Note: I originally published this on my old blog but I never finished it. As my daughter approaches three, I decided it was time to write the rest. I am re-posting Part 1 first, lest you new readers think Maddie’s birth story began with an Egg McMuffin.

April 16, 2009 – 11:00pm

Like many other weeknights of my adult life, I was nearly motionless on the sofa watching TV. On this particular night, a mild Thursday night in April, I had just started an episode of 30 Rock in the living room. Heather had only been in bed for a few minutes, not long enough by a longshot for her to fall asleep.

Earlier that night, we’d taken my dad, who was in town on business, to Taqueria del Sol. The notoriously gruff cashier, in a rare moment of chattiness, had told us that their food is known for being particularly labor-inducing. This generally sounds like a total crock to me, but I guess I’m predisposed to doubt old wive’s tales, even when I end up being proved wrong. It’s particularly hard for me to believe in any correlation of X and Y when Y is pretty much medically imminent to begin with.

“Garrett!”

I was chuckling at some absurdly hilarious Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan dialogue when, from the bedroom at the other end of the only hallway in our condo, my wife of four and a half years screamed my name. Her tone was somehow ecstatic at the same time that it was panicked, but all I heard at the time was panic. I paused the TV show and experienced a moment of shock–unexpected screaming from your partner is always a little scary–even before I heard the reason for her cry.

“I think my water just broke.”

I ran into the bedroom and we stood there for a beat, grinning goofily at each other, not exactly sure what to do next.

“Well are you sure?”

The doctor returned our page within minutes and confirmed for us that yes, the popped-water-balloon gush of fluid and the nearly immediate onset of contractions added up to a pretty good indication that the moment had arrived. Or, at least, the first of many moments. She told Heather in her Doctor Voice that we could go ahead and come in if the contractions progressed or–and this was absurdly hilarious to us at the time–that we could “just wait ’til the morning and come to the hospital when [we] get up.” You know, after the last batch of muffins has cooled, or something.

Like a dope, I just stood there watching her hunch over the bathroom counter, the pain and strain on her face making it evident that the contractions were getting worse quickly. About this the books are right; there seems to be no mistaking labor for anything else once it actually comes. We made the decision: it was time to go.

The next sixty minutes played out like a Benny Hill running gag. Imagine–to the tune of Yakety Sax, if you prefer–the tremendously-pregnant, surprisingly-soaked woman rinsing off, changing clothes, and then running around the house with her husband, both of them throwing things into bags, nervously laughing at each other, and checking/double-checking their packing list. We already had our hospital bag packed, of course, but we still had to go over the list as a ritual that would later turn out to have been pointless since I forgot to bring both socks and my camera charger. Cats sometimes seem to be able to sense the intensity of their owners’ emotions, and Rosie left us a wide berth as we gathered our things and raced out the door.

April 17, 2009 – 12:15am

“This is as fast as I go right now,” my wife pleaded as I speed-walked down the hallway ahead of her on a surge of adrenaline, our overnight bags swinging from my shoulders. This was not the first time I’d heard this phrase during the pregnancy (and not because I’m a born athlete made of pure speed). I guess she wasn’t in the mood for sprinting to the car.

Once we were in the car, of course, I could sprint for both of us. With one foot. That adrenaline wasn’t doing us any favors in the speed department, and it got even worse every time she had a contraction. I can confirm that in the midst of her bent-over, dashboard-grabbing pain, she did still have presence of mind to ask how fast I was going. I don’t even remember my answer, but I was driving pretty damn fast.

I can tell you with certainty thanks to georgiatolls.com that we went through Lane 009 of the tollbooth on Ga-400 North at 12:27am.

