Natural Childbirth - Part 1 - Laboring at Home

August 21st, 3:30AM - Presbyterian St. Luke Hospital

Hagatha the Wicked Nurse Midwife: Well Heather, it looks like you're only dilated to one and a half centimeters. But you're about 85% effaced.

John: Are you sure? She was about to start pushing when we got here...

Hagatha: (rolling her eyes) Sure she was. You have to expect this kind of disappointment when you come into the hospital too early...

Heather woke me up at 9am on Sunday, August 20th.

"Baby, wake up. I'm pretty sure I'm having contractions."

"Are you sure?"

"I think so. They started around 7, but I didn't want to wake you up until I was sure."

"Well... let's take showers and get dressed, and see if this keeps up. We want to make sure that this is real, you know?"

"Absolutely. I want to be pushing when I get to the hospital."

We'd heard a lot of horror stories about couples who got so excited when they went into labor that they went rushing right out to the hospital. These poor losers would show up, check in, and then be forced to go home, disappointed and embarrassed, when their labor fizzled out entirely.

We were smarter than that.

So we began to work through our list of labor activities. We'd started this list months ago, slowly adding new ideas as they came to us. So we packed bags, fixed snacks, walked in the park, and generally had one of the most pleasant afternoons we'd had in a long time. Once labor began, Heather finally stopped having the "stabby pains" (aka ringing shots to the cervix delivered by the cutest li'l fetus in town) that had plagued her throughout the pregnancy, and she was happy to finally be able to take a long walk around our neighborhood. I suggested that we walk to a bookstore to buy a copy of Ann Coulter's book so that Heather could squat over it when her water broke. Heather refused, since she was saving her amniotic fluid to blast our cruel, mean-spirited midwife that we nicknamed Hagatha.

On the way home from the park, we rented the movie "Airplane!" from the neighborhood video store. We knew we'd have to return it by 11pm the next day, but by this time Heather's contractions were 4 minutes apart. Even if we were still at the hospital by the time the movie was due, I'd just take a minute to call one of our friends to return the movie for us.

(Many, many days later, I would return to that video store, place a human baby on the counter, and plead with the childless, gay video clerk to cancel $25 in late fees.)

So Heather and I pursued our plan to stay away from the hospital until the last possible minute, trying to contain our excitement, and remain reasonable about the possibility that this might still turn out to be false labor. Unfortunately, although my rational mind was convinced to take this one moment at a time and not get too excited, my heart could not help but be overcome by the excitement.

And by heart, I mean bowels.

You see, I suffer from the Concern Related Anal Projection Syndrome (CRAPS). This disorder manifests itself as an intense need to take frequent, highly pressurized liquid shits whenever an exciting, high stakes performance situation presents itself. I've done some informal studies of this phenomenon during theater performances, and I'd say it affects about 35% of men, and 10% of women (women are far more likely to suffer Theater Induced Nervous Kidney Liquid Emission). This phenomenon accounts for the fact that the men's rooms in all small theaters reek of farts before any performance (check it for yourself). The male actors have been in there, pooping their little thespian hearts out right before the house opened, so that they wouldn't pollute the tiny backstage area where they will be huddled for the next 3 hours. So if you smell a poopy aroma outside the Nederlander theater in New York, don't wrinkle your nose! The fart you smell might once have been inside Taye Diggs!

Anyway, since I was running to the bathroom every 60 minutes or so, Heather's early labor was pretty hard on me too. My tortured digestive system was making weird moaning noises inside my abdomen all day, which could be clearly heard if the ambient noise levels were fairly low. Heather preferred to lean her head against my belly as she had her contractions, which led to some humiliating exchanges:

Heather: Ooooooooooo....
John's Bowels: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee... - OH! Bladda bladda bladda, glump!
Heather: Ooooooooooo....
Bowels: Snork snork snork snork - tick! Watcha watcha. Blap. Blappa blap BLAP!
Heather: Hee hee! Hey you fucker! Stop that! It hurts to laugh!
Bowels: Myyyyyyyyy baaaaaaaad.

Even as the contractions got more painful, Heather remained in a good mood. She laughed throughout the movie, she remained properly disgusted with Nicole Ritchie when she read her Us magazine, and she generally was an unbelievably good sport as the going got tough. Heather's labor had even brought out the best in our dachshund, Remy. Remy normally spends every waking moment trying to set the land speed record for most deafening shrieks emitted within a 20 second period, but even Remy knew something special was happening. When Heather labored on the couch, Remy carefully climbed up next to her and gently rested his head on her legs. He sat there, perfectly still, for hours.

By midnight, Heather's contractions had really started to hurt, but she was riding them out with great courage and composure. I had Heather walking a circuit around the first floor of our house while she labored. I had built three piles of pillows in three different rooms that she could lean on when a contraction set in. I had named these pillow piles Station Alpha, Station Beta, and Station Zed.

Heather: I feel one coming...
John: Head for Station Zed!
Heather: Fuck Station Zed! Station Zed is a piece of shit!
John: You're doing (consulting his notes from childbirth class) ... "great".

Around one o'clock, Heather had started to become distant. Her contractions were two and a half minutes apart, lasting two minutes (which, by the way, does not mean she got a two and a half minute break between contractions. It means she got a thirty second break between contractions). She had started shivering uncontrollably.

I decided that this was getting serious. I called our doula (professional birth coach, for you cretins out there), and told her to come over. She confidently assured me that she would be over in 20 minutes. An hour later, she arrived.

After a brief assessment, she agreed that Heather was damn near ready to start pushing. We bundled her into the car with the last of our stuff, and headed to the hospital.

It was 2:00am. Heather had been in labor for 19 hours. As I navigated the 10 minute drive to the hospital, my nerves buzzing with excitement and concern, I reflected with amazement: "I'm going to be a father before the sun rises."

This was the first (but far from the last) of my predictions that would be proved bitterly wrong in the next few days.