Tuesday, February 5th I awoke early to a series of very noticeable contractions. After convincing Jesse that he still needed to go to work, I went about my day with Eva. I experienced very strong contractions throughout the day, but unfortunately they never occurred close enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. By Tuesday evening, the contractions were close enough to be distracting and strong enough to force me to stop and breathe, but still not quite a ticket to the hospital. Jesse and I decided to call the on-call midwife, just to check in before bed time and get a refresher on when to sound the alarm and race to the hospital. I didn't go into labor on my own with Eva, so I wasn't confident that I knew what to do! I was told not to call unless the contractions were 5-6 minutes apart. Well, we went to bed and there I laid for the entire evening, breathing through each contraction as they got closer and closer together. By 3 AM they were 8 minutes apart and I was done laying in bed at home. I wanted the freedom to let my body do what it needed to do without the panic that I'd end up having a home birth! Reluctantly, I woke up Jesse and he helped me time contractions and decide when to make the call. We decided to ignore the 5-6 minute rule and called the midwife at 3:30 AM. I had such a strong feeling of urgency that we needed to just get to the hospital! As to be expected, the midwife wasn't terribly happy to hear from me with 8 minutes between contractions, but I explained my reasoning, to which she said, "You just don't sound like a woman in labor. I'm not hearing labor in your voice." Well, I sure felt like a woman in labor! After that, and with lots of second-guessing myself, we eventually grabbed our bags and headed for the hospital, leaving Grandma at home to greet Eva when she awoke for the day. Once at the hospital, I had a very distracting feeling that no one was going to take me seriously unless I really made a scene with each contraction, but that felt weird, too, so I kept quiet. By 5 AM the contractions were 3 minutes apart and I was sent to labor and delivery (it takes a ridiculously long time to check in). From there, it all went fairly quickly. I tested positive for group B strep a month prior, which means you have to be administered antibiotics at least 4 hours prior to giving birth. How you're supposed to time that is beyond me (one of the reasons I felt strongly about getting to the hospital)! After much poking (it took three sticks and two nurses before the IV was successfully placed in my arm - ugh) and setup I was finally left to just labor! We had a midwife shift change at 7 AM. From then on, everything seemed to escalate at an alarming rate. I started to feel anxious and panicky. In my mind I was thinking I must not be far enough along to actually be nearing birth (the midwife's words had really stuck with me and I had trouble letting them go and believing I was actually in labor - I hadn't slept all night and I was a bit delirious at that point)! Since the new midwife had just arrived, she was busy settling in and didn't get a sense of how close I was to giving birth. Meanwhile, I was having contractions on top of contractions and was growing weary. I asked Jesse to send out a mass text to family members, so everyone would know, but as soon as he walked over to his phone I would get hit with the worst part of a contraction and call him back. Poor guy ran back and forth from his phone to my side several times before being able to send the text! Soon after, I was hit with the urge to push. The midwife wasn't in the room, but there was no waiting around at this point, so I yelled out that I was pushing and went for it! Thankfully the midwife wasn't far, but she and the nurse were frantically running around, trying to get the room set up for a baby and the nursery staff alerted. Four pushes later, that sweet baby joined us. He was immediately placed on my stomach and as they were handing him to me I could tell he was a boy - not a hard thing to spot from my angle. Jesse, however, couldn't see and the midwife was asking him to call out the baby's gender. By the time he was placed on my stomach and I began to reach for him I could tell something wasn't right. He had had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but they were able to cut it off as soon as his head appeared. My sweet baby was finally in my grasp, but he wasn't moving, crying or responding in any way. He was gray in color and appeared lifeless. It was only a matter of seconds before he was silently and swiftly taken from me and placed on a nearby table. The midwife and two nurses frantically worked on his little body. I could see Jesse in the corner of my eye and he didn't look good. I remember not feeling anything, not one thing, not panicked, worried, fearful. Nothing. I just repeated in my mind, "Please, God. Please, God...". It was probably only a minute later, as I stared at my son and watching his tiny face, that I finally heard that most precious sound of my baby's first cry. What a beautiful sound it was! The whole room took a collective sigh of relief. And there he was, back in my arms, where he belonged.
Here are two videos Jesse made a couple hours after Lincoln was born. You can hear us discussing possible name choices with the nurse as she gave him a bath. Obviously none of those names made the cut. It took another day to actually decide on a name :)
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