David Ryan's Birth Story by Dad

I had always imagined that our that the birth of my first born would be crazy: I would be driving the 66 miles to the birthing center in blizzard like conditions at 15 miles per hour, with her in extreme discomfort, and then ending up at the side of the road *gasp* with me doing the delivery! Luckily the midwives gave me a cheat sheet in case the baby needs to arrive before they are there :). Thankfully we got past the big snowstorm with blizzard like conditions, with no sign of labor, and there was no projected snow in the immediate forecast; whew! The next worry was not being able to follow the birthing plan that she really wanted, and thankfully that worked out as well.

It was late in the evening, and we were 6 days late with our first born. Today however was a little different, as tomorrow was my birthday. Originally I had expressed a disinterest in sharing my birthday with my son as it might be nice to each have our own day to celebrate, and my wife was worried that we could share birthdays. In order to attempt to avert that possibility unbeknownst to me she had not attempted to expedite labor by various methods (such as primrose oil, or pumping) that day. I really I got to thinking it might be kinda cool to share that special day and it would be fine if he came tomorrow, however no matter what day he decided he was ready to meet us would be special. I would just be thankful that he would arrive healthy and she would be healthy as well. We discussed the birthday situation, and I reassured her that having him on my birthday would be an extra special birthday gift, far better than the video game I was anticipating :). She had felt a little gasy that evening, but nothing more than that.

The next morning, started as any normal Sunday would (minus the b-day wishes of course), the Broncos were scheduled to defeat the nasty Oakland Raiders on their path to the playoffs, and as normal in exchange for my day of football watching I cooked breakfast for my wonderful wife. The day before we had scheduled with my friends to come over to help watch the Bronco game, and celebrate my birthday, thinking that not our little one would not be here yet. I sat down to watch the Jets play the Falcons while she went out with her mom to feed the horse. A little after she returned she pulled me aside and indicated she was not feeling well and something may be happening. She did not know if it was contractions, as the pain was lower that she expected (which we found out later is normal for early labor). I started to get a few things together in preparation for the drive, as we were expecting to leave about when the contractions were 10 minutes apart. We started to track the contractions and they were about 7 minutes apart and about 45 seconds in duration. We called the birthing center, and they told us to start on our way. This was about at 12:00 or so.

We loaded the car up, and headed on our way. I had told her I would not drive too fast or run any lights while she was in labor, mostly because I believe that we need to get there safely more than quickly. As it turns out I likely drove a little slower than normal (from a 5 miles over the limit to the limit), as I was trying to talk to her, and help her through the contractions (so a little distracted). Along the way I could she was starting to get pretty uncomfortable. The vehicle didn't let her stretch out much in the front seat, and the maternity pants were putting some pressure on the area where he contracts were. She was very cute in labor as everytime she would have a contraction she would close her eyes and start to breath (not a he-he-whooo, just a heavy breathing). By the time we had arrived at the birthing center it was about 1:30, and the contractions were 5 minutes apart lasting about 1 minute in duration. The midwives examined her and she was about 3-4cm dilated. Unfortunately, that is not enough for her to be admitted. There was someone else giving birth at the birthing center at this time, which apparently only happens a couple times a year to have two people there at once. I think most of their births are home births, and that there are only a couple people a week planning to give birth at the center. We could hear her moaning, in that deep moaning tone that you are supposed to do (if you watch those birthing vidoes from Russia or whatever; it was kinda like that). Made me think that I have that to look forward to. I was not even sure what to expect, so far she was doing as good as one might expect (no name calling, or screaming, just the breathing and quite pauses). They suggest we walk around Taos, and come back a little later. They did indicate that there was a sports bar down that way; the Broncos game had just started, not that I was thinking I would get to see much, just a peak at the score and a little of how they appeared to perform...

