The day before Olivia was born we had gone into the doctor’s office to have our visit, and he scheduled us to be induced the following Monday, Halloween! I didn’t really want a Halloween baby, but it didn’t look like I had a choice, nothing was happening, and I had no signs of going into labor!
I went about the rest of the day running errands. My last errand was to stop by my aun’ts house, who’s a beautician, and have my hair cut. After she had cut my hair, we sat and chatted about my baby, and the upcoming wedding of my cousin, her daughter.
Olivia’s nursery was all ready.
Suddenly, I felt a leak. I thought about it for a minute, and the felt another BIGGER leak. I stood up and said “I think my water just broke.” Just then a GUSH came! I ran to the bathroom, but it was too late. I was soaked. I borrowed a couple towels from my aunt and called my husband to come get me!
For six weeks every time I had called, he would answer with “Are you in labor?!” And for six weeks I had told him no.
This time when he answered, he immediately began small talk. I finally had to interrupt with “My water broke, come get me!”
As we drove out of the neighborhood, Wyatt rolled down the window and yelled at the missionaries that were walking by “We’re going to the hospital to have a baby!”
At the hospital we went up to labor and delivery. I beamed when I told them my water broke. The nurse was very nonchalant about it, telling me they’d have to do some tests before they could admit me.
But when she came around the desk and saw the wet towel wrapped around my waist she turned back to the other nurses and said “we have a positive wet towel test!” Everyone laughed. They didn’t do any more tests after that. I was admitted immediately.
Because I wasn’t having any labor pains, they had to induce contractions. Even still it took a couple hours for them to really kick in. By 8 hours into the process I had only advance a 2 centimeters. It was now closing in on midnight, and the nurse said “you know, if you get an epidural, you can sleep through this whole thing!”
Sign me up! I’m pretty tough when it comes to pain (although I’m sure labor is a different ball game when it comes to pain) but I don’t do well without sleep! The epidural was the most painful part of the whole process.
After that I slept. At four in the morning, the nurse told me I was fully dilated and could start pushing if I wanted . . . or I could sleep, and they could do it in the morning. I slept.
At seven I was ready to start pushing. My doctor was in for the day, and since I was his only patient in labor at the time, he spent the full hour I pushed with me (none of that run in just in time to catch the baby stuff!)
I pushed almost a full hour. I had a “Birthing Music” play list set up on my ipod, mostly opera and instrumental, one religious choral. But I had one “come into the world” song that I wanted Olivia to be born to-“Lightning Crashes” by Live. It’s a very-um-different type of song than the rest. Dr. Larson said we were just about there, and Wyatt pushed play for the song.
I’ll always remember. Dr. Larson, a . . . well, nice, but in my mind, old man, cocked his head to one side and said “Is this Live? Is this the placenta song?” (The song very successfully uses the word “placenta” in it). We were all a little distracted for a moment at the fact that Dr. Larson knew Live.
And then, as if on cue, with one more push, Olivia was born.
I don’t remember much after that. They gave Olivia immediately to me (on my insistence) instead of taking her to the warmer and cleaning her up and doing all the regular tests.
I held her for an hour before I finally gave her up to the nurses to be poked and prodded. I fell asleep.
When I woke up, Wyatt was holding her, and on the phone, calling and telling everyone (we didn’t tell anyone that we had gone to the hospital). Wyatt’s a very different sort than I. When something big happens in his life, he wants to tell everyone. When something big happens in mine, I want to retreat and hide out for a while to think about and process it.
As a result, he called all of his friends and family, and I called no-one. I didn’t even answer my phone the entire time of being in the hospital.
But Olivia was here. She was so beautiful and perfect. It was amazing to finally meet her.