Garrett's Birth Story, Part One

I'm in a birth story kind of mood, and I've never posted much about the births of my children, so I figure now is as good a time as any. Enjoy! (I mean, if you like this sort of thing, which I definitely do.)

Garrett's original due date was October 2, 2002. However, as the pregnancy progressed, they moved up his due date to September 26 because of his anticipated size of Huge. I even had to have a pelvic x-ray and go visit a perinatologist to determine the size of the baby's head.

They also wanted to check out the tubes that ran from Garrett's kidneys to his bladder...they thought something was wrong there, or that he was possibly missing a kidney (nothing like ultrasounds to scare the bejeezus out of a new mother - we found out after his birth that he was perfectly normal, healthy, and missing no parts).

Anyway, during the midst of a fairly enjoyable (though horrendously swollen) pregnancy, I was still working full time teaching Kindergarten...and that is NOT a 'sit down' kind of job, not to mention it was 95 degrees when we started school in August.

We had hired my substitute teacher near the beginning of the school year, so I spent August, and what I had of September, preparing obsessively complete sub plans. Would you expect any less of me?

I had also decided from the very start of the pregnancy that I was going to have a drug-free, intervention-free labor if at all possible. My thinking was that my body was MADE to do this, and that I wanted to embrace this experience fully. We took a Bradley natural childbirth class, along with every other class pertaining to pregnancy, nursing, or infants that our hospital offered. We also hired a doula (labor assistant) to do some pre-labor preparations with us, and to be there for the entire labor and birth.

So on September 18, I read "Our Teacher Is Having A Baby" to my class, and then planned on staying after school to finish up the sub plans (and by 'plans', I do mean writing eight weeks worth of plans, copying and neatly organizing every worksheet into daily stacks, making lists of every classroom rule and procedure, writing and copying eight weeks worth of parent notes, preparing two months worth of book orders, and threatening informing my class about proper behavior for the substitute teacher.

My body obviously knew something that day that I did not know. Normal people nest at home...teachers nest at school.

So I stayed after school and worked, worked, worked. The more I worked, the more obsessive I became. At about 6:00, I called my husband (Seth) and begged him to bring dinner and help me get finished.

He showed up with cheeseburger pizza from the local Casey's, and we had a greasy dinner accompanied by Cokes. We continued to try to finish up the disaster area my room was becoming, and I noticed after dinner that I was beginning to have contractions. I assumed they were from stress and exhaustion, so around 10:00, we headed home. I was nearly in tears because I hated to have that mess to come back to the next morning. Plus, my house was trashed due to the excessive time I had been devoting to my classroom.

We got home around 10:30, where I took a hot shower and cleaned the toilets (the NESTING!). I fell into bed, feeling totally trashed, around 11:30.

At 12:30 a.m., I woke up with a start. I had to go to the bathroom...I mean GO to the bathroom. I stayed in there for quite a while, thinking I was getting a horrible stomach bug (or that the Casey's pizza was not such a good idea.)

I tried to go back to bed, but was back in the bathroom again at 12:45. When I lay back down to try to get some sleep, I started noticing that I was having terrible cramps, and they were consistently ten minutes apart. I woke up Seth and informed him that I was pretty sure I was in labor.

A little after 1 a.m., the cramps were growing stronger and more painful, and I told Seth that we HAD TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND CLEAN UP THAT MESS. He was game (I mean, what sane husband is going to argue with a groaning, screaming pregnant woman?), so we called my principal to tell her to call up the sub in the morning, and I started getting dressed to go back to school.

But...

...by 1:30 a.m., I was positive that I was having real contractions, and they were already about five minutes apart, so we called our doula. The fact that I was crawling on the floor, moaning, and rocking myself back and forth had Seth wishing for some back-up, anyway. School would not be happening tonight.

Patti (the doula) arrived at our house by 2 a.m. She rubbed my feet, massaged my back, and generally tried to get me to relax a little, while Seth called our parents and scurried around loading up the car and putting my last minute items in my hospital bag.

The chunk of time spent at home is actually kind of a haze for me. I think I fell in and out of sleep for several hours, in between contractions and muttering "The sub is going to kill me! I'll be fired! I can't leave my classroom like thissssss!" By 5 a.m. (4.5 hours in, now), my contractions were 3 minutes apart, and everyone felt we should head for the hospital.

Now. The one thing that stands out most vividly in my mind is how I felt at that moment, standing outside my house getting ready to leave for the hospital.

We left before sunrise, when it was still and quiet in our little neighborhood. It still felt like summertime, and it smelled like rain might be in the air.

I was eating a grape ice pop and wearing Coco Cabana body lotion. Whenever I taste a grape ice pop or wear that lotion, it takes me straight back to that moment.

When I remember that morning, I can still summon up that feeling...the combination of anxiousness, nervousness, anticipation, fear, and excitement.

And with that, we headed for the hospital.