what happened

Late Friday night the wife started having contractions.
They weren't steady & the intensity was all over the place, so we figured (wrongly) that they were some pre-labor deal and would dry up. We were treating the due date as a guarantee instead of the guess it was, and it was early so there was no way it could really be labor.

We called our doula and told her what was going on and not to come over yet.

Saturday things continued, but in the afternoon there was a lull with contractions coming around 30 minutes apart. We figured Okay, here's where it peters out and we go back to waiting.

Except that they sped back up in the evening. They were never really regular and they never got very close together, but they kept rolling in like waves, with some big sets mixed in.

Sunday the sis-in-law arrived & we gave our doula the green light to come over. It didn't seem like there was a lot of headway being made, but we finally figured out it wasn't going to stop so we turned on the Bat Signal for help.

We were all up Sunday night, trying every trick in the book to move the labor along. In the wee hours of the morning there was an uptick, with contractions coming in faster and more consistently.

Seizing this small encouragement we headed for the hospital a little after dawn.

They took a look at things when we checked in and the wife was 4cm dilated.
Ten hours later, after a parade of showers, having her water broken, a multitude of positions to make a yogi blush and literal abuse of an innocent birthing ball she was....4cm dilated.

And along the way the midwife had noticed a troubling dip in the baby's heart rate during some contractions. The further into it we got, the lower and longer the depressions were lasting. She started suggesting things we might do and raised the possibility of a cesarean birth if it became critical.

By this time the wife was absolutely exhausted. After three days of labor she had no reserves left and it was obvious she would need help to get the baby out. So we decided as a group to give Western medicine a chance.

The down side of the traditional hospital approach to birth is that each step taken to encourage birth increases the likelihood that you'll have to take the next step, and the next step beyond that, etc etc. It's like an ever-steepening trail- once you set foot over the ridgeline, chances are you'll end up hurtling pell mell toward the valley below, windmilling your legs like the Road Runner trying to keep up with gravity.

But we'd exhausted all the 'natural' alternatives. The wife was spent and the baby was having problems.

It started with a probe inserted next to the baby's head to release amino acids.
Then there was another probe to monitor his heartbeat more closely- the external monitors kept moving around and losing him. Then they hooked her up to an oxygen tank so the baby would get more air. Then they put in an IV shunt and started giving her fluids.

She kept accumulating these pieces of medical kit until she started looking like one of HR Gieger's biomechanicals. The bed was surrounded by a thicket of wheeled stands connected to her by a pulsing web of tubes and wires.

Saying I didn't react well to any of this is an understatement.
We were so lucky to have Burl and Carrie with us. I can't even consider what I'd have done without them, the prospect is too awful. Even so, I'm hazy on details from this point on.

At some point they gave the wife an epidural, the idea being she'd be able to get some rest and then resume the assault. Except that the baby's heart rate started dropping again. They said there was some problem with the cord, either something was pinching it off or it was wrapped around his neck and the contractions were strangling him. The cesarean option went from a possibility to a likelihood.

So they gave her a shot to stop the contractions and negotiated her onto one side where the baby seemed to have the least trouble to give us time to consider.

Except the nurse didn't like something on one of the monitors and called over another nurse, who didn't like it any better.
"Hmmm, yes. Let's call so-and-so."
Who didn't like it, and called the next higher up.
She was attracting doctors like a magnet attracts steel, they were coming through the door in ever increasing numbers, collecting around and attaching themselves to her bed with an almost audible CLANK.


Then something really bad happened and they burst apart like a flock of crows, spinning and flapping, each to their own branch.

"WE'RE GOING NOW," one of them said.
Someone was on the phone, others were gathering up her retinue of rolling carts, some flew out the door to clear the way. I was dazed, observing the chaos with an uncomprehending eye, like someone who'd walked away from a plane crash.

Several of them stayed with her, doing different things, shifting her around, messing with tubes and dials.
Something worked- the 80's synthpop monitor clatter grew less strident. Suddenly they were all much happier, for reasons opaque to the layman. There would still be surgery, but without the sirens and flashing lights. Everyone settled down

One person could go with her, they said.
I know my limits and opted out.
The Burl put on their uniform so she could slip past Cerberus into the underworld, where she took pictures I can't look at.

I went to the surgery waiting room with Carrie & we talked about my mom and the horrible decor. Everything in Vegas is designed to get you onto the casino floor, and everything in hospitals seems designed to inspire existential despair.

After a while someone came and got us & we went to the nursery, where they were weighing and measuring Eamonn.
He was freaking out and I put my hands on him and talked to him and he calmed right down. We both talked to him all the time when he was inside- Carrie said he recognized my voice.


Erin was in the recovery room for over an hour but it seemed like it was just a few minutes before we were together again, with our new baby.