I started writing this post in my head the Wednesday we went into the hospital and was adding to it all through the time spent there. It's not a diary of the birth per se, just some things that went through my head.

The end of this lengthy journey started on Wednesday, September 6th. Kim and her mother went to the doctor for a scheduled visit while I prepared the house for the baby's arrival. We were expecting to go into the hospital on Thursday to be induced, but the doctor told her to go in that night. I thought I was mentally prepared for this, but when Kim told me we were moving into the hospital that night, my first thought was, "Holy shit, we're really coming home with a kid." In my mind, we'd go in, they'd put the drugs in her, and a few hours later we'd have a baby. As it turns out, that was not the case.

We got in to the hospital just fine on Wednesday, and while I thought our stay would be brief, I was prepared for the duration. We had books, laptop, DVDs, games, and every pillow in the house as well as several sheets. By the time we got all moved in to the room and Kim had all the monitors hooked to her, it was bed time. Sometime during the night, they started Kim's IV on a drug that would prepare her body for labor. Our first night was uneventful, and after I took Kim's mom home, I fell asleep on the couch listening to the heartbeat of my unborn son on the monitor. The next day the nurses told us that Kim had some contractions before they started her on the drug, which eased my mind about the induction.

Thursday was more of the same. We were literally sitting and waiting for her to begin labor. Kim was having some small contractions, but we weren't making any real progress. We basically just watched TV, played games, ate, slept, talked, whatever we could do to kill the time. I kept asking the nurses if they could tell me how much longer this was going to take, but there is no way anyone can know how these things will happen. All we could do was sit and wait for Kim's body to respond. Sometime on Thursday, they put her on pitocin, which is a synthetic chemical that is similar to the one the body produces when it goes into labor. Unfortunately for us, neither Kim's body nor the baby were fooled.

The night nurse said this kind of response was not uncommon and sometimes it helped to take the woman off the pitocin, run regular IV fluid through her for a few hours, and then start back on the pitocin. I believe they did that sometime in the night while we were sleeping. By Friday morning, I was thinking that this whole induction was an enormous mistake. I was talking about taking Kim home and bringing her back when she went in to labor naturally. I was also concerned because Kim's doctor had not come by to see us yet. When the doctor did come to see us Friday morning, she said there had been some small progress, but if things did not start moving faster, she would send us home. Just when I was about to try to call it off and pack her up, her water broke. This was about 2:00 or so Friday afternoon.

Once the water broke, there was no going home, and things started to happen much faster. Kim's contractions started to hit her harder and after a few hours she put the call in for the epidural. The guy who performed the epidural must have aced it because she could still wiggle her toes and feel her legs through the whole thing, but she could not feel the pain from the contractions. It wasn't long before we were pushing and the nurses were gathering all the gear. After about 10 hours of labor, my son was born at 12:31am on September 9th. I could already tell he wants to be just like me, because he held out for three days and just long enough to be born on my birthday.

Not long after the birth Kim was sound asleep, so I was tasked with staying up and watching the baby get all the newborn procedures performed. This was around 2am. I stood and watched while they did all kinds of things that, I'm sure, are all terribly important, and the nurse kept relaying information to me that sounded extremely negative. She was telling me things like, "This number is too low, and this number is too high, but this one is normal." I'm sure she was trying to keep me informed, but eventually I had to stop her and say, "This is my first baby. I don't know if what you're telling me should make me panic or not. Do I need to panic?" She just laughed and said, "No."

The next day we spent in the room again with the baby being brought in to us off and on, but he did not spend the night with us. It wasn't until we moved to the recovery room upstairs that he was basically put into our care. I took Kim's mom to the airport Saturday night right after we moved into the new room, so it was just the two of us. The recovery room was much smaller than the room we were in for the birth, but Kim's bed was a huge improvement. Unfortunately for me, the couch in this room where I would be sleeping was half as long as the one from the other room. They brought the baby to us and told us he was going to stay in there with us from here on, but we'd be in the hospital for a few more days for observation. I wondered if they were observing the baby or us because it felt very much like we were being tested, and if we failed they'd come in and say, "You know what, this isn't going to work," and whisk him away in his little drawer-on-wheels. At first there was a lot of staring. We just stared at him and smiled and took turns holding him. You may or may not know that newborn babies don't do much; they cry a bit, sleep a lot, eat a lot, and will briefly lay quietly and look around in a creepy sort of way. As the hour grew late, I realized that I was not going to be able to fall asleep at all with him in the room.

I did try, though. We shut out all the lights, and I was able to fall asleep just long enough to have visions of the baby choking to death or bursting into flames, at which point I'd leap off the couch and check on him. Just when I thought I'd be able to fall asleep without placing my newborn son in peril, a nurse came in to wake us all up for a feeding. Before she did that, she was "kind" enough to tell us that we should really have a light on so we can see "when" the baby turned blue. I was about halfway through, "What the fuck do you mean 'when'?!!" when she disappeared. For the rest of the night every sound he made sounded to me like he was gasping for breath. There would be no rest that night.

As time went by in the hospital, we grew more and more comfortable with Titan and less and less afraid of him. We spent our time learning about him and watching all the Law and Orders in the world (apparently USA was running some kind of marathon). The only fears left were whether or not the dogs would eat him, and whether or not our neighbors could hear him crying. When he gets really angry, he can get pretty loud, and the sound changes from a nice little baby cry to the hissing and growling of a hungry velociraptor. I imagined a scenario where one of my neighbors would pound on my door at 4am because the baby was crying. I felt like penning a letter to them:

Dear Neighbor,

We have a newborn baby, and newborn babies cry. The fastest way to get all of your teeth knocked out will be to come and knock on the door if the baby wakes you in the night. If you can hear him crying, rest assured that I am aware of it, and I am working on soothing him. Your input is not needed.

Thank you.

However, I am pleased to announce that the dogs have not eaten Titan and we have had no problems with any neighbors. We're on a good schedule that works for all three of us, and things are just perfect.

posted by Travis at 4:43 PM

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Saturday, September 09, 2006

It's too late for the clever post, but I just wanted to say that Titan was born at 12:31am on Saturday, September 9th. Everyone is in perfect health.

posted by Travis at 2:39 AM

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Monday, September 04, 2006

The counter for The Boy states 3 days until his arrival, however, that is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast date for detonation. There is this idea of a due date, but only He knows for sure. However, there is an appointment on Wednesday where the doctor will weigh the possible success of an act of subterfuge to be performed on Thursday where we will try to trick The Boy into arriving when it's convenient for everyone else. While I'm not a big proponent of the "inducement", if it makes Kim and the doctor more comfortable, then I support it. I think the idea of waiting around for this enormous life-changing event to happen is somewhat terrifying to Kim, and I know that if I were faced with experiencing incredible pain in the near future, I would want to know exactly when.

So, for now, let's say Thursday.

posted by Travis at 9:23 PM

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