Friday, January 20th was my last day of teaching. I was still scheduled to go to school the following Monday for a planning day, but that Friday was my last day with kids. I was just past 37 weeks pregnant, but that Friday was the end of the semester. It was the natural day to walk away. Even though my classes weren't stellar this year, I was still sad about not working with kids anymore for a while. Through tears, I took down my posters and packed up my books and my desk. I left everything in the back of the room, ready to be lugged out to the car on Monday morning.
That night, I went out for a dear friend's milestone birthday. We had dinner at Blue Agave, one of my very favorite Baltimore restaurants, then went to the late show at the Baltimore Comedy Factory. The headliner that night was Iliza Shlesinger, and I thought she was absolutely hilarious. In fact, I was laughing so hard that I started having strong Braxton Hicks contractions. They continued as I drove home through the snow. I got home at about 1:00 in the morning, and I fell asleep excited for a Saturday of rest and for a few more weeks to relax and prepare for our little one's arrival. I told myself that first babies never come early, and I was prepared to wait as long as necessary to let our baby decide when she or he was going to be born.
The next morning, I woke up at about 5:00 with contractions that felt very different than Braxton Hicks. They continued for the next hour or so, when I woke Matt up. After about another hour, I knew this was the real deal. I sent a text to my parents, asking them what they thought of January 21st or 22nd for their grandbaby's birthday. They thought I was kidding.
By about 8:00, Matt called our doula to tell her that we thought I was in labor. I talked to her for a little while, but I was still in really early labor, so it was hard for her to tell if this was it or not. She told me I may just be tired and dehydrated from the night before. So I rested in between contractions, got up and walked through each one and drank a lot of water as each one passed. This continued for the next few hours.
Though I never left our room while laboring, Matt ran all over the house. We hadn't installed the car seat yet, so he did that. In between contractions, he would pop into the room to share one of his accomplishments. I remember him becoming particularly obsessed with the dot decals that we hadn't yet put on our baby's walls. After I was through each contraction, Matt would leave the room, muttering, "Dots, dots..."
Our doula checked in again around 11:00. I knew labor was progressing, but Matt told her that I seemed fine. Unlike most first-time fathers, Matt was amazingly calm and collected--too much so, really. He was so calm and collected that our doula assumed my labor wasn't progressing. She told him she'd check in again in another couple hours.
Shortly before she called again, my contractions started to get really strong. As each one began, I had to get up and walk around. As they peaked, I would bang on the wall or our bathroom sink. At one point, I told Matt that this was harder than I thought it would be and I understood why people get drugs. I thought to myself, "This is what people say in transition. But it's only been 8 hours. I can't be in transition already." When our doula called this time, Matt walked into our room just as one of those contractions was peaking. "Oh my," she said. "Is that her?" she asked as I was working through one of the tough transition contractions. "Oh yeah," Matt said. "But she's been doing that for the last hour."
At that point, our doula suggested that Matt let our midwife know we were on our way to the hospital and that she would meet us there. Matt asked if our doula would rather come to our house so we could wait a while longer before having to go to the hospital, and she strongly urged him to get in the car. I had told Matt that I wanted to wait as long as possible before going to the hospital, and he was taking my request to heart.
Our doula urged us to eat a little something before we left, so while I was trying my best to summon up the courage to get in the car during active labor, Matt was scurrying around the kitchen. I choked down some applesauce, and we got into the car. The next 30 minutes were--by far--the worst part of that day. At this point, I had a baby head in my pelvis, so being strapped into a car was the last place I wanted to be. By the time we got to downtown Baltimore, I was leaning on my left side, clutching Matt's shoulder with my left hand and the car door with my right hand. I started to get hot flashes, so I had to roll down the window. I had a huge contraction at a stoplight, and I can only imagine what pedestrians thought was going on in our car.
As we continued toward the hospital, I noticed that we were heading past it and into the next neighborhood. Through contractions, I tried to tell Matt we'd gone too far. I heard something about "Google Maps not lying to us," so I just tugged at his shoulder harder until we were going the right way. We finally parked and started the 3-block skyway trek to the right part of the hospital. About every 2-3 minutes, I had to stop for a contraction, and every time I did, a security guard appeared with a wheelchair. All I could ever say was, "No chair. Can't sit." Matt would translate: "I think she'd rather walk. It hurts to sit down right now." I had a huge contraction when Matt was checking in at the information desk. I leaned over the desk and started moaning in the middle of the reception area. The woman behind the desk said, "Oh, you have GOT to get her upstairs! She is going to drop that baby right here!"
We got upstairs to the Labor and Delivery floor, and no one really took notice of us. Someone told us to go to the check-in room, where I promptly had another contraction. "Okay," the woman behind the desk said. "And...why are you here?" I looked at her with an "Are you kidding me?" look, and said, "Um, to have a baby?" and she said, "Great! We'll do the rest of this later." After just a few seconds, my midwife appeared from nowhere and told me that my room was all ready. She helped me shuffle down the hallway to the room where Auggie would be born. A woman who is fully dilated and ready to push is dilated to 10 centimeters. By the time she checked me, I was at 9. My last bag of water broke, and I was ready to go.
After about an hour, I moved from the tub. In between contractions, we chatted with our midwife and the nurses. Just before my last push, our midwife asked if we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl. We told her we didn't. She said that she didn't know either, and she was insistent that her husband be the one to announce the gender. I told Matt that I really liked that idea. About a minute later, we welcomed our happy and healthy baby boy into the world. Matt literally hopped around the room, yelling, "It's a boy! I don't believe it! A boy!"
Well, our little boy was healthy anyway. The happy part came a bit later. For us, though, it was pretty instantaneous.
After 13 hours of labor, we met our son, August Frederic, at 6:10 p.m. on January 21. 2012. Because he was born so soon after we got to the hospital, we didn't actually register until after he was born. The nurses jokingly read over our birth plan and asked what I ate last--as I was munching on a granola bar. All of Matt's scurrying in the kitchen paid off. I mentioned that I was hungry, and he pulled out the granola bar, along with a banana, some yogurt, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a few other goodies. Again--every woman should be so lucky.
I'm so grateful for all the amazing support I had throughout this amazing day. After August's birth, our midwife thanked us for giving her the calm and peaceful "midwife-style" birth she had been missing in recent weeks. And our wonderful doula, shown with August and me below, chided Matt for being such a relaxed first-time dad. "Next time," she said, "Please don't be so calm!"
Although the last four weeks have been emotionally and physically exhausting, Matt and I couldn't be happier for the little stranger who's wiggled his way into our lives. We love you, Augs!
