Maizie's Birth: Her Father's Perspective

At 8:16 tonight, Maizie will be exactly three weeks old. I have yet to write about my perspective of her arrival, so I'd better do that now while it's still pretty fresh in my mind.

On Friday, March 19th (the day before Maizie was born), the midwives, Emily, and I all knew that Maizie was bound to be born that weekend. There was no question about that anymore; the remaining question was simply when it would happen during that weekend. That was kind of a weird feeling for me, knowing that she was so close to being there and that it was actually a sure thing this time. It was like a butterflies in the stomach sort of feeling. I was still trying to distract myself, though. I played a lot of Solitaire and Minesweeper. We also watched FlashForward. It took forever to get through the episode (part one of Revelation Zero), though, because the midwives needed to check up on Emily quite frequently.

Once nighttime came, Emily's signs of labor were at the point where we thought it was going to happen really soon, like within the next twelve hours or so. At that point, I was getting pretty excited. I called Emily's parents to give them an update. Her mom was the one who I talked to. She seemed so excited and also kind of like she didn't know what to say because it all started happening so suddenly and she couldn't believe that labor was finally here, and therefore Maizie would soon be here too!

Emily tried laboring in the water and out of the water. The whole time, I was sitting there in a surreal state. It was so weird to me that we were this close! Eventually I got so tired that I had to sleep. That was around 3:00 AM, I think. I only slept for a couple hours, though. Maybe three. I can't really remember. I don't think I would've been able to tell you even back then. Everything was such a blur. But I do remember waking up and looking at Emily while she was having a contraction. She was squatting by the side of the bed, but I could see her face. She looked so beautiful to me! She always does, but right then there was something about the way she looked that just really stood out. I know that sounds weird since she was in the middle of a contraction, but it's true!

The next morning at maybe 6:00, I got up to continue supporting Emily in any way that I could. She wanted to try going back in the bathtub, so that's what she did. She stayed in there for a really long time. After a couple hours, I fell asleep in my chair. I was so tired. I had my laptop in there with http://onlineclock.net/ on the screen. That way, if Maizie was born, we would know the exact minute. I'm kind of weird about time and I didn't really trust that the midwives' watches would be accurate down to the minute. Emily didn't like that I had the clock, though. She kept saying, "I don't want the clock in here!" I just moved it out of her view, though.

At one point, Emily said that she felt like she was going to throw up. Let me just tell you right now that I had never once seen Emily throw up. I've known her since around September of 2007, which was about two and a half years. Never during that time did she throw up. But on this day, she actually threw up. I had to plug my ears because I don't like the sound of vomit splashing. She ended up throwing up two more times, too. I felt really bad for her.

Even before Emily had thrown up, she was having a hard time with her back pain. Now that she had thrown up, though, the back pain was even worse. She kept having me apply pressure to the lower-left portion of her back using my fist and rotating it.

We tried a lot of things to help Emily get into full-blown labor. She tried a birthing stool, which looked pretty much just like this:



I was behind her doing the rotating fist motion on her back. Whenever a contraction would come, she would scream and grab onto one of the bedposts. I tried to comfort her, but there wasn't much that anybody could do.

There were a lot of times that Emily would say "I can't do this anymore," but we all kept trying to reassure her. It was so hard to watch Emily in so much pain. It felt like the kind of nightmare that you would give just about anything to end. Emily was such a trooper, though. She did really, really well. I can't emphasize that enough.

Hours passed and it continued to be very difficult for us. I won't go into detail, though, because it's pretty personal and emotional. I'll just skip ahead to about 5:00 PM. It was then that Emily said that there was no way she could continue without drugs because the back pain was simply too much to bear. After the decision was final, I packed up our stuff and put it in the car. I could have gone with Emily in the ambulance to the hospital, but then we wouldn't have our stuff with us and we'd have to arrange to have the car picked up. I didn't want to deal with that, so I just took the car by myself.

After I left, I realized that in my flurry of packing up our stuff, I put both of our cell phones in my pocket. It was then that this dreaded thought entered my mind: what if Maizie was born in the ambulance? I wouldn't be there for it! That thought really scared me. I said many prayers, asking that I would be able to be there when our child was born. I got to the hospital and had to wait. That was probably the most antsy I've ever been. Eventually, one of the employees told me that she thought the ambulance I was waiting to arrive had arrived. I looked out and saw them, but I didn't see Emily. I was anxious to get to them. The employee took me down there. If I recall correctly, I got to go the staff route to get down there, which was cool.

