Welcome Charlie Part 1

For years I've been both fascinated and horrified by peoples birth stories online. Some of them share waaaay too much. Like TMI doesn't even begin to describe their posts. (Somehow I find myself liking those even more. Maybe it's like watching Grey's Anatomy.) I'm so grossed out, but it's crazy cool at the same time. Bringing life into this world is just so mind-blowing. Dr. Spaceman gets it.

I hesitate to share Charlie's "Birth Story" because well, frankly as much as I love reading all the grotesque birth stories out there, I can't help but also think the people writing them are a little crazy. Like the TMI TMI people. I mean, do I check constantly after someone's had a baby to see if they wrote about it? Yes. Do I get excited when I see a new birth story posted on Facebook, even if I barely know the person? Of course. I just never thought I'd be that person.

Crazy may be a strong word. And really, I have no reason to judge anyone. But, like all humans, I hesitate because I don't want to be judged. As much as I want to have a IDC attitude and flip my hair, that D just may stand, secretly, for do. 

*hair flip* Whatever. Let's do this.

Charlie, who at the time had no name and was maybe going to be named Henry or even Harold, stayed in an extra week. No one expected this. (Except for all the people who told me the first baby always comes late. What did they know? My baby was going to come on time, okay?) 

I took the week before my due date off from work, mom flew out on my due date, and I worked in the yard, pulling weeds and washing windows, trying to get that little babe out on time. I was born on my due date, and I had convinced myself that my baby would be the same. Punctual. Courteous. Agreeable. 

Nope.

(Ready to pop) 

5 days after my due date, I had a doctor's appointment to see what was up. As it turned out, Charlie was. Sitting up. His bum down, not even thinking about coming out the correct way. This was shocking to us because for the past 3 weeks our doctor had told us his head was down and he was in a great position. (We think he was just feeling it wrong. It was probably the bum down there the whole time. Sorry we confused your butt for your face, Charlie.) 

The doctor did an ultrasound to make sure he was feeling it right, and then things started happening fast. The ultrasound confirmed that Charlie (or Henry or Harold or Fredrick?) was breech, and the doctor  gave us 2 choices: Schedule a C-section, or try a Version (a procedure in which they try to flip the baby from the outside by stabbing their hands into you until you cry). We decided on the Version. I had a friend who had her baby successfully turned this way, and I was sure it would work for me. There was this one bump in the road, that was to be expected, but my pregnancy was so picture perfect, I had all confidence in the world that the delivery would be the same. We would get this baby flipped and everything would be fine.

Nope.

We went from the doctor's office to our house where I changed and Kelly gave me a blessing. Then had to hurry off to the hospital. I was put into a gown, given an IV in my hand, hooked up to monitors, and we waited hopefully for the doctor to show up. It was my first time ever admitted to the hospital and the first time I ever had an IV, which I hated and let the nurses know. "Oh boy, this does not feel good. I feel like my hand is going to explode!" I was vey verbal - sorry, nurses. I then got a shot to make sure I didn't have any contractions, which also didn't feel good, and which I was also verbal about. Sorry again, nurses.

(before the version)

The Version didn't take. It was awful. Imagine someone digging their hands into your stomach as hard as they can. But you can't clench any muscles to block it, and you have to be as still as possible. Isn't that basically how Houdini died? The doc tried his stabbing/digging/pushing thing with all his might to get the baby to budge 4 times, and there was zero movement. The little babe was upside down and that's how he was going to stay.

"Okay," my doctor said casually and calmly. "I'll go ahead and schedule a C-section for tomorrow at 10am. Don't eat or drink anything past..." and he went on, giving me instructions like he hadn't just Houdini-ed me and decided I needed to be cut open.

As soon as he stepped away from my bedside, I looked to Kelly and exploded in tears.

The nurse was so nice. She knelt down beside my bed, held my hand and told me how beautiful and special a C-section birth was; how it didn't matter how a baby comes into the world, as long as he gets here; and how there was no reason to be scared. I nodded through my sobbing, and when I finally caught my breath, I said, "It's not even any of those things. That just really hurt."

But I think it really was all of those things. It was all happening too fast. When we took our childbirth class, I had decided a C-section would be fine in an emergency, but I always imagined that in that emergency my water would break, I'd breathe through contractions, maybe do some pushing, and then they'd tell me I'd need a C-section. This was just so sudden, so out of left field.

I called my mom after leaving the hospital and told her we were going to get some dinner, and oh, by the way, I was having a C-section in the morning. It was very hard not to cry, saying the words out loud. I calmed down and we went to Texas Roadhouse for our Last Supper. The waitress commented on my big belly and asked when I was due. That was a complicated question.

