Depending on who you ask, Sam was due on November 11 or November 16th. For months, I had schizophrenically switched back and forth between preparing for an early birth and saying I was holding out for a Sagitarrius. In the end, Sam was neither early nor a Sag. But he was welcome, welcome, welcome when he arrived on November 21.
I had hoped to have a natural childbirth after the stressful recovery from Anna's birth by emergency c-section following 17 hours hard labour. I felt confident that the baby I was carrying was in a happy head-down position and keen to drop. But November 11 and November 16 passed with no signs of early labour. Due to my "advanced maternal age" and being "past my dates," I received lots of follow-up from the hospital to make sure the baby was doing well. A biophysical exam at Labour and Delivery on the 13th showed he was doing great - he was just very comfy where he was. On Sunday the 15th, I accidentally poisoned myself with gluten - like the world's worst dose of castor oil - and was violently ill for two hours. We made a trip to Labour and Delivery to make sure all was well and that the baby wasn't dehydrated. Despite intensified Braxton-Hicks contractions into that evening, not even my major purge started labour.
Back to Labour and Delivery on Tuesday, where I was determined not to be induced. My effort to steel my nerve against medical pressure was wasted. There wasn't anything happening labour-wise that could be sped up anyway.
Another biophysical on Friday the 20th - another healthy, happy baby, growing by the day and sucking madly on his fist. I was so encouraged to see him sucking on his fist in utero - after Anna's inability to suck, I was so hopeful I would be able to nurse my new little one. And I was determined not to compromise nursing by enduring labour AND an emergency section, if I could avoid it. And, frankly, Stephen and I just didn't know if we could manage the recovery from a section after a labour with an active and demanding three-year-old to care for at home.
On that morning of the 20th, when there were still no signs at all of labour, and I knew I had been walking, running, and jumping as much as humanly possible to get things moving, we were content to book a section. We thought Tuesday, November 24, would be a great day to have a baby, for instance. That would give us a leisurely weekend to get prepared and a few more days to hope that everything would take its course swiftly and naturally. Our doc was thinking along the same lines.
Except the OR was booked solid. For the whole week.
The options were to wait a week, spending a few exhausting and uncomfortable hours every two days on monitors at Labour and Delivery and risking an emergency section if nothing progressed. Or fasting overnight, arriving at the hospital on Saturday morning, and hoping for an opening in the operating room on November 21st.
Stephen and I had quite an afternoon on Friday, getting ready for the baby to be born the next day. Despite all the many months of waiting, I couldn't get my head around the thought that the baby would arrive the next day. The only thing I accomplished all day was a trip to buy a supply of magazines for reading at the hospital.
We managed a reasonable night's sleep and arrived at the hospital the next morning. The operating room was booked for six procedures already, and no one could say how many emergencies would emerge in the course of the day. We had expected to know by 9:30 a.m. if today would be the day, but it wasn't until 11:00 a.m. that the docs told us they thought we would get in by 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. and they hooked me up to an IV.
I figured 4:00 or 5:00 would really mean 6:00 or 7:00, but we had enough magazines to carry us through the day, and when word came at 5:00 that we would be waiting until 7:00, we were tired and excited but prepared to wait that final few hours. Our doula, Sylvie, helped the last hours pass before they came to prep me for surgery.
It seemed like we were only in the operating room for moments before we heard a baby's lusty cry on the other side of the curtain - so strong and loud and pissed off to be disturbed it hardly seemed real. He was born at 8:10 p.m., a solid 9 pounds and 3 ounces, almost 20 inches long. We named him Samuel Francis and held him for the first time. His dad and Sylvie cared for him that long first hour while I waited in the recovery room and while Sam made sucking faces waiting to eat. I got back to the room tired and almost as thirsty as the baby, and I fed him and then barely slept all night, I was so excited to see him in the bassinette beside me, and so sure he would wake at any moment, since he squirmed in his sleep constantly for that first week of his life.
We got home on Tuesday, after a short and not-too-stressful stay in hospital, and Anna met her brother for the first time when she got home from playschool. She bounced in the door, nervous but excited, and said, "I love him!"
Anna still asks for her "just-born story" every night before she goes to sleep, and this is her brother Sam's "just-born story."
