registration office. We explained that Nat had been having
contractions 6 minutes apart for the last few hours. As we were filling out
paperwork, the contractions were becoming closer and closer together. The lady
helping us even said, “These don’t look like they’re 6 minutes apart”. She let
Nat go in with the nurse as I continued with the paperwork.
I walked into the triage room to
see Nat already dressed in a gown and the nurse getting monitors hooked up. At
this point, I was pretty confident that we would be staying but it still was
not a hundred percent. The time came for the nurse to check her and I found
myself praying again. Please God, let this be it! The nurse checked and said
cheerfully, “7 cm”! I will never forget the look on Natalee’s face. It was pure
elation and relief. I kissed her as she started to cry tears of joy! This was
it!
The nurse in triage predicted that
we would have the baby before midnight. We moved into the labor and delivery
room and got set up. We waited to get a bag of saline into Natalee before
getting the epidural. We were getting nervous that we would run out of time to
get it. Around 10:15, the anesthesiologist came in and the epidural went well.
We then went to sleep for a couple of hours. At about 1:00 am the nurse came in
to check on Natalee. She was still at a 7 and her water hadn’t budged. They
called Dr. Beck to come in and break her water. The last few times we did this,
the baby was born a few hours after the water broke. It was 1 am so I didn’t
get off the couch to watch. After breaking the water, Dr. Beck immediately
gowned up. He needed to change the baby’s position but that’s all I was
expecting him to do. Nat pushed during a contraction so that he could change
the baby’s position. After successfully doing that, he very calmly said, “Ok, a
couple more pushes and she’ll be out”. I jumped off the couch surprised. This
was it!!!
I have never experienced more joy
than the day I was married and the day each one of my kids were born. There is
a deeply spiritual feeling about watching a person come into the world. Eliza
came into the world so peacefully. She was laid on Nat’s chest while I cut the
cord. And just like that, I was a father of four daughters.
We settled into our new room and I
got Nat some food from the cafeteria. It was 2 am at this point and it felt
pretty weird getting mac and cheese and a soda. Everyone in the cafeteria congratulated
me. It seemed that the look on my face mixed with the fact that I was ordering
food at 2 am was a pretty good tell as to what had just happened. This was a
very special day.
