OK, Emilee was ready to have the baby, but apparently the OB was not. Janet (Day nurse) comes in and tells us that the Doc is in Cumming with another patient and that Emilee should just get comfortable and “not sit up”. Emilee’s response was swift but muted. Fortunately I had the “look dictionary” at my finger tips and could decipher the “tell him to get his ass down here AND PRONTO” look. I’ve seen it; I know to obey. Janet also knew the look and responded nicely with “I’ll get his butt on the phone”. And she did and you could hear her dressing him down all the way in the delivery room.
The funny part of all of this were the instructions Emilee was given. Janet came in and told Emilee that the Doc wanted Emilee to do the following:
1. Don’t sit up.
2. If you feel any pressure, don’t push.
3. Just try to relax.
Em was not very happy, but she was handling it all very well. The funny part was watching her look under the sheets every five minutes. I looked and her and asked “what the hell are you doing?” She looked me dead in the eye and said “I can’t feel a thing down there! What if she just falls out?” Well I guess I had the answer to that question. I also got an answer to number three on the list, but that one is not fit to print. All of this occurred around noon.
As we were waiting for Dr Siegel to arrive Janet came into the room and started to get the pushing process started. I was too afraid to keep the updates flowing while Emilee was in “push mode”. She even asked if I was still keeping everyone updated and I told her no. This was our time and I was not going to infringe on it. Call it self preservation or believe that I was into the moment. I really was. This was the culmination of the past two tears and I was not going to miss any of it.
But back to Janet and her task for Emilee, it was time to start pushing. I even had a job; I was the Left Leg holder. From the position I was in I was able to see everything. My job was to help Emilee get her legs into position so she could effectively push. Each time Em had a contraction I helped her get her leg into a knee to chest position. By doing this it helped open up the pathway for Anna Grace to enter the world. It was a pretty awesome sight. What follows is the non-graphic version.
Imagine a game of two steps forward, one step back in a tunnel and you should have it. As Emilee was pushing I could see the top of Anna Grace’s head and when she stopped it would back up and disappear. There it is, there it goes. There it is, there it goes. There it is, there it goes but not so far as last time. This game went on for about an hour and then the head did not vanish! I was not sure the head was human at this point, but it did not vanish. Now where is the Doc?
Not far away fortunately. He walked in the room around 1:45 PM and took stock of the situation. He determined that Emilee was doing very well, the baby was in no distress, and he had not missed his window of opportunity to bill his full rate. He gets gowned and gloved and gets into catching position, then starts the most amazing part of the whole experience. He starts to text his office!
He was texting his office to let them know he was going to be tied up for a bit, but it was surreal at first. Emilee loves telling everybody that part of the story. He is looking at Emilee’s progress, texting, and telling how great she is doing like he is the ultimate multi-tasker. Good thing he was. We all got into our positions to help Emilee out. At one point he wondered why at 10 cm and a kid about hanging out why Emilee only wanted to push every five to six minutes. Figured it out pretty quick though; the Pitocin was turned off.
So they turned it back on and the real fun began. Now that Emilee had a little drug assist the contraction sped up and became stronger. At approximately 1:50 PM the pushing became serious business. Each time Emilee pushed I thought her eyes were going to come flying out of their sockets. I was lost. We had developed a pre-hospital birthing plan of “just do what the Nurse and Doc tell us to do”. Thank God that they had done about 1000 of these. With the nurse coaching Emilee and the Doc catching all I had to do was be there for support. I even managed to get it right.
Emilee wanted to give up only one time. She felt like “everything down there is ripping apart” despite the epidural. Dr Siegel was able to give some shots of lidocaine and the pain eventually settled down. But it wasn’t the lidocaine that did the trick; it was his and the nurse’s sense of humor. At the worst point for Emilee the nurse and the Doc started joking with her about the people doing the water births down the hall (another blog), and it took her mind off the pain until the local could work.
An hour later we had introduced Anna Grace into the world. Emilee did an amazing job! She never, well almost never, waivered and literally pushed through to success. The group we had to support all of this work Emilee did was amazing. The L&D Nurses and Dr Siegel were the most supportive helpful group you could imagine. I want to give Tracie, Connie, and Janet my heartfelt thanks for everything. We will always have great things to say about our experience
She is one pretty baby. I also love her name...my wife's name is Anna and my youngest daughter's middle name is Grace!
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