When I saw Emily in the stretcher, it was clear that Maizie hadn't been born yet, which was a huge relief. I said a prayer of thanks (or perhaps multiple prayers of thanks). Emily was in a lot of pain, though. We went to the room and got her on the bed. It was really hard for me to watch Emily sit in that bed screaming. I wanted her to get an epidural probably close to as bad as she wanted to get an epidural! But, of course, the hospital has a protocol with that, which had to be followed. They asked a lot of questions. When they asked her where her pain level was at on a scale of one to ten, she, of course, said, "Ten!". Their follow-up question to that was pretty ridiculous: "Where would you like your pain level to be on a scale of one to ten?" Wow! Do they really think anybody would give an answer other than "one"?

It took a while, but Emily was eventually given an intrathecal. After that, she looked so much better, which was a great relief to me. They asked her where her pain level was at now and she said "Zero!" It was awesome. There was one lady there that was super nice. Her name was Elizabeth. She was a sweet older lady who kept telling Emily how good she was doing. She was the one who started Emily's pushing. She had to leave, though, so somebody named Nicole came and took her place. She was really nice, too. Also, there was another girl there who was there for the non-stress test we had on Tuesday the 16th.

When Emily was pushing, Patricia (the midwife who rode in the ambulance with Emily) held one leg, I held the other, and Nicole did the rest. At one point, both Nicole and Patricia were saying that they could see the head. I looked and I could see something, but my mind didn't really identify it as a head. Later, though, when the head was more visible, I was able to tell that it was a head and then what I saw earlier became more clear to me. At this point, I was starting to feel like, "Whoa, this is really happening!" It was kind of a weird feeling. I'm sure it would have been weird no matter what, but I'm betting the fact that I was super tired made it even more weird. I was getting excited. Eventually, it was time to bring the doctor in. When Nicole went to push the button, the doctor walked in. He had been watching the monitors elsewhere and could tell it was time for him to be there. He was a cool doctor and was actually the one who talked to us about the non-stress test on Tuesday the 16th. When he got there, he said that he thought the baby would be born in the next 20 minutes (I believe that was the number he said). It was quite weird to hear that.

Emily kept pushing. At this point, I was holding her right leg because I was told that the left side of the bed had to be open for the "sea of blue" to have room later on. As time went on, more and more of the head was becoming visible. It was a weird feeling. It looked like the head was kind of caved in, which was somewhat concerning to me, but I figured it was normal since none of the hospital staff was saying anything about it. Eventually, the doctor said that he thought Emily could do it in one more push. It was crazy! Maizie was about to arrive! The time came for Emily to push, and push she did. She pushed so hard. If I remember right, Emily usually pushed three times during each contraction. This time, however, she pushed a lot more than three times. I was really amazed. After one of them, the doctor said, "You got more or do you need a break?" To my surprise, Emily kept right on pushing! The doctor kept telling her how close she was. I was telling her the same thing. Finally, Maizie came out! Immediately, Emily said, "She's so blue!" Everybody in the room then said, "It's normal! It's normal!" It was kind of funny. The doctor then had me cut the umbilical cord. The cord was stronger than I thought it would be, but I was able to cut it just fine. Since there was a possibility that Maizie had inhaled meconium, they couldn't immediately put her on Emily's chest. Instead, they took her a little ways away from the bed to do whatever it is they do. Emily was crying, but I couldn't tell if it was because she couldn't hold Maizie or if it was because of pain. Although I was anxious for Emily and me to be able to hold her, I wasn't really sad that we couldn't yet because I understood the necessity of what they were doing. Not only that, but I was in too much of a state of awe to be sad. The hospital staff who were doing stuff with Maizie had her sit up and look at us. They also lifted her arm and made her wave to us. Maizie was crying, of course. Eventually, they put her on Emily's chest. I was still in a state of awe. I think I was pretty speechless for a long time. I just couldn't believe that she was finally here!

It was really fun to watch Emily interact with her. I think the first thing I noticed about her was how much her tongue was moving. I also thought she had big hands. Both her hands and her feet were really gray and wrinkly. Eventually it was my turn to hold her. It was kind of a weird feeling. I don't really remember much of it. I don't think that's because I'm writing this three weeks later, either; I think it's because that whole time was such a blur and I was so tired!

If I had to describe Emily's labor and delivery in a single word I would probably say "difficult". Two words? "Difficult" and "emotional". If I had to describe Maizie's arrival in a single word I would probably say "surreal". Two words? "Surreal" and "amazing". It was truly great. I suppose there's more I could write, but I'm satisfied with what I've written. Maizie is an amazing child and we're so happy to have her in our lives!