This is the tale of how our family has expanded in include Benjamin Baby (nicknamed by Julia of course).
From my perspective the final arrival of Benjamin started on Thursday, January 19th. That evening Alyssa, Julia, and I decided to go out to dinner. Upon leaving the restaurant we noticed that it had been snowing and there was a fine covering over the roads and the cars. Julia was very excited as this was the first real snow we have had this winter. Alyssa was less thrilled she looked over at me and said, “I hope I don’t go into labor tonight. I just want to go home and put my PJs on.” And as luck would have it she didn’t go into labor, we ended up with three inches of snow and Julia had a great time playing in it the next day.
However, around 4:30 am on Saturday, Alyssa woke me up and said “I think my labor is starting.” I will admit I was a little groggy but very excited. We timed a few contractions and things seemed to be going well. So we called up our doulas Kim and Erica and gave them the heads up. They said they would head over to our house because it had started to snow again. By the time they showed up around 6:30am they roads were covered in snow but from the news reports it didn’t look too bad yet. So we decided to hang out at the house and let Alyssa’s labor progress. While she hung out up in bed Kim, Erica, Julia, Lesley and I hung out downstairs entertaining ourselves. I introduced Kim to drinking vinegar, we made pretzels with Rolos and almonds to bring to the hospital and were generally relaxed.
Around noon Alyssa came downstairs and we were just chatting. She left the room for a minute and Kim, one of our doulas, looked at me and said “We need to go the hospital, Alyssa just showed three major signs that she is very far along.” So we packed up and headed out. By now it was snowing full force, there were 4-5 inches on the ground (on top of what we already had) and the roads (including the highways) were completely covered. As an small aside here it was my understanding that living in the north they knew how to plow roads during storms, but I guess they are out of practice this year. The trip to the hospital was harrowing to say the least, I think our top speed was about 25 miles an hour and the trip took about 45 minutes rather than the 15 it should. Erica had to pull over since her car couldn’t handle the snow and Kim had to pick her up and take her the rest of the way. Finally we arrived safely at the hospital.
From there we headed to triage, then on to our room at in the hospital. Unfortunately, Alyssa’s progression had slowed down some because of the harrowing ride. But we settled in and between Kim, Erica and myself we were able to keep Alyssa entertained. As an example of this here is a picture that Alyssa took of us - see if you can find the joke in it. Who took the picture you ask? Why Alyssa of course, we couldn’t very well make her do a crazy stretch after 17 hours of labor.
From there the midwife suggested that we try some music to keep things going. I was put in charge of music so I put on some good grooving music which got everyone dancing even the midwife, Chloe, and our nurse, Mary.
As we rolled into late evening, around 12:30 am on Sunday by which point Alyssa had been in labor for about 24 hours, the midwife wanted to put her on Pitocin, which we did not want. We asked for an hour to let Alyssa rest before we tried anything else. They reluctantly agreed. So Alyssa and I holed up in our room to get an hour rest. She laid down and 10 minutes later she had the biggest contraction of the night! I went to grab a warm blanket for her because she started shivering. About 5 minutes later our doulas came rushing back into the room. When I asked them the next morning how they knew to come back they said they just ‘sensed’ something changed’. They were totally awesome!
From there Alyssa quickly progressed to full on labor and continued to progress quickly. Within an hour Alyssa was starting to birth Benjamin. She was totally exhausted as we entered the 26th hour of labor. But she hung tough and in another 30 minutes Benjamin had been introduced into the world.
We then had 5 minutes of sheer terror. We knew that Benjamin was in meconium and were not sure how this was going to affect what happened as he birthed. The three member pediatrics team was already in the room. As he emerged he was blue and not breathing, he also had the cord wrapped around his neck. The Midwife quickly unwrapped the cord and I heard her tell the pediatric team that they needed to take the baby. Obviously this totally scared me, as Benjamin was handed over I went with him leaving Alyssa with the doulas per our plan in case anything happened. When they laid him down he was very blue and obviously not breathing. They went to work suctioning him out and then started using a tiny oxygen bag on him. As the seconds passed and he didn’t respond I got really scared. Then one of the Pediatricians said “make the call” and I heard them page the NICU team. At which point about 10 more doctors poured into the room. Thankfully just at that moment Benjamin started to respond and breathe on his own. Finally one of them assured me he was OK at which point I started to breathe again. While only 5 minutes passed it felt like an eternity.
From there things calmed down and after a few more minutes we moved Benjamin over to be with Alyssa. An couple of hours later we were moved to a room upstairs to continue bonding as a family.
Just as with Julia’s birth this was the most amazing thing I had ever seen but it was also far and away the scariest! But finally with little Benjamin in our arms our family felt complete.
