at the edge of something

Part 1 – 10:00 AM

Yesterday Reba had contractions all day long, lasting around a minute, of mild intensity and spaced anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes apart.  This morning she woke me up at 5:30 AM with contractions around a minute and 20 seconds, with a lot more intensity and spaced 2 to 4 minutes apart.  She’d been on the phone to the midwives at the UCL birthing center and they said if the spacing was 3 minutes for over 30 minutes, it would be on.  I spent about an hour timing her after that, we hit the numbers, and now…

it’s on like donkey kong.

We’ve been at the hospital for 3 hours now, and she’s gotten a shot of diamorphine which is a sedative and pain reliever that is common here.  This has taken the edge off of the contractions: she was literally writhing in pain and moaning an hour ago, now she’s doing all the breathing stuff and even dozing a little.  I’ve sent my coworkers the paternity leave note, I’ve texted our uk pals, I’ve called Reba’s mom and sis, and I’ve sent the facebook status as well.  The whole planet knows that we’ve snuck into our hidey hole and we’ll be emerging with a brand new baby Isa shortly.

It’s funny, I’m really not all that nervous.  It seems like Reba and the midwives know what they’re doing.  Even Isa has her head pointed in the right direction and is working to script.  On top of that, this process is very routine and Reba is a healthy girl… so, I’m relatively chill.  I think I’m going to go find some hospital food now.

 

Part 2 – 11:00 AM

Now the contractions are steady at 3 minutes, and she seems like she’s really in a lot of pain.  She’s showing her toughness, I’m pretty impressed (although the morphine shot helped).  I’m also impressed with the midwives here, these ladies are highly trained nurses that just do births.  They know what’s up and how to work with difficult pregnant ladies.  Ours is Angela and she brings a super chill vibe to the room.  Apparently the way she says “breath in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly” is different than when I say it, because Reba actually does it when she says to!  The English have a couple of labor pain options that I’d never heard of before I came here.  For example, they give something called “gas and air” which is what we think of as laughing gas or nitrous.  I should have just brought some whipping cream in a can.

 

Part 3 – 12:00 noon

We are very close now.  The pain is super intense, but she is within an hour or 2 at most of delivery.  She’s not very chatty and has her eyebrows so smashed together that they almost go vertical at times.  My job is the hand holder and breathing drill sergeant.  My hand is more like a stress ball than a husband’s gently grasped mitt… she is squeezing the blood out of it!

  this face looks silly, but she was in some SERIOUS pain and so was my hand

Part 4 – 1:00 PM

(ex post facto)

There was a lot of screaming, fluids, narrowly averted last minute changes of plan, and it was at this point that my breathing strategy was shown to crumble on the battlefield.  I saw things I shouldn’t have, and I won’t repeat them here.

 

Part 5 – 1:50 PM

We have a baby.  She is Isabel Josephine Hernandez and she has black hair with blue eyes.  She is loud and an energetic eater.  True to Hernandez form!  Reba is good.  The baby is good, and apparently weights 3.4 kg and measures 52 cm.  I don’t know what that means, but apparently she’s on the large end of things.  Now the only thing left is to figure out if she’s going to Oxford or Harvard.

Isabel(le) Josephine Hernandez in the flesh!

Finally we have a bass player who can’t quit

 

I took this with my phone, I think it’s my favorite