Four Hours

I spent a number of marathons attempting to break four hours as a milestone goal. Amazingly enough, it seems that my goal in childbirth was the same. Here's the birth story of our little girl.


On Thursday, November 8, I woke up to discover that I had had some red bleeding overnight. I told husband not to be alarmed, but that I would call the doctor on our drive in to work. We had started carpooling together that week as I'd reached 36 weeks in the pregnancy. Instinctively, husband insisted that we have our hospital bag packed just in case. I tried calling the doctor during the drive but was put on hold for an extended period of time as other people with overnight issues certainly bombarded the phone lines. When I got to work I called right away and explained that I was having some bleeding. The advice nurse advised us to come in right away. I called husband who had only just arrived and poured a cup of coffee before heading out again to go to the doctor's office.


Once at the office, we were attached to monitors to discover that baby girl was doing just fine and I was in labor. The midwife indicated that I was 1 cm dialated and baby girl remained in her breech position. So, it was proclaimed that we would have a baby that day.


What followed was a whirlwind of events. We nervously drove to the hospital, were admitted, whisked into a room, prepped, epiduraled and rushed off to the operating room. At 8:45 a.m. a call to husband was made. At 12:47 p.m. our little girl was declared to the world. She was considered "preemie" at birth with a low weight of 5 lbs. 11 oz. and height of 18.5 inches. Nonetheless, she is amazingly beautiful and more wonderful than either of us could ever imagine. All of the hackneyed things people say about having children, that will change your life and allow to feel and indescribable love, are so resoundingly true.

Our stay in the hospital lasted a horrid five days that made me truly hate being in an invalid. Here's what happened in a nutshell: general pain from having a c-section, an inability to shower because the epidural had to remain in my back, a general assault by every staffperson in the hospital, a diagnosis of HELLP syndrome, a 24-hour drip of magnesium sulfate, my birthday, meddling nurses disrupting our feeding schedule over concerns of baby girl's lower than normal temperature, two bags of calcium and finally the trip home. Fortunately, husband, my mother, and husband's mother were extraordinarily supportive and helpful through this process.

We are now settling in to our life as parents. I am continually amazed that we could have made something so beautiful. I am also amazed by the sheer volume that a little girl came have shoot out her nose and mouth. Last night while feeding, I was burping our girl when she shot milk out her mouth halfway across the room. I hollered at husband to bring a couple of tissues. In the brief time it took for husband to arrive with the tissue, baby girl had managed to spit up her entire meal in a veritable fountain all over herself, me, the chair, and the floor. When husband arrived with the tissue I had to laugh because it seemed so silly, two tissues for this huge mess. This mess is the first of many, I'm certain.

I'm still working on a return to running. I've been taking walks in the neighborhood and estimate that I'll be back at it in a couple of weeks.