A Baby Story, Part 1

In honor of Amelia's two week birthday, I am finally going to start her birth story. I didn't know where to begin, but Dean suggested the beginning. Sounds good to me.

On Friday, October 3, I met my friend Laura downtown for lunch. I walked a long way--from our home in Capitol Hill to T-Mobile on 10th and E NW (my cell phone was broken)--but took the Metro the rest of the way because my back hurt. After lunch I went to Filene's Basement to look for some slippers for the hospital, and when I went to their bathroom, I suspected I had passed my mucus plug. (If that's TMI, you should stop reading now. More graphic details are to come)

I was very excited, because I thought seeing the mucus plug meant labor would begin soon. Turns out it's one of those signs tha could mean labor is very close--OR several days or more away. But I didn't know that till I went home and googled it. In the meantime, new slippers in hand, I got on the Metro to go home. On the Metro, I panicked. I was thinking, there is no way I can have this baby. In fact I don't think I want to have a baby. But I tried to get a hold of myself. After all, I'd "boarded the train there's no getting off" a long time ago. Then, a homeless man got on and sat across from me. He kept staring so I looked over and smiled. He smiled and made a big circular motion from his chest to his belly--indicating I was pregnant. I nodded. He smiled a huge smile and gave me two thumbs up. Then he offered me some of this white cheddar popcorn he was illegally eating on the Metro. I smiled and declined. As I got off the train he said, "Good luck!"

It was very encouraging. One thing to miss about late pregnancy--not that I am saying I miss it--is the closeness it seems to invite to the world. Everyone always smiled so much at me--and the bigger I got, the more they smiled. Particularly homeless people. Homeless people have always hurt me--seeing them I mean, and worrying about them and feeling helpless about what to do about them--but while I was pregnant homelessness bothered me in a new way because I kept thinking how everyone I saw used to be in the same place as my baby, tiny and growing inside their mothers. How do things end up the way they do?

Anyway, it WAS nice, having everyone smile and feeling a connection with people due to being extremely pregnant. I felt encouraged by the man on the train. I also generally felt like I was at the top of a very tall roller coaster ride and about to go down the other side. I do not like roller coasters. But I was trying to be calm and brave. Having a baby is a great big yes to the universe. I tried to keep saying yes.

So Friday afternoon I came home and did a bunch of laundry. Friday night was very nice and Dean and I, suspecting it might be our last night out for a long time, went out to eat at an Italian restaurant that opened up nearby our house. The service was awful and we sat there for over an hour and a half with no food. We ended up leaving money for our drinks and appetizer on the table and coming home to make scrambled eggs.

On Saturday, there was no baby yet, so we walked back downtown and I bought a new cell phone, then we walked to the National Cathedral (not from downtown,though, from Woodley Park). It was a beautiful fall day. You could smell the leaves being crushed on the sidewalk. Saturday night we tried again for our night out at another Italian restaurant. It worked out much better. We walked to dinner and back. I was in serious labor-inducing mode.

On Sunday, there was no baby yet again, and we were a bit at odds with what to do with ourselves. We decided to go to a couple of open houses in Takoma Park (that's another story entirely). Lots more walking. And Takoma Park was having a street festival, so we listened to some music and ate falallfel, AND I got to have a snow cone. (Snow cones were one of my strong cravings, but I could never find them. Once I had one at the zoo. For four dollars.) It was another very pretty day.

On Sunday evening, I felt sort of achy so I took a bath. Then right before dinner I noticed some leaking, watery, when I got up from lying on the couch. Not much at all--but definitely a watery fluid. Dean and I discussed calling the doctor, but I didn't want to because what was he going to do at that point? It was the only sign I had so far. I didn't want to be told to go to the hospital on Sunday night. It seemed better to stay home and go to sleep, which is what we did. (My doctor later got kind of snippy with me about not calling about the "leakage of fluid." Oh well.)

Monday morning, I felt what I thought were the first contractions about 5:30 AM. I got up and read a bit and sent an email to Agnes about teaching. By around 8:00 I was fairly sure I was in labor, but the contractions were relatively mild and far apart so Dean went into work to wrap up a few things. He came home around 10:30 or so and we walked to the bagel shop, where I got a smoothie, and then to the market, where I got a can of chicken noodle soup. We walked home with that and I ate the soup. In the meantime the contractions were strengthening. We watched an episode of The Office on dvd. In the meantime I had realized that much of my training for labor was going to be somewhat useless. I kept looking at this page of laboring positions we got at the yoga-for-delivery workshop and thinking, "yeah, right." The only thing that really helped was standing still and breathing. Or occasionally leaning on Dean. None of this squatting, hands and knees, etc stuff. Who knew?

Around 2:00, I called the doctor. who of course suggested I go to the hospital. We put it off till about 3:15, then got in the car. To the sounds of The Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty, which I will now forever asscoiate with giving birth, we were off to Holy Cross Hospital. Little did we know, we were in for a surprise when we got there.

(To be continued ASAP in "A Baby Story, Part 2"...)