In honor of the Bug’s birthday, I thought I would share with you his birth story…according to my husband. My thoughtful, considerate, hilariously inappropriate husband kept notes the entire time I was in labor.
Here is our birth story according to Dad.
December 14, 2008 4:45 pm – Water broke.
5:41 pm – 1st contraction and we leave for the hospital.
5:55 pm – Call my mom and dad.
6:03 pm – Pick up Burger King and eat in hospital parking lot.
7:01 pm – Nurse is messing with my wife’s goods.
7:09 pm – Hanging out in the triage area. Nurse shift change. New nurse is Jen. (I think the lady across the room just said she peed the bed.)
7;16 pm – Contractions beginning to cause heavy breathing and speech “Oh God, Mother…”
7:21 pm – I contemplate making cow udder puppets out of the blue “powder free” nitrate exam gloves.
7:36 pm – Lady that peed her bed is now speaking to the 8th person on her cell phone. I’m recording this because she has had the exact SAME conversation with each person, each with the same overly dramatic inflection. “I’m 4 cm dilated..pray no drugs.” I’m a drama queen etc.
7:50 pm – Erin is disgusted by the fact that she keeps leaking.
We have another new nurse, Tina. At this rate, I estimate we will have approximately 34 different RN’s by the time the little guy gets here.
8:15 pm – Dr. Barlow just showed up and without even buying her a drink or paying for a round of mini-golf went what seemed like elbow deep in my wife while the RN watched. Who knew my first GROUP experience would be so anti or shall I say NON-climactic?
8:16 pm – Dr. Barlow tells Erin she is 1 cm.
8:17 pm – I begin to question my man size.
8:45 pm – We get a room! Room 234. No DVD player but there is a sleek 4 head VCR from the late 90s.
9:00 pm – We start doing laps around the hospital.
9:15 pm – I’m convinced the person who designed the layout of this place must have either been a drooling mental patient or at the peak of a long oxycodeine addiction.
9:30 pm – Contractions are still 10 minutes apart. I go to the car to get my pillow.
9:32 pm – Guy in the elevator has a bag of McDonalds French Fries and they smell like heaven. I offer him 50 cents for 2. He looks at me with a blank stare and I try to negotiate – 75 cents for the short, off-colored one? The elevator door opens and he gets off and the scent disappears.
10:25 pm – They begin Erin on a Pitocin drip.
10:30 pm – Erin has the most intense contraction yet and I thank god I don’t have a vagina.
10:40 pm – 2 contractions within 4 minutes!
10:42 pm – I steal a pair of socks and some pads for Erin…and some blue powder free gloves for me so I can make blow up cow udders when I get bored.
10:49 pm – I drop a deuce.
10:51 pm – A lady comes in to have us sign the cord blood forms.
10:53 pm – I come out of the bathroom and sign the form. She obviously knows I just made a stinky.
10:55 pm – Erin has to go to the bathroom. (I hope it doesn’t smell.)
10:56 pm – Erin calls me in to help as she has discovered it’s quite difficult to pee with an IV in one hand, heart monitor in the other and a baby and a contraction monitor on her stomach.
11:05 pm – That was an ORDEAL! I could never work in a old folk’s home. Assisting people with the pee process is NOT my thing.
11:13 pm Dallas 14 NYG 8 with 3 minutes to go in the 4th. I think John Madden would have Brett Farve’s baby. (Erin is still flipping channels on the TV; this ends very soon.)
11:15 pm The Pitocin is quite obviously NOT a placebo.
11:37 pm – “That one kicked my ass” – Erin’s response to the ever increasing intensity of the contractions.
11:38 pm – I wonder the percentage of 8th graders who can spell better than me.
11:58 pm – WOW! I can’t imagine these things getting worse. They are every 2-4 minutes and VERY intense.
December 15, 2008 1:00 am – Steady and HARD! about every 3 minutes. She’s moved to the ball for the past 20 minutes. She likes it better than the bed.
1:17 am – Contractions suck! She is now debating drugs &/or the epidural.
1:31 am – Pain has become unbearable. Erin has ok’d the drugs to alleviate the intense pain.
