It’s Birth Story week. If you’re new here, Milo was born in 2007. Spoiler alert: This is the birth story every mom dreams of — kinda — it starts with a party, includes some laughs along the way, has a happy ending with a healthy baby and a whole pie!
This time I was most nervous about childcare for my son, Holden. My mom was planning to come in the weekend before the baby’s due date so I established a complex matrix spreadsheet of who was on call if the baby came up to one month early. The on-call person would either come to my house to sleep or receive instruction on how to pick up and care for my 21 month old.
Luckily, when my mom arrived from Ohio the Saturday before my due date, there was still no baby. After a day spent wolfing down jump-start-your-labor ginger cookies and an evening enjoying the Oscars at Whitney’s house (I don’t know what I wore to the party but I left in one of Ryan’s old tee-shirts because I felt so bad), I went to bed feeling a little yucky.
Sometime in the middle of the night, around 3am, yucky turned into crampy. Hmm, I wondered, could this be labor? I hadn’t had a traditional labor the first go-round, so I wasn’t totally sure.
Just in case, I went to clip my toenails, since it looked like I would have to skip my traditional “due date pedicure” scheduled for Tuesday. That’s where Alec discovered me and started timing my waves of discomfort, probably-contractions. 2 minutes apart. Oh crap.
We called the doctor on call, and she gave us the go-ahead to head in to our local hospital. We woke my mom and bid her a nervous goodbye. During the three-mile drive to the hospital, I went from, “I can totally do this” to “God oh God, where is my epidural already?!” By the time we pulled into the emergency parking lot, all I could think was, “DRUG ME!”
I breezed through triage with my contractions being pretty close together. Being a second-time mom seemed like a fastpass through the rigmarole of the admissions process. Sweet. Alec started up the birth playlist on the iPod and I asked the nurses if I could pee before getting my epidural. They reluctantly allowed me to pee fearing that I would have a toilet bowl baby or something. The anesthesiologist gave me my epidural before checking my progress.
Some medical personnel had their hands up in my business before we remembered to re-park the car. During my first exam, they discovered I was already to nine centimeters. High fives all around.
After the epidural started to have its way with me, I felt very calm and relaxed. I offered cookies to the nurses. I elected to pause until my doctor arrived on shift at 7:30 to to continue. When she arrived, she examined me and then MY WATER BROKE IN HER FACE. I was embarrassed but what are you gonna do? Again, comfy on my epidural, we waited a little bit so she could clean up before continuing. Whatev. I probably texted Whitney again.
I was feeling so chill.
When she returned, it was time to push. In less than 15 minutes, my baby was born around 8:30am, and I was stunned. Having psyched myself up for another 44-hour labor, I was honestly in shock. See this 15 second video for proof. It’s a little icky but not graphic.
Alec’s dad said, “Are you seriously going to call him Milo?”
“If you want to complain about it, talk to your wife,” I replied to him. (Side story: I thought if you waited until the kid was born to reveal the name, nobody would challenge you about it. Wrong.)
Later in the morning, once Holden was busy with his nanny, my mom joined us at the hospital with chocolate cream pie and cold Guinness, the breakfast of champions!
A few hours later, Holden visited us at the hospital to meet his new baby brother. All of a sudden, my toddler looked like a teenager to me.
Especially in comparison to my first 44 hour labor, this four-hour labor and delivery was a breeze. Amazing! I worried that if I ever had a third child, that baby would come in about four minutes. Eek!
One of my favorite photos of baby Milo as a newborn. Yum.