"Uh, a week ago? He's coming out in the morning, actually."  

Dinner was fun and strange, knowing it was our last outing before adding a tiny person to our life. It's a funny feeling, knowing you won't feel any contractions, or do your breathing exercises, or hear people tell you to push; knowing the exact time your baby will arrive.

That night felt like Christmas Eve. Kelly and I could barely sleep, we were so excited and anxious and curious about how much our lives would change.

The morning of Charlie's arrival, we shuffled around the house, pretending we had any clue about what was about to happen. We giggled and joked and Kelly ate the leftover steak from Texas Roadhouse and a Mt. Dew for breakfast. We were out of our minds.

At the hospital, we ended up having to wait, which led to this unflattering picture. (Birth is all about unflattering pictures.)

When we got to a triage room, we waited some more. There were no rooms available yet.

(Who's got 2 thumbs and is about to have a baby? This girl!)

Once we got into our own room, we did some more waiting. The waiting turned into me crying out of excitement and nerves and hunger, but thankfully Kelly was there to cheer me up. Cheering me up consisted of playing cards, taking pictures, and interviewing each other (I'm watching the videos right now for the first time. I can hear the tears in my voice underneath my laughter, and my face looks much chubbier than I remember.)

Finally, after 4 hours of waiting, the doctor showed up. Bustling is a good word for it. He bustled into our room and told us it was time to go. Time sped up. It wasn't like in Grey's Anatomy. I wasn't rolled on a gurney down the hall, bursting through OR doors. Instead, a nurse held my IV bag as I tried to hold my gown closed in the back and slowly walk down the hall by myself. Kelly was busy getting into his OR gear that looked like a paper space suit. I was afraid to be away from him for even a minute and kept looking behind me as the nurse made me walk forward, making sure he was coming. 

The OR room was small and sterile. The table was too tall and they had to get me a stool so I could get up. Things really were happening too fast to even comprehend at this point, but I'll try to recount what I can remember. 

(The OR room. It's time.)

They had me roll on my side for the spinal block. I had Kelly hold my hand and I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could. It stung a little, and when he passed a nerve, it felt like someone had splashed bacon grease on my legs, but then he had me laying back on the table and it took about 5 seconds for the bottom third of my body to go completely numb. There were a lot of people in the room by now, all talking to each other, setting up for their specific jobs. It really was like one of those moments in the movies where a character is standing still as the world spins around them. 

They put up the blue paper drape. I guess the catheter went in at this point, and then Kelly said, "They're painting you orange." I kept my eyes on Kelly pulled him in to my bubble in the center of the spinning universe. I kept thinking, I can't think about what's happening right now, but my brain couldn't even begin to imagine - it was like the bottom third of me didn't even exist. I said things to Kelly like, "We're going to have a baby," over and over again. I wanted to be in the moment. I wanted to remember everything. But boy was it happening fast.

A female doctor was suddenly over me, pushing on the top of my stomach like she was giving me CPR. 

"They're pushing on me. What's happening?" I asked Kelly calmly. 

The female doctor glanced over the drape and said with a smile in her voice, "We're delivering!"

The anesthesiologist tapped Kelly and insisted, "Dad, start snapping pictures!" 

I grabbed Kelly's arm and tried to explain why he shouldn't. "You'll pass out." But Kelly stood, robotically, and indeed snapped some pictures. (I'll spare you the grotesque shots of Charlie being pulled out of me butt first.) He later told me he didn't even comprehend what he was seeing, he just pushed the button on his iPhone - it was too overwhelming to puke or pass out. 

And then he was here. A doctor lifted him up over the drape for a moment before taking him to get cleaned up, and I saw his little round head and scrunched up face. All the doctors were commenting on the shape of his head. "Look at that round head!" they repeated. We would hear this sentiment over and over again from every doctor and nurse and visitor we would see over the next few weeks. He has a very round head.

Kelly walked over to where the babe was being washed, weighed, and worried over, as they put me back together. I heard him cry. I heard the nurses continue to talk about his head. I laid my head back and was alone again in the spinning universe. I was a mother. I had a child, who had just been pulled out of me. Kelly was a father. We were parents. Tears welled in my eyes.

The anesthesiologist told me he was giving me some morphine, and I felt my mouth forget how to form words. When Kelly came back over to me, I made my mouth say, "His name's Charlie." It just was. Kelly agreed.

Charlie.