A Baby Story: Part 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

The next 24 hours kind of went like this:

245am: Transferred to the labor and delivery room and hooked up to a monitor.

4am: Mrs. U starts getting very small contractions according to monitor.

430am: Mrs. U makes good use of the bedpan, then eats 4 ice chips for the nausea.

5am: Nurse 1 tells Mrs. U: “Go easy on the ice chips. Oh, and the sky is blue.”

6am: Nurse 1 starts Pitocin drip to bring on labor.

7am: Doctor makes a quick appearance to say hello, then disappears for 12 hours to coach a little league game and enjoy the rest of his Saturday.

730am: Nurse 2 begins her shift and tells Mrs. U: “You have to eat more ice chips. Oh, and the sky is green.”

8am-6pm: Social hour in the delivery room. Many visitors and little, laughable contractions, but no labor yet. In between visitors, the Undaground continually asks the nurse whether the little league game has gone into extra innings.

7pm: Doctor returns from a hard day of being on call and examines Mrs. U for the first time, then breaks the rest of her water.

701pm: Labor begins. After a day of Pitocin, it’s intense from the very beginning.

12am (Sunday, Oct 1): Epidural inserted, all is well.

12:10am: Three nurses run into the room to give Mrs. U a shot of Ephedra and an oxygen mask after a reaction to the epidural. Order and blood pressure restored.

12:30am: Nurse 3 tells Mrs. U and me to take a nap. Oh, and the sky is purple.

4:00am: Nurse 3 wakes us up. Tells Mrs. U she is progressing wonderfully (4-5 centimeters).

4:01am: Mrs. U and I do the math and figure out that we have about 5 to 6 more hours to go before pushing begins.

4:05am: Five nurses run into the room, start prepping Mrs. U for surgery with the Doctor on the cell phone. Throw me a pair of scrubs to put on and tell me to stand in the hallway until they’re ready for me. Then, they wheel Mrs. U out of the room and down to the operating room.

4:31am: The Undaling is born. We wait a split second to hear his cry, then feel the greatest rush of relief that one could ever imagine. One nurse tells me from behind the sheet:

“Dad, look over here at your son.”

I immediately look over the sheet and down at my wife’s surgery in progress. Oops. I guess she meant for me to look over there. Yes, there he is at the table. I see a gaggle of nurses surrounding a tiny little boy with a full head of rock-star hair. Two minutes later, he’s in our arms… and we are officially parents.

And life as we know it will never be the same.