Aga gave birth on Friday , August 1st. That right, she got her 8/08 baby. We decided to induce labor for a couple of reasons, but after everything was all said and done I think it was a good decision. We went in at 7:40 am, Aga was very relaxed and in no way wanted me to interrupt her relaxation with any reminders that we were supposed to be there at 7:15 am. We took the elevator up to the birthing room. I say room very lightly, it was actually a high rollers suite from Las Vegas. That place was awesome!
The doctor came in at around 8 and as they were hooking up he equipment, he said "how did that one feel?". Aga was kinda like "huh?", and we found out that she was actually contracting before we got in so we were going to be there no matter what. Sure they could have been what they call
"Braxton Hicks" but now there's no telling.
There really wasn't a whole lot going on, Aga was showing contractions but in a great mood and it was a great time. Then the Doctor came in and broke her bag of waters. And for those that don't know what that is, no it is as delicious and thirst-quenching as it sounds. Honestly, it sounds like you could cross the desert with nothing more than a camel and a bag of waters.
She got to 6 cm at about 4.30 pm. This was where she started to get a bit serious about the labor. I have to say, she was so impressive. I can not imagine what type of pain she was going through. Our plan was to try to do the whole birth with no pain killer of any type, but we did have a contingency plan that covered us in case the pain was too great. So after she reached her limit, we called in the big guns and got her an epidural. This wasn't a quick decision on her part, by the time she was asking for
I was in tears. I couldn't believe anyone would go through that voluntarily. So when she finally got the epidural, it was a relief for me as well. Although we had this anesthesiologist that was a complete idiot. Here my wife is, trying to relax as best as she can while passing a small dump truck through her. We got the lights off, and a good calm vibe going, and all of a sudden this fool whips open the door... AND LEAVES IT WIDE OPEN! No knocking or any type of courtesy that we had been provided by the nurses and just walks right by me like I wasn't there. So I shut the door for his uncouth ass and decided to hold my tongue. He starts getting stuff ready, when his cell phone rings. Of course it was an iPhone, which is strictly reserved for the upper echelon of assholes, and proceeds to have a good conversation with his WIFE. Uh, hello, isn't your job to stop pain? I guess it wasn't that day! Glad your wife is feeling well enough to talk to you without making you want to cry because of how much pain she is in. He did get the epidural in, but boy did he get me steamed!
Shortly afterwords, it got fun for us all. I went to the bathroom, the door of which is 5 feet from my wife's bed in the same room, and by the time I got back, we had several nurses in there and they were all doing things to my wife that I had no idea about. The bastard anesthesiologist was just starting to put some unknown substance in my Wife's IV. I had to literally stop him to ask what it was, his answer was that it was "to pick her up" and then ignored me and just shoved it in. I really was balancing the need to smack him with the thought that maybe my wife really did start crashing. All the meters were at pre-bathroom break levels, except for one. We had been having problems keeping the heartbeat monitor for Maja to keep reading because of all the moving. I had been told that this was fine as long as they could get it to read every once in a while. Now it was completely steady and looked perfect. I was thinking one of the other nurses had corrected this so I asked who had fixed it. I was then told that they had just put in an internal monitor and that it is much better. Ok, I'm not trying to be one of those that thinks they read a book and know better than a doctor. But we had already said that we would prefer NOT to have an internal monitor, and it was not even 5 minutes that I was in the john. So then I figured "hey, maybe it isn't a wire that gets poked into your baby's head. Maybe it is something else". I walked out to the nurses station and asked about what it was, they said "It is a little wire that we stick into the top of your ba....". That cut off is where I turned around and walked away, got a drink of water and got back into the room. Aga was feeling no pain at this point so I sat on a chair while she got some much needed rest.
Our Doctor, the real Doctor, Doctor Gibson walked in at this point. I think some of the nurses told him I was being a bit of a jerk. I like Doctor Gibson, so he sat down and started talking to me about how safe these monitors were. The only thing that was keeping me slightly calm was not knowing if Aga had given the okay. If she had, cool, I can live with that, hers is an authority I respect, if not fear. So I flat out asked our nurse who had put it in. She said that it was one of the unknown nurses who had just appeared in the room during the tinkle. I then asked who had given the authority. She kinda just tripped over her next few words, the Dr. said that it was something they would do if they couldn't get the heartbeat and felt like it was needed. In one of the books I did read, it covered that exact same scenario and said a good, non-invasive way to check is with a stethoscope. It's what was used for a hundred years and still works today. So this was my counter, that hey, I was 10 feet away, and that if they needed to, they could have just used a stethoscope and gotten an idea of what was going on until they could get an ok to do something we explicitly said we didn't really want. Dr. Gibson looked at the nurse, and asked if they had even tried that. Of course the answer was no, and he then gave the nurse a nice reminder that next time they might want to try that before jumping the gun. Did I mention I like Dr. Gibson?
