I was due on January 17th, but around Christmas, I started waking up in the middle of the night thinking, "Oh my gosh. This is it. I'm going into labor. I mean... I think I might be going into labor. Am I in labor? I better be in labor because I'm awake thinking about this. Crap. It stopped. I'm not in labor." Or I would feel crampy through the morning and then by lunch it would go away. After a few weeks of this, I was real done with the whole thing. A week before my due date, I started calling in back up. I got in touch with a doula, a massage therapist, a chiropractor, my midwife and probably would have called up a medicine man or a witch doctor if I knew any. Actually, the massage therapist may have been a medicine woman. She busted out some tinctures and special smelly stuff and then had me put some little blue pills under my tongue. (Relax! It was totally legal.) Seriously though, it was an herb called blue cohosh and I walked out of there singing its praises because I was having some real, honest to goodness contractions! So exciting! Until... wait... no. They stopped by morning.
My due date came and went. On January 21st, my totally awesome midwife (who I would love to hang out with and be great friends, but it might be a little awkward, you know?) offered to... well, move things along, shall we say. (I'm trying to be sensitive to those of you who might not want THAT much information.) We left the appointment and headed to Will's favorite restaurant, Minsky's. (According to him, he loves that place because they have THE BEST... video games.) On the way, Charlie hit a pot hole and I told him it made my contractions stronger. Then I asked him to find more pot holes. We went home and tried to get some rest since we were hoping this would be the night. It wasn't.
The next day was Friday, the 22nd. Again, to keep the medical side of this surface level, things were happenin'. I still wasn't convinced that this was going to happen today though since these "things" can happen up to a week before you give birth. Not that I had ANY intention of going a week before I had this kid, but I still was trying not to get my hopes up. At 6:00 p.m., my dad called and was giving me a hard time about not having the baby yet. He jokingly told me that I had until the next Wednesday. (I have no idea what the consequence of not having it by then would be, but we both thought it was super funny anyway.) Well, the threat worked because I hung up the phone with him and within 30 seconds my water broke. Hallelujah! I got really busy packing Will's bag and doing laundry and felt like a woman on a mission! We called our friends, Todd and Karen, and asked them to come pick up Will, who was completely oblivious to what was happening even though my contractions were getting stronger and were four to five minutes apart. He was just pumped about spending the night with Mr. Todd and Ms. Karen and then relaying every. last. detail about the Spongebob episode he had just watched. (If you make it through this whole saga, you may conclude where he gets this attention to detail.)
We left for the hospital at about 8:00 p.m. and my contractions were two to three minutes apart and kicking my behind. The baby was posterior so I had a lot of back labor. I think the first time I asked for the epidural was actually in the car. We settled in our room and waited for the nurse to come check me. I was sure that I was going to be at least a four. (A lesson I should have learned from Will - Don't think you know what in the heck your cervix is doing, no matter how intense your contractions are! You don't know!) I was a whopping two and a half centimeters. Since some women walk around for weeks at two and a half centimeters and don't even know what happened, I was a little frustrated. I had to stay in the bed for about 30 minutes because I was hooked up to an antibiotic IV for group-B strep. It was torture because I just wanted to get up and move. I told Charlie I felt like my legs were being ripped off. (Dramatic detail I didn't want to leave out.)
My midwife showed up a little after 9:00 p.m. and we tried a couple different positions to try to ease the pain and get the baby to turn. I got in the whirlpool tub - the pain still sucked. I tried standing and leaning over the bed - sucked. I tried rocking my hips - double sucked. I was feeling a lot of pressure so my midwife thought maybe things were moving along. She checked me at about 10:30 p.m. and I was a three. I swear I have PTSD from Will's delivery because I completely lost it. I felt like I was reliving that awful night all over again. That's when I decided this was for the birds and signed up for the epidural. Best. Decision. Ever.
The anesthesiologist showed up quickly. The epidural was placed and my blood pressure took a nose dive, which caused the baby's heart rate to go really, really low. My midwife and the anesthesiologist and the nurse got really quiet and serious. Which, of course, freaked us out. They gave me a shot of something to bring my blood pressure back up, which caused the baby's heart rate to go high when it went through his system. In the end, everything was okay, but it was a little intense for a while. At about 12:30 a.m., they checked me again and I was four or five centimeters. I could actually feel the baby turning from posterior to anterior and getting in the right position for birth. So cool. I think the epidural helped me relax enough that he could move and put pressure on my cervix to dilate. (Too much information?) At about 2:00 a.m., the nurse came in and mentioned that my contractions were stalling out and if I hadn't made a significant amount of progress by the next time they checked me, they wanted to give me pitocin. I told her, "I don't know what your monitor is telling you, but I can tell you right now I am having regular contractions." I was laying on my side and I don't think the monitor was getting a good signal. She tried to tell me again they weren't as regular as they had been. Whatever. My midwife checked me a half hour later at 2:30 a.m. and was like, "Yeah, you're a 9." Haha! In your face! I knew I was having contractions.
I started feeling a lot of pressure and started pushing. At 2:47 a.m. on January 23, 2010, Quinn Howard Harris was born! Charlie helped catch him, just like with Will, which was so awesome. Charlie handed me this beautiful, screaming mad, precious little creature and I fell head over heels in love in an instant. When he gave him to me, he couldn't see if the baby was a boy or a girl because they wrapped Quinn right away with a towel. I said, "It's a boy!" but in all the hubbub, Charlie didn't hear me. He just stood there with the biggest, happiest smile on his face. Someone asked him, "What is it?" He replied, "I don't even know!"
Side note: I just asked Charlie what he was thinking when he didn't know if it was a boy or a girl and he said, "I don't know. It all happened so fast. I was just more worried about whether everything was okay. I just pulled him out and threw him up there as fast as I could." If you know Charlie, you can picture exactly how he said this and you'll know that I am doubled over laughing right now.
There are things about that night that I hope I never need to look back and refresh my memory about. The most important things, really. Like the pure joy and happiness I felt the second Quinn was in my arms. The relief I had knowing that we had made it through this pregnancy and he was finally here safe and sound. The pride and love on Charlie's face as he looked at our new son. The confusion and sleep in my mom's voice when I woke her in the middle of the night to tell her she had another grandson. And how she declared she knew all along that it was a boy. Then the emotion I heard when she realized that Quinn and her father now share a middle name. How I called my dad next and how truly delighted and thrilled he was to hear he was a grandpa for the umpteenth time. You would have thought this was the first time he'd ever received this kind of phone call. And how much it meant to him when he heard that Quinn carries on a family name that means so much to both of us. And, of course, the first time Will saw his baby brother and how he was so excited he couldn't stand still. He was so proud and it was truly love at first sight. How I sat in the hospital bed and held my two boys and it felt so perfect. Like our family was just waiting for this little person to arrive to be complete. These are the things I hope I never forget.
Now, pictures.
These two had a riveting discussion about cattle birth. Charlie taught her what a come-along is and how it is used when a calf gets stuck in the birth canal. I don't expect this contraption will be making its way into delivery rooms anytime soon.
Team work wins!
The moment Will found out he had a brother. Two stinky boys!
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