Noah's Birth Story: Part the First

In honor of Noah's first birthday, his birth story in two parts:

Sunday, August 16, 2009 T-minus 0 days
No baby.  HA.  HAHAHAHAHA.  No child of mine shall ever be born before or on his or her due date.  So I just shrugged and waved 'D-Day' good bye in the mirror.

Monday August 17, 2009 T-plus 1 day
My OB had me scheduled for a non-stress test (NST) and ultrasound in the event that the baby was past due.  (HAHAHAHAHA).  So Dyl and I headed off to the St. Joe's Perinatal Center where the boy evidenced his extreme displeasure to being hooked up to the monitor by kicking the ever-loving shit out of me and basically rendering the monitor useless.  The tech told us his heart-rate was strong and he was active.  (Really?  I hadn't noticed.) and my OB was there for the oh-so-fun and thrilling cervix check.  I'm pretty sure that Dyl was squicked out by that.  No contractions, just a party so we're back to waiting.  Did we want to schedule the induction for the next day?  No, no we do not.  Let's give it a bit more time as I saw my sister deal with a useless induction that ate up a week of her life so NO THANK YOU!  Then we headed over to the ultrasound room to check the amniotic fluid level and size.  Fluid level was fine meaning he could continue to hang out for a while longer and the tech asked us if we wanted to know his size.  Sure, amaze me.  So in the hushed tones one uses for delivering bad news, she intones:  "9 pounds, 4 oz".  To which I replied, yeah, that sounds about right.  Probably not the response she was expecting. "And it's a boy".  Again, yeah, I know.  Four sonograms are pretty conclusive so him suddenly sprouting a vagina at this stage of the game would be news indeed.  What can I say?  I was very pregnant.

Back to work we went with everyone giving me a wide berth along with the terror-filled eyes of "please GOD don't go into labor here!"  No worries gang, that ain't happening today.

Then the hospital registration office called me to confirm the induction the next day and I went through that whole thing again.  No thank you, we'll wait and see if he comes by himself.  Everything looks good, no need to rush him, blah blah blah.  They really seem to want the baby out whereas I'm the one who should be storming the hospital in search of a Pitocin drip and yet was strangely content to let him marinate some more.  I finally convinced them that no, I don't want it.  I'll wait, thanks.  To which my coworkers were all, 'DAMN WOMAN,  GET OUT OF HERE!'

Thursday, August 20, 2009 T-plus 4 days
And...the second NST.  No accompanying sonogram though so was a bit disappointed.  I will be honest:  at this point, even Noelle had been born so I was ready to be done and eagerly awaiting the news that we could schedule an induction for the very! next! day!  To which I would have been 'HELL'S YEAH!"  But...no.  The hospital doesn't do Friday inductions?  Or something?  For the love of pants people, I AM DONE!  What a difference three days make.

Friday, August 21, 2009 T-plus 5 days
I just didn't feel like going to work that day.  So I didn't.  And I kept Noelle home with me too so we could have one last Mommy/Daughter only day.  We played, lunched and napped together while I lulled my coworkers into a false sense of security by not being there.  No baby yet beeshes!  I win the pool!

Sunday, August 23, 2009 T-plus 7 days
Seriously considered going down to the Eastern Shore for my cousin's baby shower because hey!  I'm still pregnant.  And a 3 hour car ride is JUST what the doctor recommended for the giant beached whale of a woman.  Luckily, cooler heads (hi honey!) prevailed and convinced me that doing this was a really, really bad idea.  Turns out that a monsoon or something hit so my mom (with whom I would have been riding), was very grateful I was not there as navigating Route 50 in the second coming of the flood with an enormously pregnant daughter next to her might have pushed her over the edge.  Oh, and still no baby.  But!

Monday, August 24, 2009 T-plus 8 days
Now it had gotten beyond ridiculous but luckily we had ANOTHER NST scheduled for that morning so off we went to the perinatal center again.  I offered to buy Starbucks but Dyl was not in a good mood after dropping Noelle off at daycare.  I, however, needed something to get me going as I only got about 3 hours of sleep the previous night.  While hooked up to the machine, I started fantasizing about my OB taking one look at the screen and hollering, get her to L&D STAT!!!!  Alas, no, though he did ask me if I was feeling contractions to which I replied, not really, I mean, I feel Braxton Hicks up here (indicates fundus) and a weird pressure in my lower abdomen but the 'contraction' contractions.  To which he informed me at this point they were ALL contractions.  The only thing that was missing was the eye roll with 'Bitch, please.'  Yes, things were progressing and we all decided to bring this exciting adventure to an end by the next day if he didn't vacate the premises voluntarily.  So we packed up and back to work Dyl and I went.  I seriously walked into the office and people looked at me with uncomprehending eyes:  'What the hell?  Why are you still here?'  My office mate even asked me that and really, I came in because I wanted to finish up those last minute details, let people know that one way or the other it was my last day for a while and most importantly, I would have gone absolutely stir crazy at home.

12:00 pm - I had lunch which consisted of leftover pasta and sausage; in hindsight, perhaps not a stellar choice.
3:00 pm - Stacey was getting ready to go and we were saying our goodbyes, getting contact information, all that jazz.
3:20 pm - 'POP'!  And all holy hell broke loose...

To be continued...