The Birth of Chaos

Sounds Nietzschean, doesn't it? Nah. But if you want to know how Sean Patrick came into the world, read on. (Don't, if you don't.)

So as loyal Eschatonians know, I was in despair around noon on St. Patrick's Day, having been sent home from the doctor perfectly healthy, but with no visible sign of a coming baby. They checked my blood pressure, put me on the monitor, did a biophysical profile, all that stuff, and everything said: "he's fine; you shut up."

So I did, but I wasn't happy.

I came home and tried some natural labor stimulants, but nothing seemed to work until I fell into a disaffected slumber around 2. I'd been sleeping with a pillow between my knees for support, but couldn't find one, and so was using a towel. When I felt the waters break at 2:45, then, I was kind of ready. I wasn't positive that I was right about what had happened, for various reasons, but a few moments later there was another gush, and then I was sure.

Problems: Rosie was in day care. The teen had plans after school: her closest friend's birthday had been that week and she was being taken to dinner by this friend's grandma. The boy was in school, not expected home until 4:30.

Now, sane people would have planned for these things. But we're not sane.

We decided to handle things in the following order: go pick up the boy from school, go fetch Rosie from day care, drop them with grandpa, and head to the hospital. I made a few calls on my cell phone while on the way to the school, a few more while waiting for Thers to get the boy, then we headed for Rosie. But I was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I told Thers he'd better take me to the hospital before fetching Rosie, then meet me there later. He was freaked, but agreed.

We pulled off the highway and headed for the hospital, two cars behind a massive truck and backhoe combination going about ten miles an hour. I was contracting hard, and fast. Every three minutes, more or less, for a minute and a half at a time. Ouch. I didn't mind the slowness so much: it's pothole season here, and it was actually a bit easier.

Then the truck stopped. A guy jumped out with a flag. He stopped traffic in both directions while the truck attempted to back the trailer and hoe into a narrow driveway. Once, twice. Three times. Thers opened his window. "My wife is in labor! We have to get to the hospital!" The flag guy shrugged. The six year old helpfully pointed out that yelling wasn't helping, as did I. (Poor Thers. There's a special place in heaven for that man, I swear.)

Finally, we could move again, and he pulled right into the ambulance bay. I staggered out of the car, a chuck wrapped around me like a sheet, since I was now soaking wet. It was a bit confusing, but within one minute or less, I was on stretcher in the ER, a curtain pulled around me, my bottom clothing gone, and a stranger's hand up my chucha. Four centimeters, they said. Ugh. Thers ran off, leaving me with a handful of strangers: an ER nurse, a paramedic in training, a fireman. They wheeled me into the birthing center, where, for the next 40 minutes or so, I was basically in a permanent contraction.

I begged for drugs. But this had to happen first, and that had to happen first, and by the time a doctor got into the room, I was fully dilated and ready to go.

There was a certain comic aspect to the proceedings, in retrospect. The regular hospital staff were bustling around, gamely trying to do their paperwork, while meanwhile Sean was determined to come as quickly as possible. I came out of my daze at one point to hear the OB tell the phlebotomist, "No, you're not taking a blood sample. We're going to have a baby in here in ten minutes!" (He went away.)

Thers wandered in about that point, and the first thing he said was, "Is that a head?"

It was.

Well, a few minutes later it was all over. Elapsed time from water breaking to Sean on my stomach: two hours and seven minutes. I still feel like my back and my whole trunk are completely boneless, being held up by jello sheer willpower, but it gets a little better every day, and we're recovering.

Most of the rest of the posts on this blog should be more of the comic misadventure variety, but since Sean Patrick's arrival was itself something of a comic misadventure, it seemed like a good place to start.

Hello and Welcome to Liberal Mountain Chaos!

I feel guilty hijacking Eschaton and my own blog and Thers's with the comic misadventures of our brood, so I set this up as a kind of clearinghouse for those posts. Look for lots of oics, ruminations on family life, and how to raise kids who aren't complete jerks here.