Welcome Baby Boy Rank

July 11, 2009







Yes, July 11 was a momentous day for Maria. This is my bystander view of the events.
11:55 pm July 10 - Maria's "bag of waters" broke. "Gushing" is how she described it. Every term pregnant woman's fear of gushing waters came true. Fortunately, she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, after sitting up talking to her niece Crystelle, who made a quick trip to Seattle and spent the night. More on that later. Really, the bathroom is probably the best place in the world to break your "bag of waters". This happened only days after reading the reassuring words in "What to Expect...", which state that the waters really hardly ever "gush" when you are standing, so being in public is safe. The baby's head acts as a sort of cork and the "gush" just doesn't happen. Well, Maria may have an opposing opinion to declare.

After checking our sources, we found several suggesting we call the midwife and possibly go into the hospital. We gathered up the things we wanted to bring with us. Maria had her bag all ready to go two weeks ago. We didn't hear back from the midwife for over an hour, because she was delivering the baby of one of the other couples in our Centering Group. When she called back, she had checked the status of Maria's Group B Strep culture. The culture was positive, so we knew that she would receive antibiotics and probably be induced if labor didn't start soon. The midwife called us in to the hospital and we arrived a little after 2 am.

We learned that Swedish hospital has a new policy of inducing labor almost immediately for Group B Strep positive women with premature rupture of membranes. At this point Maria was not having contractions, didn't seem even close to labor. We were given options. 1- get some rest, and induce labor in the morning (rest includes a shot of morphine in Maria's tush). 2- induce now and get labor going. Naturally we chose option 1. We had been up all day most of the night and had both worked a full day on Friday. Within 30 minutes of getting the morphine shot, Maria had started contractions that kept going, keeping her awake through the night. So, after a refreshing 15 minute nap, we were in the middle of "having a baby" time.

The short story is that Maria's labor progressed steadily and rapidly. By 4 am she was at 3 cm. By 5:15 am she was at 6 cm. By 6:30, after a stint in the jacuzzi, she had only a "rim" of cervix left on the anterior side. It looked like she would deliver before 8 am, but things slowed down at this point. That last rim of cervix was stubborn and did not go down quietly. She tried different positions, squatting, standing on her head etc. The labor became more intense during this time, and it was frustrating that the increased pain did not produce better or faster results. (Like any of this makes sense or should happen a certain way) Finally around 8 am the baby's head made it over the rim of cervix and she could start pushing. The pain of pushing, the contractions and progression of decent of the fetus combined to make that last hour the most painful and the loudest. Yes, Maria managed to get a few words in between contractions. "It's stuck, not moving" were among the vocalizations.

However, Hercules was a wimp next to Maria, and she just hunkered down and pushed and pushed and pushed that baby out.

A dark head of hair was emerging. When he finally made it out, the prominent cone head and bruises told the story of head butting the pubic bone, maybe he is bound to be a rugby player. However, uncomfortable to all, to say the least.

The baby had Apgar scores of 9/9, and we are sure this will get him into Harvard.

The placenta was delivered later with a somewhat "short" cord and looking very normal- I should know, I have looked at lots of them.

Besides the headache of staying up all night, the whole experience was a blessing. This baby is beautiful. Maria is AMAZING. I am in awe.

I was also able to bring Teo to see her new little brother. Nothing is as pleasing as the true excitement for life of a seven year old.

Baby takes first bath.

So around 11 am Maria called Crystelle to tell her she had a new cousin. Evidently, Crystelle had not remembered Maria waking her at 2 am and telling her we were going to the hospital. Crystelle woke up, wandered around the empty house wondering why we had ditched her there, gone off to breakfast or some wild tour of Seattle chicken coops. Crystelle was truly pleased to be the first of the Ohsiek side to hold the baby.