so first of all, i am typing this on my iphone at the hospital at 549 am, so please forgive the inevitable errors! next, the most relevant facts:
as john would say, the real charlie is here! born at 324 pm on thursday, october 10, weighing 7 lbs 7 oz and 19.5 inches long, charles robert made quite an entrance. he waa born on the same day of the pregnancy that his big brother was - 38 weeks 2 days. i delivered him fully naturally without any pain meeications. and yes, he was born in the back of a racing ambulance!
here's the whole story - and this birth story is relatively free of medical detail so even the squeamish among you should be ok!
i woke up at my normal midnight, one am, and two am pee times wednesday night, but when i woke at three something was different. i just couldn't get comfortable and back to sleep. by 5 am i could identify actual contractions. i called melissa, my doula, and we decided that since contractions were irregular and not too intense, i would just wait, rest if possible, and we'd see how things progressed.
it is worth noting that while my husband went to work, john and i just hung out at the house. there was a new roof being put on our rental house so we dodged the banging and i did some laundry, cleaned the house a little (was planning a birthday party for my husband for friday night, so just in case labor stalled out or anything i figured we'd try to get ready!)
throughout the morning, the contractions never got less than about 10 mins apart, and sometimes theyd stop altogether for as long as an hour. they weren't ramping up in intensity either, so we began to wonder if this was really IT after all. (melissa still suspected we'd have a baby that day, but figured it might be later in the evening, etc. i wondered if labor was going to stop entirely and we'd wait more days!)
around 130 pm, john finished his lunch and, despite the roof banging, went down for a nap. i updated melissa, my husband, and a few friends and family that nothing had changed, and at 145 pm
i laid down to rest myself. the contractions still happened every 10 minutes ish but i closed my eyes in between and rested on the couch.
at about 240, i had a bigger contraction that ended with a gush of fluid. i hustled to the bathroom, saw some blood, and promptly called melissa to discuss. we decided i should call my husband and all meet at the hospital quickly - a feat as the hospital is in downtown dallas, 40 minutes from our house without traffic. hustling but not overly concerned, i started to get up to get dressed.
and suddenly, was having contractions every minute. by 3 pm, i called melissa in a panic because i needed to push. he talked me off the cliff and told me to call 911, as this baby was coming fast.
my husband beat the paramedics to our house by a few minutes, as i stood in the empty bathtub, talking to a 911 operator who wanted me to lay down and wait for the firemen - i only wanted to push. when the paramedics arrived, i probably could have birthed charlie right then and there but understandably they wanted to control the delivery a little more.
i was totally naked when the ambulance arrived, so they threw a sheet over me and raced me out the door past curious neighbors and the crew of mexicans working on our roof! they asked me what hospital i wanted to to to and i told them it didn't matter - they were delivering this baby in their ambulance.
on the 5-8 minute ride to the hospital, i was contracting every 40 seconds. and the urge to push was so intense, even strapped to the board, that i couldn't have fought it if i had to. two intense pushes and one of the firemen caught charlie as we raced down the road, sirens blaring. we arrived at the hospital with the baby resting on my chest, and we're joined there not too much later by melissa, and then my husband and a sleepy john, who had slept straight through all the excitement.
what is truly amazing to me is how cold and scary a delivery this could have been - i was home alone until my husband's arrival, and then in the back of an ambulance with strangers and none of my support team. but thanks to the amazing compassion of that crew, and the amazing capacity of the human body, it was still a beautiful and incredible experience for me. not at all what i had planned, and i think we're all still a little shell-shocked, but i am so grateful to those strangers who shared one of the most intimate moments of my life, and my support team of melissa and my hubby who helped me through from afar.
what a day.
ps my husband took john to a drop in play place for a little while last evening so that john could play off some energy and husband and i could spend some quiet time with charlie. when my husband brought john back to the hospital to say goodnight, john was so sweet and gentle with charlie and only wanted to snuggle mommy and his little brother. i feel so very overwhelmed with love for my little family, and so blessed to have all those boys - daddy included - around me.
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