i was sleeping the sound sleep of the pleasantly buzzed when my wife woke me at 3:30 am saturday morning with a quiet, yet urgent whisper, "hey. i think i'm in labor, but i'm not sure". i was oddly calm about this, although in hindsight i think that was more due to the fact that i wasn't convinced it was "real" labor yet.
i asked her if she had timed the contractions and she said she hadn't, but that she'd been having them, very mildly, for the past two hours. she went downstairs to call the hospital service and get their opinion on whether or not to come in. her regular doctor was on vacation, so the on-call doctor called back within five minutes. after asking her a few questions, he advised us to come on in. realizing that we would not be going back to sleep after all, we start packing a bag. we talked a few days after the fact and both admitted that we still didn't think the baby was really coming at this point.
my wife called her mom to come stay at our house so that our oldest boy wouldn't have to get up and we finished packing. when we were just about finished, a particularly painful contraction hit and she had to sit down on the floor and wait for it to pass. i realized that we probably didn't want to wait for her mom to show up and instead arranged for her mom to meet us at the hospital. our son didn't mind waking up too much, especially when we told him that we were going "to get the baby out of mama's belly".
it was during the drive that i told her that she was leaving that hospital with either a new baby or fresh bruises. cause, you know, i was tired and i'm supportive like that.
we got to the hospital around 4:00 am, in a room by 4:05, and had a nurse's hand in her vagina by 4:10. not bad service, if you're looking for that sort of thing. turns out she was dilated to 5 cm and that the baby would be making an entrance soon. she breathed a sigh of relief, as this meant that i would not be forced to beat her for waking me up.
paperwork, IVs, small talk, more vagina probing, and the onset of much more painful contractions all led up to the insertion of the epidural. when we had our first baby, the epidural went in nice and easy and worked like a charm. this time, however, the dude couldn't get it in right. i told my wife (and whoever else was listening) that if i had such problems, we wouldn't be here in the first place. needless to say, my sense of humor was not appreciated.
the epidural finally got in, the doctor showed up, and just about 6:25, they had her start pushing. well this baby decided to be difficult and he was rotated sideways. to correct that, the doctor dove into her ladyparts like ewan mcgregor diving into that toilet in "trainspotting". he swam around a bit, knocking into this and that, and eventually got the baby turned a bit. as the epidural didn't have long to set in, this all felt wonderful to my brave wife. she didn't say it out loud, but i'm pretty sure she called him a GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SHITEATING COCKBAG in her head.
while our baby was busy twisting like a mucus covered chubby checker, he was not making much effort to get out. the doctor's solution? shove an olympic size discus into my wife. it was actually some sort of vacuum that was operated by a hand pump. nothing like seeing your wife getting treated like a fucking deflated basketball you found behind the mower in the garage. so the doctor is pumping this torture device and pulling on it at the same time, like he's reeling in a 20 lb. blue marlin, when whoops, the whole shebang pops out of there. at this precise moment, i'm reminded for the 32nd time why i could never cut it as an OB-GYN. he, however, is unfazed, and gets right back in the saddle. he's pulling and tugging, my wife is pushing, i'm getting my hand squeezed and find myself doing the breathing stuff along with her.
as an aside, i was amazed again how one's sense of modesty goes completely out the window during childbirth. while all this is going on, no less than 6,843 people came in and out of that room. they were setting up the little baby cooker lamp, bringing in the scale, and performing other preparation type tasks. the position of the bed in the room is such that as one enters and goes around the privacy curtain, BAM, vagina all up in your face. (yes, i'm trying to say vagina as many times as possible in this entry. vagina.) it was like my wife's box was headlining a matinee every 10 minutes. ladies and gentlemen, may i introduce you to my wife's business?
after 30 minutes of pushing, at 6:56, 3.5 hours after she woke me, she successfully exorcised the demon. baby hudson maddox pletcher weighed in at 5 lbs. 14 oz. and 18 inches long. he was three weeks early, which explains his small size.
this next part is not for the squeamish. not even a little.
sadly enough, the pain wasn't over for my wife. she had a marginal umbilical cord and the placenta didn't come out all nice and neat. the doctor, like the good explorer he was, dove back in, seemingly up to his shoulder. he either had really short t-rex arms or my wife has been far more unsatisfied with my prowess than she has ever let on. as she was not a cow and he was not billy crystal trying to tug a calf out of there, this hurt a great deal. they had to administer another dose of the epidural just to move forward. by the time everything was free and clear, my wife could no longer move her legs, which she probably welcomed by then.
the trauma over, there were smiles and tears and pictures being taken of the baby. i tried to get the doctor to hold the placenta up like a fish on a chain, but alas, he wouldn't humor me.
all in all, my wife did a tremendous job, and i told her so.
here's the end result. he's our little st. patrick's day leprechaun. we were tempted to name him seamus o'toole fitzpatrick, but we changed our mind at the last minute.
and a few more. he developed some wicked jaundice, which explains his color, but he's better now.
hudson and mommy are fine. he's sleeping fairly well and we're slowly getting into a routine. we think we'll keep him.
