Memories: Monkey's Birth Story

Tonight at 10:27 Monkey turns one month old.  This has to be the fastest month of my life, which makes sense because his birth was by far faster than's Turkey's (whose wasn't very long either).  So in honor of this day let's take a trip down (a not so distant) memory lane.

The day started out as your typical Tuesday (as of recently), I worked from home, we had dinner and watched Jeopardy.  I put Turkey to bed around 8:15pm.  I walked into our bedroom, where husband sat on the bed looking cute and sweet, ready to watch a movie and cuddle.  "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader", was on TV.  I stopped and leaned on the bed feeling a contraction. After about 10 minutes I told husband, in a very stern voice, he better not panic or get excited but I thought it was time to start timing contractions.  They were about 45 seconds long and 3 or so minutes apart.  I decided I should shower, to see if they stopped then, denoting false labor (which I had been in and out of for what seemed like weeks, dilated to 3cm a few day before).

While in the shower the contractions became a minute long and 2 minutes apart, so I decided it was time to call the OB.  I got out of the shower, called the on-call service and waited for the on-call OB (who happened to be the same OB that delivered Turkey 7 years, 2 weeks and 1 day ago) to call back.  In that mean time I called my parents to put them on alert, as they were watching Turkey.

OB called back and almost talked me out of going to the hospital, since I had only been in labor for about 30 minutes.  But with a 40 minute drive I didn't want to take a chance, and what was the worse that would happen if I wasn't in labor, going home?  We then called my parents back and asked them to meet us at the hospital and woke up Turkey.

Turkey was very excited and didn't want to miss meeting his brother or sister, and was in the car waiting well before we were ready to leave.  Husband packed up the car and took one last pregnancy picture of me and we headed out.

We hadn't driven far when husband realized we needed to get to the hospital fast, and he proceeded to do about 90 mph on the highway.  Labor was hard and fast on the way to the hospital, I hit "transition" about half way there and had to vocalize the contractions, which scared both husband and Turkey, but they were good about reminding me to breath.  Turkey was a great second coach and reminded me "in through the nose and out through the mouth".

We pulled up to the hospital and my mom was waiting outside, she took the car to park it and my step-dad took Turkey inside.  I decided I couldn't sit in a wheel chair and husband helped me inside where a nurse quickly met us.  Husband finished my registration (thank goodness we had preregistered)  and I told the nurse I wanted drugs, she said "we'll see".  They helped me into the bathroom and gave me a johnny to put on, as soon as I took my clothes off my water broke, I put on the johnny as quickly as I could during the contractions and came out into the triage area (thankfully we were the only people there - this is a birthing hospital).

The nurses helped me to a bed and husband held my hand, I told them I needed to push and the nurse checked and saw a head and called for a midwife (my OB wasn't there yet).  Three pushes later and Monkey was born.  The midwife said "Congratulations you have a baby", and I said "Great.  What is is?", as we didn't know the sex before hand, we were told it was a boy.  I looked over and my OB showed up, she only had one glove on.  Monkey's apgars were 8 and 8.  Husband went out to tell Turkey he had a brother, and then joined me.  Monkey was placed on my chest and we were wheeled up to a room (where my OB finished the business and they finished checking us in.  I remember one nurse asking if there was a billing code for delivery in triage.  Ha!!!)

Monkey was born at 10:27 pm on 2/15 and was 7 lbs. 11 oz and 20 inches long.  And I am pleased to say, completely medication free - unless you count the Tylenol I had around 8pm.



In my defense I did start this yesterday, when Monkey turned 1 month old - but life doesn't always allow you to finish a project when you want.