1:45 am – Epidural guy is coming. Tina said most people ask for the epidural a few weeks ahead of time. To that Erin said “So I’m on crack.”
2:10 am – “Ahhh, that’s better.” Erin’s response to the first post-epidural contraction.
2:30 am – Catheter is in.
2:33 am – Wow, more hands in my wife! I’m beginning to wonder if Rex (name of hospital) is the clinical term for Lesbian.
2:38 am – “Dude, that’s the BOMB! I don’t feel those at all. How is that even possible” – quote from Erin.
2:40 am – Nap in chair time.
December 15, 2008 6:30 am – Erin is still only 4 cm. Wall is thinning. Contraction monitor is now “inside” Monitoring of contraction strength is now accurate. These bad boys are regularly peaking at 80 or 90 on a 100 point scale.
6:45 am – Pain is returning. Tina upped the epidural and is going to give Erin another drug – Morcain? It’s added to the epidural line.
7:05 am – Shift Change. We say bye to Tina. Our new nurse is Crystal.
7:07 am – I read through the play by play of the last 12 hours.
7:08 am – It becomes painfully obvious that I need professional help.
7:09 am – Dismiss the notion with a shrug and try to go back to sleep.
7:15 am – Contractions are back to 5 minutes apart and are coupled. Crystal ups the Pitocin.
7:20 am – Convince myself that whoever ordered this crap chair I’m contorted in had a moderately twisted and quite a deep hatred of men.
7:40 am – “Baby’s Mommy needs to eat!” Erin is getting hungry. Aidan needs to get a move on.
7:41 am – Sneak a granola bar in the bathroom.
7:45 am – Crystal says she is hitting the active phase and is 5-6 cm. Erin’s mom arrives. She slept on the couch fully clothed in anticipation of the “call” Erin seems to have brightened up being able to talk to her mom.
8:05 am – Apparently the orange flavored popsicle is the BEST POPSICLE EVER!
11:30 am – I get back from the cafeteria and am told we are going to have a cone head baby. Like father, like son 
At lunch I got a kick ass freshly made chicken fajita for only $4.69. There was an all too exuberant (insert sarcasm here) high school choir in the cafeteria. The Price is Right was on and Drew Carey was hosting with a cane. Why do people still watch that show? Oh, that’s right, the average American is mud spelled backwards – DUM!
11:50 am – Crystal has been changing Erin’s sitting/laying position every 30 minutes. It seems to help. All these nurses are fantastic!
11:51 am – Added more pain medication to the epidural as pain was starting to return.
12:04 pm – Erin says “I’m fucking hungry! And you can record that in the book!” Chuckle.
1:40 pm – Original epidural quit working so well. Who knew that an anethesiologist could do such a good job and be so nice all while wearing a UNC skull cap?
1:50 pm – Aidan’s BPM’s dropped off quite a bit. They gave Erin O2 and all is fine. (they said it was probably just the position of the cord.)
4:30 pm – Dr. Barlow and Crystal hide their concern well as little Aidan’s heart monitor dropped off. They placed a monitor directly on his head and all is well…just a device issue.
4:40 pm – We have now gone through Dr. Barlow’s 24 hour shift. Next up….Dr. Clarke.
4:45 pm – It’s been 24 hours. They hook Erin up to a penicillin drip.
5:09 pm – Realize either the equipment is too expensive or Rex is severly behind the times. Here’s why…1) Fetal and contraction sensors should be cordless or at least have the cord unplug from the sensor rather than the unit (for ease of getting up to the bathroom) 2) Contraction monitor has no data summary/collection/aggragation function. The RN had to look up a 10 minute period on the graph and add up the numbers manually. WTF?
5:20 pm – Double espresso has me alert, chatty and jittery!
5:22 pm – I tell Dr. Clarke we are not going to outlast her shift as well.
5:40 pm – Baby Aidan’s head has been pushing on the cervix for quite some time. He just lost the meconium and will have to be suctioned out before his first breath.
7:00 pm – Headed to a C-Section in 15 minutes.
7:46 pm – Aidan is born! 7lbs, 1 oz with a full head of hair.
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