Announcing ...

Gloria Evelynn

Born 11/4/11 (at 38 weeks, 5 days)

7 lbs, 8 oz

Early Thursday morning I started having painful contractions and hardly slept from one a.m. onward.  I figured it was false labor and went to work at eight a.m. anyway.  Once the pain became bad enough that I couldn’t walk, I decided to leave work and get checked out.  I figured it was false labor.  But I also wanted to make sure I didn’t have a baby in the treatment room of a veterinary hospital.

My doctor told me not to come in until the contractions were five minutes apart for over an hour.  They stayed at seven minutes most of the day.  My husband made me walk around the block and I thought I might die. 

At my five p.m. appointment they had tapered off.  My doctor was still sure I would go into labor that night, and if not by then she was going to induce me on Sunday since I was so close and everything pointed to me having a baby any minute now.  I was still sure it was false labor.

Mike made me walk the mall and we went to Friendly’s.  I tried really hard to keep my poker face but had to occasionally slap the table in pain, in between bites of chicken tenders.  I thought it was false labor.  I got a few alarmed looks from fellow diners.  Nothing to see here, people, just a lady having a baby.

By six p.m. contractions were regular and extremely painful.  We went to the hospital, where they immediately admitted me.  They offered me the epidural right away but I declined.  I assumed it was false labor.  I didn’t let Mike call anyone.  It was false labor, after all. 

Then it got real.

I was only in active labor for six hours, pushed for thirty minutes.  Everything toward the end happened so fast that the resident didn’t even have time to call my doctor before Gloria was born.  Which is mildly hilarious now, but was alarming at the time.  Childbirth is both more and less awkward than you imagine.  On the one hand, you’re in so much pain you don’t care who sees the lady parts or what dignity-stripping positions you’re in at any given moment.  On the other hand, there are three nurses, an intern, and a med student holding your legs and staring at your crotch.  Saying things like, “What great form you have!” and “Ooh, that’s beautiful.”

Gloria is doing well.  Her parents are doing less well, but it’s to be expected when you have a two-week-old who sleeps all day and fusses all night. 

She is pretty perfect, though.  Mike and I make good looking babies, if I do say so myself.  And post partum has been great.  I didn’t get a single stretch mark, and by two weeks post partum my stomach looks just like it did pre-baby.  (This leads me to believe that my skin has a consistency less like human flesh and more like whatever Gumby is  made of.)  It’s a shame I hate pregnancy so violently, or I’d briefly consider another one.