Let me clue you guys in on my views of pregnancy up to this point. To me, it was the most traumatic thing I have ever seen on video. And I have been to Singapore. I seriously felt like puking and would get light headed every time I would see it in a movie. Lets just say that, to me, a parasite and fetus are way too close for me to have ever thought it was a beautiful thing. Dr. Gibson and I had been chatting for a little while when I went out to the snack bar for a drink. The wife had been lightly dozing up to this point, so no big deal right? As I near the door, there is a wheel chair and a couple of unfamiliar carts out front. Checking the room number again, I walked in to find a flurry of activity. Aga was awake and ready to start pushing. This was it! If only I had known that taking a 5 minute water break would have gotten us there, I would have done it hours before. So I grabbed a leg and we got to business. She made GREAT progress at first, I could see the baby moving down. And that is when a funny feeling hit me, I had seen this all before! Cows and Horses by golly. It seriously looked no different! Dude I got into it, the doctor showed me the top of Maja's head
Before it was out. I was cheering Aga along just like back in my days of wrestling. excepts this time I wasn't yelling "shoot" so much. Then again, I could have been. It is kind of foggy as to what I was yelling, but whatever it was, it was working! After about an hour, Aga was so out of it that she was sleeping in between pushes. Maja wasn't making any headway (badum-bum) and we were stalled. The Doctor was worried about things enough to say that he would do whatever he could to prevent a c-section, but that with Aga so exhausted we were coming up on the time where that would be discussed. He layed out our options, since we didn't want anything to do with foreceps, he suggested using a vacuum (yes, that is how you spell "vacuum", Look it up). Basically it's a suction cup that you stick to the babies head and guide them out. They can't use it to pull but he figures that if he gets Maja around the pelvic bone she would be home free. Either that or an hour of my wife pushing before her already weakening efforts were completely useless. Suction away Doc.
15 minutes later, Maja was born into the world. I noticed one thing that NO book had ever mentioned. As soon as she comes out, she is completely white, still and not breathing. My first freak out as a parent was that somehow all the monitors were wrong and that Maja was not alive. Strangely enough, my first thought wasn't for me in any way. It was about Aga. That would have been too much for her, she had invested her soul into this baby and to have it end like that was unthinkable. To all parents that have had this catastrophe, my heart goes out to you. And then I heard her for the first time, it was the most beautiful sound coming from the ugliest thing since
Marty Feldman was alive. And yes, I said it, she was ugly coming out. I know it's the right thing to go on about how beautiful they are when they come out, but she was U-G-L-Y. I swear the only reason the human race is still around is that the ugliness goes away pretty fast. She was smashed and blotchy and screaming and the only thing that kept me there was Aga yelling for pictures. That's right, my wife went from exhaustion to "Get the camera" in .02 seconds.
So I was zoomed in on the baby, snapping like crazy, and then it was my time to shine. I had rehearsed the cord cutting in my head so many times that it was inscribed on the back of my eyelids. This was where I was to pick up a pair of over sized scissors, delicately snip it and the two ends would fall gracefully away as I say in a grand voice "welcome to the world future Ms. President". In real life, My fingers weren't working correctly so I had to concentrate like a retarded boy cutting construction paper for mama's Christmas card in July. I went to snip this shiny, slimy, tapewormy looking thing stretched out between our Dr.'s hands. Have you ever gotten a piece of steak that has that gristle in it so that no matter how much you chew, it won't go down? The cord was the same consistency so it took me a couple of tries before success. Trust me, I am glad to only have to do that 2-3 more times in my life. The greatest/worst part of it? Aga wanted to take a picture of it, yet she is so out of it, we have a picture of the ceiling, then her vagina, then a couple of great shots of her leg. Way to go babe, inadvertent slasher horror flick type material.
After all of this they let Aga hold her for a bit, then off to the table to measure and weigh. Maja's first impression of Daddy must have been a big, weeping camera. I was under orders to take pictures, so I did. If you want to get specific here, think along the lines of 472 pictures. Daddy rocks.
They took like what seemed forever, and then we got our daughter back. It was awesome. Little did we know how much sleep we would not get for the next few days, you always hear the stories but somehow it never sinks in.
