My wife, Kate, and I were married about four years before we thought we were ready to have children. We had arguments like all young married couples about our “preparation” status, and before I knew it she was showing me a stick with a plus sign on it…WE WERE PREGNANT!
Well, now the fun began. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what to do next. My theory was that people have been having babies for thousands of years, so how hard could it be? Fortunately for us (including the baby), my wife was a bit more prepared than I was.
The first major decision was which OBGYN we should use (it seems like the term “us” is used a lot by parents-to-be, but “she” seems to do most of the work); Kate had heard positive things about midwives, so we went to Meet the Midwives night at the local hospital. We hooked up after that. “Midwifery” means with the woman (so a midwife doesn’t necessarily have to be a woman, she just has to be sensitive to the needs of the women she treats). The midwives are personal, friendly, they all love their jobs and know a lot about women and pregnancy. In fact, Kate uses midwives to this day for all of her gynecological needs.
On the first appointment we had gone to, healthy pregnancy clothes were stressed. Mom has to take care of herself because the baby will selfishly take all the available nutrients and leave mom with what she has left over. This meant Mom drank lots of water, increased her caloric intake (healthy calories, not cookies, cakes, or ice cream), and took vitamins (she took over-the-counter women’s multivitamins, not prescription prenatal vitamins). Kate carried a bottle of water with her everywhere; I never left home without it. Even then, at subsequent appointments, the midwife would tell her that she should drink more! I found myself cutting up vegetables (carrot sticks, red bell peppers, and green bell peppers were her favorites) for Kate to take to work for snacks, and she always made a homemade lunch to take to work. During pregnancy, weight gain is a good thing; after all, there is a second person growing inside mom who needs to grow big and strong from a two-celled zygote.
On subsequent visits to the midwives we were able to hear the new baby’s heartbeat! That was very exciting, but I also discovered something new. The placenta (the sac that surrounds, protects, and nourishes the baby) also makes a sound that is separate and distinct from the baby’s heartbeat. On these subsequent visits we were able to see Kate’s growth by her weight gain (and she always tried to dress lightly to keep her weight as low as possible) and by the measurement of her bottom (from pubic bone to top of the chest). of the uterus). – the measure becomes bigger than the baby grows). We also discuss various blood tests and genetic tests. We denied most of the optional tests because nothing they said would stop us from wanting this baby. The only “optional” test we had agreed to was an HIV test for Kate; if she didn’t get tested, then the baby would be tested after her birth and we didn’t want to subject our child to that. The day is going to be traumatic enough as it is!
Up to this point everything was still very abstract to me. I knew that Kate was pregnant and that at some point in the future she would be someone’s dad, but it was so hard for me to feel it. But then came the ultrasound! For those of you who don’t know, the ultrasound is probably the highlight of pregnancy. They took us to a small room with millions of thousands of dollars worth of machinery, turned off the lights, put some jelly on Kate’s belly, waved a magical wish over it, and a picture of my little boy appeared on a TV screen! baby! We could see the little heart beating and the arms and the legs and the head and the face… It was amazing. I sat there in the dark and cried.
This seems like a good time to mention the gender of the baby. You’ll notice I keep referring to him as “the baby” because right now we don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl and that’s the way we wanted it. It is one of those truly great surprises that you can take in life. And no matter what it was, we would eventually find out. We found that this annoyed a lot of people: those who wanted to buy gifts, those who were driven by curiosity, those who wanted to know what name we were going by… Kate and I agreed that we wouldn’t find out (and we were sure to tell the technician). ultrasound because she may have been able to tell at this point) which kept the dialogue going and the debate about which half was correct…is it a boy or a girl? We painted the nursery a neutral green, chose gender-neutral clothing and patterns, picked a girl name (fabulous) and a boy name (shoot), but none of us regretted our decision not to find out.
Let’s recap, now we got pregnant, we decided to go to the midwives, Kate started eating healthier and drinking water like a fish, we have heard and seen our baby, but a healthy pregnancy also includes delivery. That’s where Lamaze came in. I sort of dragged my feet through the Lamaze classes (again, people have been doing this for centuries, how hard can it be?), but I finally gave in. Now I’ll be the first to admit that attending Lamaze classes was one of the best things we could have done while pregnant. In the classes we learned what to expect during labor, when to call the midwife, what to do to promote the labor process and reduce labor pain. And yes, we learned the breathing techniques. Kate felt a little silly doing the HEHEHE in class, but she learned them all. The classes really took away a lot of the anxiety that would have been present later during labor and delivery. Lamaze was a great way to ask stupid questions in a relaxed environment and talk to other couples who were going through the same issues and find out that we weren’t the only ones with those issues.
After nine months of pregnancy, she had discovered a lot, but now she had to put it all to the test. Now we were ready for the climactic end. June 26, 2004 had arrived (just arrived) and Kate was waking me up at the time of my contractions. We had an induction scheduled at 8:00 in the morning, so I thought she was just being neurotic, but to please her I took my watch and started timing myself. Well, it didn’t take me long to figure out that the contractions last about a minute and come every five minutes like clockwork. It’s time to call the midwife.
I called 911 and told the midwife that my wife is having a baby, but she already knew. He asked to speak to Kate and to speak to her specifically through a twitch. He told Kate to wait until the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and for her to call back. So we showered, got dressed, packed up the car, and started watching reruns of Mad About You. Definitely not the crazy scene you see on TV or in the movies: no one boiled water, we didn’t get towels, no one passed out, I didn’t forget Kate at the door and left…
Once we arrived at the hospital, we were taken to the delivery room and made “comfortable.” Nursing staff attached monitors to Kate’s belly and told her to try to relax. One thing they didn’t do with her was hook her up to an IV, another benefit of a midwife versus a traditional doctor. This is where Lamaze’s training came in handy. We knew what to expect, what the monitors were for, and what to do. Kate tried to stay on her feet and not on her back to relieve the pain, successfully used breathing techniques to overcome the painful contractions, rubbed her back, showered… We had agreed beforehand that she did not ask for painkillers at first and that when he asked for them we would let them spend 10 minutes to see if he still wanted them. The moment I requested the medicine for her because she was in excruciating pain, the midwife said let’s wait and take a look… 9cm dilated and completely effaced: no time for medicine now that the baby is about to be born.
The midwife allowed Kate to get into whatever position she wanted to push, and then she began to push. Now I can’t even begin to imagine the pain my wife was in right now, but let me give you guys some advice on pain. You’ll feel bad for your wife and want to hold her hand, but DON’T let her grab the fingers around your wedding ring because that little woman can do a death grip while the baby is coming out.
Finally, the baby came out and visited us. Now, at 1:19 pm, 9 months after learning about this new way of life, for the first time we knew what sex the baby was… we had the most beautiful and perfect baby girl I have ever seen. The midwife took the baby, goop and all (and there is goo), and placed it right on my wife’s chest, yet another benefit of practicing midwifery! As the proud daddy, I was allowed to cut the umbilical cord (which looked a lot like a plastic tube and much harder to cut than I had imagined) after asking and making sure it wouldn’t hurt my little girl.
Before I left the delivery room, I had told my wife, and this is still true, that I had never been more proud of her than at that moment. She had done everything perfectly during her pregnancy to give birth to this absolutely healthy and fragile little person. And in a nutshell, that’s what this proud husband and eventual father found out about a healthy pregnancy.
