Colin's Birth Story

Carrie and I visited her doctor on Thursday, August 7th for a usual check-up on her pregnancy. Her due date was August 10th so he did an internal check and said that she was 1 cm maybe 2 dilated and that hopefully she would deliver over the weekend but if not he was setting up an induction appointment for the next Thursday, August 14th. He also guessed that the baby would be slightly larger than average, saying he thought maybe in the upper 7 to low 8 lbs range.

So that night we grilled hamburgers and had Brian, Amy and Guthrie over for dinner. After dinner, Carrie and I went for a walk, joked about how it didn’t look like we would have an 8/8/08 baby, and went to bed around 10. Carrie woke up at 3:30am having to use the bathroom and also felt what seemed to be bad menstrual cramps, which came and went. After waiting for about 15 minutes and having 3 or 4 more cramps, Carrie woke me up to let me know that she was having some recurring cramps. So we sat in bed for awhile, both trying to determine if this was the real thing or just a new phase of her pregnancy. But as we sat there her cramps became much stronger and more painful. So we decided to start timing them so that if we called the doctor we would sound somewhat informed. Of course we couldn’t find a clock in the entire house with a second hand so I was trying to count for awhile but was too distracted to keep an accurate count and so settled for using my cell phone clock to give us at least an approximate time between what were now obviously contractions. At this point, Carrie mentioned that it would probably be a good idea if we got the bag down from the attic that we were going to pack our things in (yes, we had nothing packed at this point). So I went to the attic door and pulled it down and a metal wine rack came crashing down on top of my head. I had a quick mental image of my laboring wife having to drop me off at the emergency room for stitches while she went to the labor and delivery wing to have our baby, but then was relieved to realize that the wine rack had inflicted no damage. I reassured Carrie who had heard the crash from the other room, and went into the attic to get the bag. The next 30 minutes was a confused time of trying to pack our bag while also trying to time contractions, and being a poor multitasker I found that I was not succeeding at either. By about 4:20 Carrie’s contractions were coming pretty consistently at 4 minutes apart and lasting from 40 seconds to a minute. We decided it was time to call the doctor and see if he thought we should head to the hospital. Carrie tried to call the number that she had for them and she was not getting any answer, just a machine that said that it was an invalid extension. I went online to double check the number and they had the same one listed. So I tried again and got the same error message. So we realized that we probably were not going to be able to confer with the doctor before leaving for the hospital. We timed some more contractions, referenced a couple of the pregnancy books and determined that since Carrie’s contractions were so consistent, only four minutes apart and so strong, it would probably be a good idea to head to the hospital.

I drove as gingerly as I could over the bumps and train tracks leading to the hospital while Carrie kept having her contractions. When we got to the hospital at 5am, all of the mothers-in-labor parking spaces were taken so we found a space as close to the exit as possible and headed in. The downstairs security guard met us with a wheelchair and I wheeled Carrie up to the maternity floor where we checked in with the nurses. They mentioned that another patient had come in saying that they couldn’t get through to their doctor at the same practice, so something must have been wrong with their phone service (of all nights!). An intake nurse hooked Carrie up to a couple of monitors, one to gauge the baby’s heart rate and another to gauge Carrie’s contractions. After a long interview process about Carrie’s medical history the nurse did an internal check of Carrie’s cervix and was surprised to find that she was over 6 cm dilated. She brought in a doctor who confirmed that and then Carrie was admitted and taken to a labor and delivery room.

Carrie was still unsure at this point whether she wanted an epidural or not, so the nurses started an IV so that she would be ready for one if she chose. After finishing the IV, Carrie was checked again and she was up to eight centimeters. At this point, Carrie decided that she did want to get the epidural, so the nurse put the call out to the anesthesiologist and he arrived in twenty minutes or so to administer the epidural. As the epidural started to take effect, Carrie noticed that the pain on the left side of her body was diminishing but on her right side it was not decreasing much. So the anesthesiologist came back in, adjusted the needle and added another dose. This had the desired effect of relieving the pain on the right side, but the extra dose also left Carrie with absolutely no control over her left leg. It would take her more than 24 hours to regain full control of her left leg.

It was probably about 9am when the anesthesiologist had finished and for the next 40 minutes or an hour Carrie’s contractions seemed to slow down in both frequency and intensity (which at this point we were determining from the monitor since the epidural had relieved most of Carrie’s pain). Carrie’s water still had not broken so her doctor came in at this point and broke her water which he thought would help to keep her progressing up to 10 cm. And indeed her contractions did start to build up again and Carrie also started to shiver very violently which the nurse and doctor assured us was normal. By 11:30am the nurse decided that it was time for Carrie to start pushing. As things worked out, the doctor also had another patient who was pushing at the same time, so for the next hour he was going back and forth between Carrie and another woman, checking on their progress. The nurse and I could see the baby’s head move down the birth canal with each of Carrie’s pushes and we tried to encourage her by letting her know that the baby was getting closer and closer to us.

When the doctor came in the next time he informed us that the other woman was going to have to have a C-section so he would have to leave for about 45 minutes or so. He suggested that Carrie take about a 30 minute break and let her contractions help to push the baby a little further and then she could start pushing again so that hopefully she would be able to deliver when he returned. So that’s what we did. Carrie tried to rest for awhile and after about 30 minutes she started pushing again. This time we could see a lot of progress with each push and soon the baby’s head was in position for delivery. The doctor got back at the perfect time and started getting into all of his delivery clothes and all of the nurses were setting up the different things that would be needed for the baby after delivery. Carrie gave a few pushes and then the doctor told her to give him one more good push. At 1:45pm I watched as the baby’s head entered the world, quickly followed by the rest of his slippery body! All in one push! The nurse said, “Look what it is!” and I told Carrie, “It’s a boy!” although she doesn’t remember this as she was overwhelmed with emotion.

The nurses wiped down our new baby boy and put him on Carrie’s chest while I cut his umbilical cord. Afterwards he was taken to the warmed bassinet where he was taken care of by the nurses while Carrie and I tried to take in together what had just happened. He weighed 8lbs 10ozs and was 21.5 in. long. The nurses wrapped him up and let me hold him while the doctor stitched up Carrie’s 3rd degree tear (thank God for epidurals!). For the next hour, Carrie and I spent time looking into his little face and wondering at how this little perfect guy could be ours. When we had collected ourselves we decided that it was time to name this little boy. We had come into the day thinking about either David, Benjamin or Colin and after meeting him we both decided that Colin fit him perfectly. And then the exciting calls to family and friends began!