The Whole Story

Bethany and I know a decent amount of people, which means we're eventually going to have to call every person we know and tell them the fine details of Lola'sadventure into the world. In an effort to avoid having to tell the same story over and over, I thought I'd write it all down here and refer people to the blog when they ask the eternal question.

So here goes...

It was Sunday morning. Early Sunday Morning. 4:30 am, to be precise. I was sleeping, dreaming I was diving into a pool of Hagendaz Ice Cream, or something, when suddenly I heard the words, "I think my water just broke," and "I swear this isn't a joke." come from Bethany's mouth.

I forced myself out of bed, noticed the wet spot on the sheet and on the carpet and thought to myself in mid-panic, "Yeah, this really isn't a joke."

So, I did the first thing any rational father-to-be would do. I started screaming my friggin' head off. Just kidding. I very calmly asked Bethany what the hell I was supposed to do because I didn't pay much attention in the birthing class. I was too busy thinking about, well, damn near everything. So she said to call the doctor's office. I called, they said to call the hospital. I guess Bethany wasn't paying much attention either. I called the hospital and got a recording. I left my name and number like they said and put the phone down. Bethany, meanwhile, was sitting on the toilet leaking ambiotic fluid all over the place. Since we didn't have a bag packed, we thought we had a month to spare, I scrambled to get stuff together. Books, clothes, lotion, stuff like that. Stuff we ended up not even using in the hospital.

Oh yeah, so the hospital called back, finally, and told us to wait three hours before coming in. I thought, "What? This is an emergency here!" but then I figured, "Well, maybe I can get back to sleep while we wait." It didn't happen. We used the time to finish packing, buy more stuff at CVS that we wouldn't use, and watch Garfield the Movie in bed on Bethany's laptop.

Around the time when Jon Arbuckle adopts Odie from Jennifer Love Hewitt, Bethany started getting contractions. They didn't hurt at first so we were just like, "Oh weird!". Then they started to get more intense so I was like "Fuck this waiting until 8am bullshit, I'm gonna go start the car." We were on our way.

We get to the hospital and it was on fire! Just kidding. We were the first patients in the building, however, which was great! Hardly any wait! They brought us in and plopped Bethany down in a bed. Here we waited about 10 hours for the midwife, Kiersten, to finish delivering some other baby. We waited and waited and a very nice male nurse kept us occupied with wise cracks and updates on Lola's heart rate, and what not. He warned us that it was possible that Bethany was having a false alarm and that she could have mistaken her water breaking for wetting the bed, as a lot of women tend to do. I was kind of hoping this was the case because I kinda wanted to go home and watch The Phantom Gourmet. It wasn't true, obviously, because when Kiersten finally arrived, and checked Bethany out, she reported to us that her cervix was at 5 cm!

Bethany's contractions were getting more painful. I tried to console her by gently rubbing her shoulders but she didn't want to be touched. I didn't know what to do so I just stared at her and tried not to freak out.

Finally we get to the delivery room. A nurse asked us a zillion questions and I went down to the car to get all our stuff that we weren't even going to use. When I got back they wouldn't let me in the room. So I waited around outside the door and a lot of time went by. I panicked a little and knocked on the door again begging to be let in. A guy in a mask answered and I was afraid something was wrong. Nothing was wrong, though. He was just the anestesia guy and they were about to administer the epidural. This was probably the most traumatic moment of the whole experience for me. It was horrible seeing Bethany in so much pain. They made me sit in a chair directly in front of her while they stuck her with the needle. It was very sad. But then when it was over she laid down and was like "Woo Hoo!" She felt a lot better. Thankfully. Then a different nurse came in and asked the same zillion questions the previous nurse asked. Then out of nowhere it was time to push. Kiersten was delivering yet another baby at the same time as us, so we had to have a doctor deliver. It was fine, though, because the doctor, what-ever-her name is, was very very nice!

I won't get into the details of the final stage of delivery. Let's just say that it was probably the most beautiful experiences of my life. It wasn't nearly as disgusting as I expected it to be. It was amazing. I cut the chord. Then they plopped Lola down onto Bethany's tummy and we stared at her in awe while they sewed her up.

Then they took our darling from us and put her on a scale. The nurse let me take some pics and taught me how to hold her. Then I brought the little angel into the next room and sat in a chair with her as her mother squeezed out the placenta. Then a bunch of other crap happened and we went up stairs to the postpartum room. Time to relax. Hooray! We did it. Well, SHE did it. All in record time of 8 hours. Kiersten and the nurses were all incredibly impressed. Apparently a first pregnancy never runs as smooth as it did with the birth of Lola!

Our families arrived and we all celebrated. Jill, my mother, and Ben, my brother were the first to arrive. I feel bad now because neither of us were very talkative at the time because it was so soon after the delivery! Then Cyndy, Bethany's mother, and Eryn, Bethany's sister, showed up. We perked up a bit. I think, for me, the caffeine was kicking in. Then it was Bethany's friends Alyssa and Michael, followed by my father, Sal, and step-mother, Rose. Lots of other stuff happened and two days later we're home.

Lola is doing very well. I've gotten quite good at swaddled the little lady and we're each sharing diaper duties (no pun intended.) I should note that Lola is having very creamy black poop-a-doops. They say it's normal! She is also getting much better at breast feeding. Bethany thinks she's getting the hang of it now.

Lola woke up for a bit this afternoon. We hung out together on the bed and she discovered the sun light through the window. I didn't know if it was bad or not, but she couldn't stop staring at the sun! Then she fell asleep in my arms. It was precious.

A little while ago I put on a Ween cd and we danced together. She stared at me the whole time probably wondering what the hell I was doing. I'm trying to expose her to music early on.

Anyway, all is well, and nobody worry about us because things are going wonderfully. We love our little daughter so much! And you will, too, those of you who haven't met her.

My friends Bill and Jessica from Brookline are stopping by in a little while for a quick visit. I need to make a million phone calls now and hopefully find time to eat dinner before I pass out from exhaustion.