Holy %&#$! is that a head?!

I think I last left off at the point where the nurse says that Ally is ready to push.

But first, I have fairly decent hearing.  Ally does not.  In fact, I’d hazard to say that Ally has terrible hearing and could have a cannon go off by her head and she’d just go, “Huh?”  I distinctly heard two women who must have been going the au’ natural.  From the screaming, my Sherlock Holmesian powers of deductive reasoning said that they were having so much fun that they just couldn’t contain themselves and needed to share it with the WHOLE hallway.  The only thing I can say for women who decide to go the natural childbirth route with breathing and/or other types of pain coping mechanisms:  You’d best know what in the hell you are doing.  Just sayin’.  You better be really sure and confident of how much pain you can tolerate.  It boils down to this, if you have any doubt about your ability to manage the pain then go the chemical route – whether it be epidural or narcotics given through IV.  I, for sure, wouldn’t look down upon anyone who decided to use pain medication.  Folks, we have the technology – no reason not to use it.

Now, I said earlier this is where you get your game-face on and stuff starts to get serious.  From the books that I’ve read and older Grandpa age folks I’ve spoken with, this is uncharted territories for fathers.  In the old days ™, you got to sit outside the room, chain-smoke (as nobody knew it was bad for your then), and wait.  You didn’t have to watch as the kid dropped to different stations, asked to hold a leg, and start yelling (and by yelling I mean encourage but she didn’t need a lot of motivation to get the baby out, just mostly reassurance that in fact he was exiting the plush accommodations promptly) at your wife to push.  Oh and last but not least, the area in which you thought was a recreational, fun-time area gets rezoned in to an industrial area with machinery to expel an approximately 8 lbs mini-human looking thing.  This can be disconcerting and unnerving to the faint of heart.

I’ll give you the low-down on the pushing part with a lady who had the epidural.  Nurse and Doctor take a look at the Contraction Monitor O’Doom and say here comes a contraction, get ready to push.  Then push – count to 10, take a deep breath, push – count to 10, take a deep breath and relax.

This went on for awhile and my adrenline was flowing, so much so that I had to make a conscious effort to relax my shoulders and back.  An observation on the pushing bit – it is a total 2 steps forward, 1 step back thing.  Once Ally had pushed enough so you could see Lucas’ head, everytime she pushed he’d slide out a bit further and then slide back in a slight bit.  Good thing Mom couldn’t see what was going on otherwise it would have been an exercise in frustration.  I didn’t say anything but I was thinking, “Damnit, stop yourself from sliding backwards otherwise we’ll be here all day.”  I do realize that newborns aren’t going to have any control over that but it didn’t stop me from thinking that.

The only part that was a little scary/worrisome was the fact that everytime Ally was pushing Lucas’ heart rate dropped.  Normally, it was around 130-150 beats per minute.  That is a good strong heart rate but whenever Ally had a contraction and pushed the heart rate would dip to 75-100.  Now, when watching the monitor (which had a running graph of his heart rate) and noticing a massive dip becomes worrisome.  I just put on my poker face and said everything was cool to Ally while the nurse just got the doctor to watch over the rest of the labor.

Now I do have to say this is the part if you are squeamish that you might want to tune out.  I’ll put it in white font and you can highlight it if you wish to read it.

Does the word episiotomy mean anything to you?  If it does then you’ll have an idea of what is coming up next.  If not then behold a wonder of childbirth that is glossed over in most books.

It is a surgical incision made to the vagina to enlarge it during birth.  Usually done as to make a cleaner cut instead of letting the perineum (the taint for you non-doctor types) tear during childbirth.  Now the damn crazy thing was there was absolutely no warning when the doctor did this.  Dr. Little was focused on getting the baby out because even though she didn’t state this at the time, I believe that she was a little concerned about getting Lucas out of the birth canal because his heart rate was fluctuating so much.

You might think that the incision is done carefully with a scalpel or yadda, yadda.  Nah, it is surgical scissors (no idea what the real name for those are, surgical chop-chops?).  Dr. Little went snip, snip (I almost went in to graphic detail about the snip, snip but decided against it.  That shit is burned in my brain and no amount of steel wool and bleach is getting it out of there.) and tada, now Lucas had a bit easier time getting out.

Squeamish part over.

I think Ally had to push maybe once or twice more and **POOF** Lucas came in to this world already trying to kill himself.  He had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and the damn thing in a square knot.

Obviously, he should be a pirate.  He can already tie down a sail.