Jacob Michael 9-25
We arrived at the hospital at 11:35 PM. As Dan came racing back into the delivery room, from parking the car, I was already stirruped and ready to go. Some nurse was asking for my information (um, FYI- I DID fill out the pre-registration sheet, why I needed to repeat all of this was beyond me). Giving her my information was not on the top of my priority list as the ring of fire had exploded in my nether regions.
In the meantime, I had asked for an epidural. The nurse said I needed to get a whole bag of fluids before that, so while I was arguing with the lady about needing my social security number, and screaming in medieval pain, some poor soul was trying to put in an IV and drown my veins with saline.
The midwife checked under the hood and said, “Let me help you out.” She then ran her finger around my cervix (translation- took a sharp hot dagger and stabbed me in the va-jay-jay repeatedly with it). It was then that the proverbial overwhelming need to push came.
I saw Dan say to the midwife, through pursed lips, “There’s no time for an epidural, is there?” Then I saw her shake her head. That is when I lost my sh*t. I said, “Did you say there was no TIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMME?????!!!!! NO! HE! IS! NOT! COMING! THAT! FAST! I! WANT! AN! EPIDURAL!”
She used her best coddling-the-crazy-woman voice to say, “No, Honey, I said there was no time frame, no time frame to worry about. Anesthesia will be here in just a minute. Why don’t you try a practice push in the meantime?”
Data-Entry nurse was all I could see because of the blinding pain, and I told that damn nurse that it was too fast, and I wasn’t ready for a baby. She smiled and nodded, and I did it. I looked at her and she held my hand and I pushed once, twice, and relented to the pain. Dan was somewhere talking about yoga breathing, the midwife was somewhere counting and smiling, and I was somewhere else, some transcendent place that was not bad, but not a place I care to return to. And then there was crying. And the pain stopped. It was 12:05 AM. Jacob Michael was born in under 30 minutes, completely naturally. 