So, we went to the local park, and got out to walk downtown. I have never walked around there and was kinda interested in seeing downtown Taos. Doing a little bit of window shopping sounded pretty good. On our way down towards there she started to really not feel well, and the contractions were starting to get a little more intense. So we elected to walk around the park instead. It was a nice walk, there was a little snow on the grass, but the walkways were pretty clear. She was feeling a little nauseous, and I grabbed a few doggie bags, in case we needed them. There were families walking around, people playing basketball, and lots of people out walking their dogs. There was an older man there who approached us, I was worried he was going to ask for some money, but he asked if he could give us a blessing, and she let him. Just after the short blessing and he left, up came breakfast. Afterward she said she was starting to feel a bit better overall, however the contractions seemed to continue to intensify, and she wanted to start over towards the birthing center and walk around there for a while; just so that we didn't have a 5-10 minute drive of super discomfort before getting there. It had been about 40 minutes since we left the birthing center.

We parked across from the hospital at the urgent care center (a block away from the birthing center), being a Sunday it was closed. We got out and walked in the parking lot a little bit, it seemed as though the contractions were easier to manage when standing, but she really wanted to sit (and rest a little) in between. So for the next 15 minutes or so we walked, and sat, and I held her; trying to do what I could to help her through the contractions as they intensified. Finally she had a few contractions where she was really appearing to grimace in pain through the contractions. We decided to call the birthing center and see if she was ready to be admitted. When we called the other lady had just finished giving birth; that lady was very fast, as she had started contractions at about 9:00 and had given birth at 3:30, pretty fast for her first if you ask me; I had been expecting a 16+hour labor marathon of fun!

They checked my wife out again, and this time she was 4.5-5cm dialated, which is enough to get admitted, it was 3:30. I began to bring in all of the stuff we had packed. It seemed like we had packed for several days. We had luggage for her, me and our expected new one, we had all of our various food stuffs, entertainment and who knows what else we thought we needed. I thought we would have hours and hours of contractions, maybe watch a movie, browse the internet play my gameboy, do some soduko, etc, etc. I was certainly wrong! After I had us moved in, the contractions were getting bad enough that she couldn't concentrate on anything else. We promptly stopped tracking the contractions, she had had enough of that!

The next several hours were pretty much a blur. I do not have a watch, generally I use my cell phone; which was on vibrate in the corner. Luckily the midwives kept track of the important time stamps for us :). She wanted it quiet with dim lighting, so that’s what we did. All of my energy was focused on helping her with the contractions, with little pauses in between. When we had gotten there she was dehydrated, and my job in between contractions was to make sure she drank, ate and peed, otherwise not much time for much expect for small talk, talking with the midwives on status periodically. They would come in every once in a while to check on how we were doing, measure blood pressure and check the baby’s heart rate. All were in normal expectations. We tried many different positions for the contractions. We started standing, then the birthing ball (very short), then laying on the bed, and finally in the tub (each position we tried was to help the dilation based on which areas she needed to dilate more). I think that the contractions seemed more intense and painful when laying down. She seemed to do ok in the tub, but it wasn't the best position for her; she said that her back hurt more in the tub, but her belly pains hurt less, so it was somewhat of a tradeoff. Standing really worked the best for her. After an hour and a half she was 7cm, and then another hour and 45 minutes 8cm. Unfortunately she was still dehydrated, and they wanted to do an IV. Going in I knew that was not what she wanted, as one of the biggest reasons we were using the birthing center instead of a hospital was because she didnt want to be tied down by wires and such (while the IV isnt really; that it does tie her down some). Knowing that was the best thing to do for the situation we agreed, and the IV didnt really detract to much from the experience (my job then was to make sure it as dripping, and then I tried to also make sure it wasnt swinging to wildly around as she swayed during contractions). The time literally flew by; I had no idea it had been basically 3 hours from 5cm to 8cm; while I hear that is pretty fast; 3 hours is a long time, and I really felt like it was just a short period of time. By 7:35 she had gotten up from the bed and she went to stand over one of the absorbing pads, which was wet from when she got out of the tub. I thought it was kinda odd she went to stand there, and sure enough just afterward her water started to break. It was just a trickle, she told me either the water had broken or she had just peed on herself (well clearly it was water breaking). I told them that her water was a breaking or we were a peeing on ourselves. It took them a few second to realize what I was saying. They thought it was somewhat poetic (though not intended to be). At 7:45 she was fully dilated, and by 8:15 she was ready to push.

