April 5th 2008

Kristy elevated the alert status from Yellow to Red, so we drove to the hospital and I dropped her off at the entrance and parked. It was around 2:30-ish PM and I found a parking spot fairly close and grabbed the bare essentials, our cameras and headed inside.

By the time I got in she was already in a Triage room getting checked out. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to just go into Triage and start looking around until I found her, so I asked they told me to just head straight back. She was in room five, except that she wasn’t in room five, her coat was, she was in the bathroom. After she got out they outfitted her with the baby heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor. She was having some pretty serious contractions; they looked like mountains on the graph print out. The nurse came in looked at the graph and said they were pretty regular, spaced apart by about two and a half minutes in time. Then they checked her and she was 7cm dilated and they seemed to move a little quicker after that.

Since Joy was galavanting around Bend, we had Caroline the midwife on duty taking care of us. Cheryl was the nurse that took care of us. Cheryl had actually just worked her shift but they asked if anyone could stay and help out and since she overheard that Kristy was 7cm dilated she said she would stay but only if she was assigned to Kristy. She had already delivered a baby earlier in the day and I think she really wanted to deliver one more the same day.

Cheryl asked Kristy if she could walk to her room or if she needed a wheel chair. Kristy said no, she could walk and joked with me about needing a wheel chair, why would she need one, she had been doing everything else normal the past two weeks at around 5cm, what is 7cm. So we made our way into room 137 and I stayed with her until her mother and Nana (Grandma from Florida) arrived. After they got there I ran out and pack muled in all our stuff. Let’s see, there were gift baskets from her Aunt in Florida, our main camera bag, a portable HP photosmart printer, Kristy’s laptop bag, my laptop bag, my work backpack, her overnight bag, a blanket for me and a bag with croissants, oranges and my pajamas.

Then we just had to sit and wait. Eventually her contractions started getting harder and harder, she was doing great, just breathing right through them. Kristy’s Mom was really helpful too; she was rubbing pressure points on Kristy’s hands and feet to help reduce the pain. She was also helping coach, reminding Kristy to breath and letting me focus on being near Kristy which I think really helps Kristy emotionally and psychologically. The expression on her face was similar to the one she has when she is thinking really hard, like when we are playing scrabble and she is about to throw down some serious points with a triple word score, a double letter score and the use of the letters “Q” and “Z” (For example Quizzers with the second “Z” as a blank) and she gets the super Scrabble bonus for using all eight of her letters. Kristy was hardly breaking a sweat and then Caroline, Cheryl, Her Nana, Her Mom and I all convinced her to break her water.

Now theoretically, breaking her water should have acted like a suction cup, pulling the baby’s head straight down into position and she should have given birth shortly after. This is what happened with Carter so the logic was sound and previously proven, but every baby is different. It seems that this baby was turned so that her head was sideways, 90 degrees from where it should have been and this slowed things down. After Caroline broke Kristy’s water Kristy handle the first contraction with ease, then the second and the third she started to notice something. The fourth was a little harder and the fifth described in her own words “Frack!”. Now for those of you who aren’t dorks and don’t watch Battlestar Galatica, Frack is the made up word used on the show to replace a more common profane word commonly used in English that also has four letters and begins with “F” and ends with “K”. I keyed in on her using this word because we use it with some friends that watch the show and not too long ago I saw a bunch of people talking about this word on the VH1 show best week ever. This was followed by another show I saw with a bunch of famous celebrities talking about how this relatively new remake show of the original 1970’s show already has a huge fan base and is affecting pop culture. So with all these stars and planets aligned, as soon as she muttered the word I knew it had to find its way into the blog. Okay, that’s taken care of.

Now the pain was cranking up and Kristy couldn’t bear it any longer, she wanted an epidural and since I’m not that one who has to pass something the size of a bowling ball out of something the size of straw, I fully supported her decision and request. It seemed like everyone else really wanted her to not have it and I understand because there is a lot of risks. I kind of had some second thoughts when they started reading them to her. Like possible headaches for a week afterwards, possible permanent paralysis and permanent nerve damage just to name a few. Brian, the anesthesiologist had to read her all of these risks and he had to be sure she was listening so he paused during a contraction and Kristy was getting mad, she said “I can hear you, keep going!”. Later she told me that made her mad that he paused because it was one more contraction that she had to suffer through. Evidently you need to be well hydrated before having an epidural so they required an entire bag via Intravenous Therapy (IV) be in Kristy before they gave her the goods. This seemed like a stall tactic that was being employed to postpone the epidural in the hopes that Kristy would give birth before she got it.

