The Replay

We certainly haven’t had an opportunity to talk to all of our friends, and so I wanted to take a moment and outline some of the details of Jameson’s birth.

As we neared Danica’s due date (September 16th), we were growing more and more impatient—not in a bad way, we were just ready to see and hold our child. Actually, it was when we arrived home from Maine, after attending to my mother who just recently underwent brain surgery, that we started to grow eager. (On top of all that, Allison—our fantastic midwife—thought Danica might deliver early as she looked “very ready.”)

Well on Friday, Danica had spent the day shopping with her mother and Louissa, and we had scheduled a dinner with Tom and Diane Story and were to meet them around 5:45pm. I was in my office closing up shop for the day, when at 5:37pm (thanks to Vonage’s phone logs!), Danica called me into the bathroom and asked for the phone because she was experiencing what would later turn out to be her water breaking.

A few phone calls were made to various people (including one to the restaurant where the Story’s were waiting for us!) and just a little after 6pm, Danica began having small contractions.

Now being first timers here, we had no idea what to expect. Our only model was Danica’s sister, Brietta, who has had some notoriously long labors—“long” as in 51 hours long! So we were just gonna buckle down for the evening, perhaps watch some movies, and try and rest as much as possible.

It did not go as planned.

Within an hour Danica was having some mighty contractions–mighty enough that she wouldn’t talk through them–and would you believe she even vomited all over me! Nevertheless, we didn’t know how to judge all of this because for whatever reason, we were stubbornly expecting a minimum of 7-10 hours of labor.

Soon thereafter, Danica’s mom arrived and took over as coach. (She’s a mother of nine, and I’m now absolutely her biggest fan–I mean it–she’s the absolute best person you want in the room with you. Understand me: she’s not just mother of nine, we’re talkin’ a hardcore, home-birthing, synonym for OBGYN.)

Apparently two more hours went by—it certainly felt like fifteen minutes—and we noticed all Danica’s contractions were very close together, so I was ordered to get the car ready; Danica had declared she was ready to go to the hospital, and Mom thoroughly concurred. (As I was getting our stuff ready, Danica said something about having the urge to push. I guess this is some sort of womanly signal, because my mother-in-law ordered that we were leaving immediately without anything. “This baby is imminent; we have to leave now.”

Now meant now.

Within a few minutes we were at the hospital.

At the hospital around we were greated by the midwife at about 9:15pm. She quickly checked Danica and said, “You’re absolutely fully dilated; you can push any time you wish.”

Well Danica pushed. And she pushed. And pushed. …about an hour of pushing actually, more than I’m told is normal, but thankfully she do so without any need for drugs or surgical interventions.

Then, just before 10:13pm, Jameson’s head came onto the scene. His cord was loosely around his neck, of which the midwife matter-of-factly looped it back over him. As soon as she did—and before his body was even out—he began to cry, loudly! (This was extremely reassuring to his Dad.)

And exactly at 10:13pm, he slithered out into this world, and into his father’s hands.

My beutiful boy.

I was so caught up in the miracle—that my child was alive and moving in my hands—that I didn’t even remember to look if it was a girl or a boy. I heard Allison say, “it’s a boy,” and I just began to declare: “It’s a boy; it’s a boy–we have a boy!”

We immediately gave the baby to Mom, and for the next little while were just totally caught up in the moment, thrilled that he was healthy and now fully with us.

It was truly amazing.

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