Dad's view of le birthage

First, let us discuss one pet peeve that I have.  If you are one of those people that would say to me your life will never be the same after the baby is born or if you have already decided that I was freaking out for nine-months then please punch yourself in the face.  Twice.

I had ninth months to come to grips with having a baby and while, yes, I didn’t know what exactly to expect.  I had a pretty decent idea from the classes we (Ally and I) attended, books that I read, and all my co-workers who decided to give me unsolicited advice.   Also, if you actually know me then you’ll understand I won’t flip my shit unless it is an actual emergency.  I’ve never been one to panic.  I leave that (as well as being supremely organized to Ally).

Moving on…

Let’s see.  It was approximately 3:30 am on Friday, 5/8 and Ally is waking me up and asking me fairly important questions.  I’m fairly certain that the questions were about contractions and if she was really having them, how close they were, and whether or not we should go to the hospital.   I remember saying something like time the contractions and then call the doctor.  Repeatedly.  Finally, she listened to me and amazingly called the Doctor and left a message.  The amazing thing to me is about 5 minutes later (maybe less) the Doc called back.  This totally caught me off-guard.  I expected the doctor to call back about 5 years later when Lucas was heading to kindergarten.

Ally gets the instructions from the Doctor and follows them.  I think one was take a bath and if the contractions keep coming then come to the hospital.  To her credit, she made it 30 minutes of the total hour that the Doctor asked.  After leaving the bath, Ally picked me up and threw me out of bed (I went splat against the wall).  You’d be surprised how strong a woman who is contracting is.  In reality, I’m fairly sure I woke up when she got out of the bathroom and she said we are going to the hospital.  I wisely acquiesced with this request and did not protest.  Who says mens don’t get wiser the older they get.

We then spent some time getting everything packed up (everything was together, it just needed to be officially closed up) and loaded up the Tribeca and started towards the hospital.  The best thing was the fact we left the house approximately 5:30 am.  If we’d left later then we might have gotten caught in Metro Atlanta traffic which would have really sucked the big one.  Always nice to miss out on the traffic.

Now we arrived at the hospital without fanfare or any associated catastrophes.  We knew where to go and what to do so we headed to the downstairs registration desk (assuming it was after-hours but we assumed wrong) and was told to go to the 3rd floor and check-in.  Ally signed in and then we were told to go wait in the waiting room.  I have to say that Ally wasn’t exactly thrilled with waiting but what can you do.  Bureaucracy is everywhere…

So for some reason it took 2 people to check us in.  One person to punch things in to the computer and another to handle the paperwork.  There wasn’t a bunch of paperwork or a lot of punching the computer.  I was baffled but decided against pointing this out.  Also, this is the first clue that Dad is no longer considered important (I knew I wasn’t important before but this really hammers it home).  You are summarily ignored unless you can provide information or Mom’s information (id, insurance card).  Otherwise, you sign nothing and just sit there with your thumb in your butt until everything is complete.  So, if you are an emo retard who needs constant stroking and to have everything be about you then you’d best find someone else to accompany your wife through birth.  (Good thing Lauren is female otherwise she’d have trouble accepting this role…)

Next thing, we head in to the triage area where they take your vital signs and start doing womanly exam stuff.  Normally, I get kicked out of the room when this happens but not this time.  Without going in to any graphic detail, some nurse that was about my height (6′ 2″) and out-weighing me by 340983094 lbs (that could be a slight exaggeration) starts the pelvic exam.  I thought (to myself)  shouldn’t nurses with hands like a man be banned from giving those types of exams.  I’m just saying. The other nurses that was tweaking the equipment had small hands and would have been a great candidate to do that exam.  I just wanted to say, “Doncha think with your massive boxer mitts that you aren’t the best person for this type of exam.”  After that was over the Doctor (Dr. Little) came in and gave another pelvic exam (wtf, can’t you take the nurses word for it?) and said to Ally, “You are gonna have a baby today.”  I was mostly relieved that I didn’t have to drive back home.

Next, we got moved to a birthing room on the 3rd floor (P305, I think).  But before we got moved, Ally requested an epidural before we left triage.  I imagine she’d requested it before we left the house if that was possible.

I think we waited about 30 minutes to 40 minutes before the anesthesiologist got to the room.  This was a horrifying experience for Ally and she wanted to stop before it was all the way in.  I think the biggest issue was the fact that she couldn’t round her back and bend like the anesthesiologist wanted her too.  The idea is to roll or curl your back like a cat stretching, the catch is that a pregnant lady has a hard time rounding her back because THERE IS A GODDAMN BABY IN THE WAY!  Anyway, after a loooong 15 minutes the dude worked his magic and got the needle and catheter placed.  He had to run to another room for a little bit before he was able to fully hook it up but put in enough medicine so that Ally would be comfortable (for about 4 hours he said).  He came back to hook up the self-administration machine and then all was right with the world.

This was our time to regroup.  We alerted the media (our friends and family) through email and text messages.   I unloaded the car in one trip (took me three to load it) while only dropping the camcorder once (DON’T TELL ALLY).  Then we decided to make it like a cat and nap?  That was lame but yeah, we decided to rest.  Ally really needed it as she’d been up for 24 hours straight at this point and all things considered was still in good spirits but definitely tired.  I took a short nap and then decided to look at the fetal monitor and the contraction o’death measurement tool (I’m sure that is the official name).  Once I’d figured out what the deal was with that then I whipped out the laptop and starting messing around.

Everything was going well until Ally decided that she was having some “bottom-pressure” which was the sign that she was ready to push.  Again, Ally isn’t one to start bothering the nurses but I decided to mash the button so if nothing else she could blame me if it decided to be nothing.  I have to say that while Ally knew things were happening and something was up, this being the first pregnancy, she didn’t have a clue what sign meant what at what time.  Earlier, she thought she had contractions but wasn’t sure because she described it as a really bad menstrual cramp.  Well, turns out it was contractions.  Same concept here, she knew something was going wrong or something was up but didn’t have a clue as to what her body was telling her.  Although having the bottom part numb probably didn’t help (BUT I’M SURE THAT CONTRACTIONS/PUSHING/AND POOP WOULD HAVE BEEN A DREAM WITHOUT IT).  We called the nurse and she casually strolls in, roots around in Ally’s nether regions and then casually says (in a southern drawl),  “Honey, you are ready to push.”

My thought – “It’s go time bitches, better get on your game face.”

And for our next installment – “WTF is coming out of my wife and I hope it isn’t like the movie Aliens.”