Here is where I was expecting to get the name calling, the crazy screaming and god only knows what else (perhaps a Three Stooges poke in the eyes?). Whatever the case no matter what was to come it would be good, netting in the same happy result. We tried a couple different positions during the pushing stage as well. At first we tried the birthing stool, with her squatting and me behind her helping to support her with my knees (from a rocking chair-I have bad knees). It was here where the rest of her water burst, and I mean burst. Not that that was bad, but just kinda interesting to me to see water burst out; kinda like a water balloon might or something. Next we tried on the bed on her hands and knees; and then we sitting up on the bed. She was progressing well, and they could just see the head with a little bit of hair. Going into it I was not sure if I wanted to look, as it is kinda weird to think of something that large going through such a small opening. I could have imagined the blood and gore that is to follow and just wasn’t sure if I wanted to see that. They asked me if I wanted to see, and I thought about it for a split second and decided yes, I wanted to see the hair (though I had declined the baby catching they offered earlier). His hair was pretty soft, and it was kinda amazing to think that he would be here pretty soon, and that was him. Made me wonder what on earth he was feeling through this experience, although I doubt this weird foreign object brushing a few hairs on his head was the biggest of his concerns :). We moved back to try squatting with me supporting her from the chair again, and she seemed to make the best progress from this position. Once we determined this was how we were going to have David we used the birthing stool to help her with some support. The midwives also had a flashlight and a mirror so that we could watch the progress. I thought it helped because we could see if she didn’t try to hold him there he would recess a little back inside. At one point they told her she could reach down and feel his head, and she did and I do think that helped give her an extra boost of energy. I also felt like I was watching a little TV (mirror), kinda silly perhaps, but during pushes she had her head forward I would watch, but then when she leaded her head back I would look down at her, and while she wasnt looking back at me, I felt like I was helping my focusing my energy on her (not that I believe in the holistic approach type stuff, but yet like to make believe I was somehow helping support her through this; she looked very tired and in alot of pain). The midwives helped her a lot with the constant your doing great, your a great pusher, and telling her when to push and relax, as well as where to try to focus her pushing (They put the fingers in to give her a pressure point to push against - kinda interesting to see the fingers go in and then slowly be pushed out). They also helped by identifying that she was soo close but he was getting hug up on a muscle she needed to relax (who knows what muscle that is, but once she relaxed there it was just a few pushed away). I could tell she was getting really tired, and had been working soo hard. All throughout I had been using a damp cloth to wipe her forehead. After each pushing phase it was as though she was a prize fighter in between boxing rounds; we would give her water, and wipe her face with a damp towel. She worked marvelously through the pushing stage. She never screamed out and worked great with the midwives on pushing when she needed to push. I was very impressed, and she did so awesome! :) At 9:24, 69 minutes of pushing David Ryan was born!

He came out screaming, of which we have gotten to hear a lot more of since (I think it was the realization that the Broncos didnt win that set him off). I was surprised he didn't need to be suctioned right away to be screaming. There was a flurry of action from the midwives, most of which I missed, but they did an excellent job. They got her up and moved her to the bed, once there since we were saving his cord blood, they used a needle provide by the stem cell company to take blood from the umbilical cord. After about 15 minutes I got to cut the umbilical cord. It was still somewhat surreal that I was now a father and about to separate him from his mother, in fact previously I knew I was going cut the cord, but was apprehensive that I might somehow do it wrong; pretty foolproof I must admit, but still the worry was there. The umbilical cord was not as I would have expected; I was expecting something that looked like skin, and the cord was just an extension of David having his belly button the recessed part of where it was cut (based on where cut perhaps you get an innie or an outie?), instead it was somewhat clear looking and kinda attached at his belly button.

About 30 minutes later he was nursing, they both had worked so hard and done such a great job, it was great seeing them relish in each others arms for the first time, they looked so content after all of what had just happened. And it all happened so fast, in about 12 hours after contractions started, and 8 hours after leaving the house we had a new baby boy. The midwives let us stay the night (which was great by the way), and the next morning we were home less than 24 hours after the contractions started! Pretty amazing to think that next morning that less than 24 hours ago there was just the two of us and now there is the three of us. It will be an amazing lifetime together, and I cant wait for it to get started, oh-do I hear him crying?