Alina Charlotte

I feel like I just inherited a really big boat. Wow, a boat! Boats are fun! Gee, I don't know much about keeping a boat, driving a boat, or maintaining a boat. Hmm, I better not sink this boat or run it aground. That's closest analogy I have so far until they come home.

We went to the hospital on Sunday night because Katrina was feeling very nauseous and dizzy. I thought it was the Thai food she ate but the doctor told us to come in and they would check her out and the fetal movement as well. They're obsessed with the movement. I was moderately annoyed at the prospect of leaving our newly dug out and salted parking spot that just hours ago was under 26 inches of snow plus snowplow mounds. I said to Katrina on the way to the hospital, "They better induce you tonight...because we're never going to find another spot if we come home."

Once again, Katrina was hooked up to the fetal monitor while they checked everything out. You never really see a doctor at this point. They call on the phone from wherever they are until they deem you worthy of their presence. The on-call doctor said that they were most likely going to induce labor with a suppository. However, after physically examining Katrina herself it was decided that she would be kept overnight since there were signs of early labor anyway. Why induce if it's going to happen by itself, right?

So they put us in this room with four other beds, one of which was occupied by a woman who was 28 weeks pregnant and whose water had already broken. The plan was to keep her there for 7 weeks, pumping her with fluids. That's rough. But this was the intermediate labor room - one of 5 rooms we'd be occupying over the next 29 hours. We really couldn't sleep at all and they kept coming in to poke prod and replace IV bags full of various fluids. So we just sat there and watched the full moon move across the sky. Probably contributed to the 20+ babies we saw in the nursery that day. I kept an eye on the monitor because it kept losing Alina's heartbeat. She was moving around a lot and that involved moving the readers on Katrina to find it again. Getting Katrina back and forth to the bathroom was cumbersome. Unplugging various cords from the machine and slinging them around your neck, collecting all the IV tubing and making sure you weren't stepping on it or rolling over it with the pole-on-wheels everything was hanging from.

For myself, I didn't really know what I could do except say Want some ice chips? But at around 6AM Monday the real fun started in the form of P A I N and contractions. They ask about your (tolerable) pain scale from 1-10. She went from 3 to 7 to 9. After about 90 minutes of that it was time to move rooms to the Labor and Delivery wing. There were epidurals to administer after all. The only baby-safe painkiller they offer.

The changing of rooms was like moving from a clinic to a suite. Better machinery, more comfy chairs for Dad, and other things to distract you like a stereo and a TV. Someone left behind a CD with Hindu music. Our nurse, Heather, had a Tigger watch. We took that as a good Omen because our nursery at home is all Pooh'd out. The room was very clean, but you could tell it had seen a lot of action. The floors were scratched up to such an extent that you'd think they had just performed an exorcism on a rottweiler. The anesthesiologist came in (they're always slow talkers, as if they're sampling their own product) to hook up Katrina to the la la juice. About 10 minutes after the epidural was inserted into her spine, she said "Mmmmmm, this feels like slipping into a warm bath surrounded by candles." I wasn't allowed in the room while they did this for some reason. I had to go to the 24 hour Au Bon Pain in the main lobby of the hospital. Granted, I was very hungry so I didn't mind but I cursed the bright sunlight and scorned all the awake people. The lobby was flooded with happy folk starting their work day. They all got sleep, the bastards.

I got back to the room and the nurse said that the epidural will make Katrina's blood pressure drop and that they would be keeping an eye on it. In these moments, I trust no one. They told us to try and get some sleep but how the hell could I do that now? Tee hee, your wife's heart may stop, but let's all get some shut eye. I thought about how that was way worse than not letting the bedbugs bite. Katrina's face got a little pale. The machine she was hooked up to would beep and boop and I didn't know why. I asked the nurse and she said, "I dunno, it does that sometimes." Ah yes, now I can nap. In Katrina's zonked, half asleep state, she must've thought the monitor's beeps were the dinner chimes on a Holland America cruise ship because out of nowhere she mumbled, "Hey honey, if we hurry we can go to second seating." I told her I would have the venison. She agreed.

At 9AM and 4cm they decided to break her water for her. Nothing happens naturally anymore, silly. Hey doc, you knitting a sweater? She whipped out this plastic crochet hook and promptly popped my baby's warm condo. At 11AM they decided that naturally wasn't being naturally prompt, so they gave her an IV of Petocin to speed along her dilation. “You can’t turn off suppositories,” the doctor said. The problem with this method is that it makes the contractions more painful so they have to up the happy spine soup to counteract it. Dr.Kaufman at your cervix. Over the next 7 hours they kept checking to see if the she was dilating and if Alina's head was dropping. Neither was really happening. So they decided at 6PM to perform a C-Section. Dammit, they're taking all the spontaneity out of this birth thing.

I suppose there are pros and cons with natural birth vs cesarean. Baby’s getting stuck in the birth canal, episiotomy (meat scissors!), pelvis breaking, etc. But the latter ends up being a little anti-climactic. There's no go baby go aspect to it. No rounding second, third, and heading for home....push! push! Here comes the head! You're doing it! Just:

Slice.

Baby.

It's a mixed bag really. You're in the O.R., the third room of the night, wearing scrubs and watching your wife's eyes roll around in her sockets, trying to talk to her. You're both hiding behind a sheet so you can't see anything. Not that you'd want to. You hear a little cry and then a quick flash of quivering grey baby when they show her over the vertically placed sheet. And then she's....born. 6:39pm. 8 lbs, 19.5 inches long. Not a big crier at all, really. But I stayed at Katrina's head and kept her awake. Then they give her to me! Because the doctor has to put mommy's parts back in and her arms are pinned down outstretched like Jesus. You want focus on your new baby but you can't help but be concerned about what's going on next to you. They put me in a room by myself (the fourth room) for close to 45 minutes while they closed Katrina up. Just me and Alina. I spent a good portion of it trying to take photos with my phone while holding her at the same time. There were people to alert, after all. But Alina was very inquisitive. Looking around, raising her eyebrows and bringing them together in a confused expression like, This place is way different from the one I was just in.

After a few hours in the recovery room, they moved us to our fifth room in the maternity ward. A wing full of very slow moving women and very loud babies. They gave us ID bracelets that I have to wear all week and put a Baby LoJack on Alina's ankle. So if anyone decides to take her outside the wing, alarms go off, nets go down, and shotguns are drawn. And that's where Katrina and Alina (yes, I know it rhymes) will be until Friday. They can't come home soon enough. We have a world of work ahead of us but it's a very exciting time. Katrina is healing nicely and Alina got a clean bill of health from our new Pediatrician.

Everything Alina does, no matter how normal, is somehow fascinating. Look, she blinked! Wow, she yawned! Oooh, she sneezed -- oh shit, does she have a cold?? Call the doctor and ask if that's okay!


The Dad.