Eventually Brian placed the epidural, at which time Kristy had to remain completely still on the edge of the bed while contracting and nearly fully dilated. Cheryl asked Kristy how she felt and Kristy said that her legs felt warm, to which Cheryl replied, that is the correct answer. Kristy kept saying how weird it was that she couldn’t feel her legs, then she said that there was still pain in her left leg in a small area. Cheryl said that it was called a “window” and sometimes you get a window for various reasons, but she would call Brian back in. Brian came in and gave Kristy a second dose and rolled her over so she was leaning on her left side, right side up in the air. This would help the gravity force the dose into her left side where the window was. It started getting better but still wasn’t working completely, so Brian gave her one more dose and hooked her up to the little plastic box that is all locked up and has a timer and a mechanism to release a set dose of the pain killer every so often. Brian mentioned that he thought he had hit a blood vessel on the way in, which is one of the risks from the sheet he had to read off, so he pulled the line back a bit. He said that it was so close that he thought it would work, but you never know with these things. Then he was all frustrated and pulled it out and waited to bit while we discussed putting in another line, then Kristy said it worked, she didn’t feel a thing anymore. Brian said, okay, well we can’t put another one in now, so you probably have about 30 minutes or so before the medication wears off and you start feeling again.

At this point Kristy didn’t even know when she was having a contraction, we had to tell her and she didn’t really feel a need to push, so Cheryl had to check her and when she was fully dilated and ready to go, we started forecasting contractions and when she should push. It turns out Kristy was too good at pushing and she had to stop and wait out a couple of contractions while I ran outside our room and called her Dad so her Nana could make it back for the birth. Her Dad, Nana and Sister had gone to get something to eat in the hospital cafeteria. And she also had to stop so Cheryl could go find our midwife to deliver the baby. Of course no experience is complete without something like, our midwife was already in another room delivering another baby at the same time, that’s right, simultaneous deliveries. So we had another doctor come in and she spent about thirty seconds getting acquainted with us and getting dressed and off she went to delivering. I missed her name, but she was really nice and she seemed familiar, she even asked if we had met before, but then Kristy, the doctor and I all said “I don’t think so” at the same time.

A few pushes later our baby girl was here! Now I had to act kind of quickly because I was videoing and then I had to also take still pictures with our other camera and I had to also maneuver around so I could get into position to cut the cord. Kennedy was a little bit different than Carter, she wasn’t crying right out of the gate, she needed some suction from her nostrils and mouth and then she introduced us to her crying / lung capacity that is every bit as capable as Carter’s was. And when I cut the cord with Carter it was quick and clean, but when I cut the Kennedy’s cord I got sprayed with blood, like when someone across the table bites into a piece of citrus, maybe a juicy orange and then you get sprayed with all the juices and it’s burning in one of your eyes and on your nose and forehead. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, your day is coming because this has happened to me more than once in my short lifetime. Kennedy scored an 8 on her APGAR and she had her bath later when I actually ran to get some food. This time instead of Kristy’s mom dialing like thirty people in thirty seconds she just she got right next to Kristy and her Nana was right behind her and I got some sweet pictures of four generations of a family of strong women. I even got some synchronized tear wiping by Kristy’s mom and Nana, they are totally ready for the 2008 Emotion Olympics.

The best part was out in the hall Carter could hear Kennedy’s heart beat on the monitor and when she started crying inside the room with us, Carter heard her outside the door and he starting yelling “Baby Sissy, Baby Sissy!”. And ever since that moment he always needs to know where she is in whatever room we are all in. He is always gentle and he only says goodbye and goodnight to “Baby Kenndy” now, Mommy and Daddy are old news. Now we have two kids, let the fun begin!