12:29am

We then arrived at Northside Hospital and proceeded to do what everyone does upon arriving at every hospital ever: wait. I have been to hospitals more than you’d probably guess, and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a situation that actually seemed to warrant haste on the part of the triage/admissions people. Not a broken nose, broken leg, broken hand (not mine), food poisoning (not mine), asthma attack, or 13 separate instances of lacerations requiring stitches in my scalp, eyebrow, and tongue. Now I can add “active labor” to that list. You fill out a form, you wait. Life goes on. We got a room within a half hour, so this isn’t really a complaint. At this point, Heather finally suggested I call/text our families to let them know our status. Nobody was upset that we called so late.

1:00am

We were assigned a Labor and Delivery room. I set my bag down and surveyed the quarters. This room was huge, maybe 20×15, with lots of empty space to pace. In the corner was the heat lamp/baby station; the “bed” loomed front and center, flanked by machines and backlit by soothing, cruise ship, “is it nighttime, daytime, or purgatory?” fluorescent lights.

I don’t remember any of their names anymore, but the nurse/delivery staff at the Women’s Center at Northside is incredible. I had never met anyone in a hospital who is as accommodating, as genuinely caring, and as patient as the nurse who ended up helping deliver the baby.

But that’s getting ahead of myself. I took my shoes off and sat down in a chair next to the bed. Once a nurse finally returned, they got Heather hooked up to various wires and widgets and she propped herself up in the bed and waited. Contractions were now about 3-5 minutes apart, and they were absolutely ravaging Heather when they came, which was not an easy thing for me to watch.

This frequency was good, they told us. Combined with the amount of dilation that had already occurred (a few centimeters before we even arrived), this was a good indicator that the baby was close. Still, they said, we had a few more hours, but their best guess was that everything would continue to progress and we’d deliver the baby before the sun came up.

Within a few cycles of contractions after we arrived, the nurse called in the anesthesiologist for the epidural block, which was a lot less dramatic than I had imagined. I think Heather and I both had envisioned a 4-inch needle jabbed between her vertebrae, but the reality was just a tiny catheter taped to her lower back (hidden by truly massive amounts of tape) running up and over her shoulder to the auto-syringe-plunger on the table next to her. The pioneers of modern anesthesiology certainly got that part right: use a large machine, a few yards of surgical tape, and a few feet of tube to obfuscate the reality of the gigantic syringe pumping drugs directly into your spine.

3:00am

I am a sucker for data: the more, the better. As part of running our household, we both use spreadsheets that track budgets, the mortgage, Christmas gifts, and now even baby feedings. So, naturally, by 3:00 am, I was staring at a machine, watching the triad of readouts on the computer screen next to my wife, trying to reconcile the numbers with the reality.

The machine has three continuous graphs that appeared to update once per second: Maternal heart rate, contractions, and fetal heart rate. Contractions had continued to increase in intensity for the first two hours and everything had gone relatively smoothly so far. It was at this point that things got slightly ugly.

Of the three graphs I mentioned, the one to watch was really the fetal heart rate. The strength and duration of the contractions was easily gauged by simple metrics: how much was my right hand presently being crushed? And the maternal heart rate was not a concern based on, well, the aforementioned crushing. And by the way, the fetal heart rate is not determined by sonar or radar or satellite monitoring…

For internal monitoring, a sensor is attached to your thigh with a strap. A thin wire (electrode) from the sensor is inserted through your vagina and cervix into your uterus. The electrode is then attached to your baby’s scalp. Your baby’s heartbeat may be heard as a beeping sound or printed out on a chart.

Whoah.

The reality by 3:00am was that the baby’s heart rate had started to decline with the onset of each contraction. In addition, the rate of progress from uterus to fresh air had slowed down significantly. To the doctors, this meant one of two things: A) The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck or B) Heather’s pelvis was too small for delivery and she was stuck.

6:00am

“Could we get any available OB to room B4?”

The call went out over the PA, but the nurses hadn’t said anything to us. Still, the fact that they were huddled, whispering, by the door and had just sent out a rather desperate-sounding page was enough to crank up the anxiety. The fetal heart rate continued to drop with every contraction and nobody could figure out why.

You don’t generally see depictions of this situation on TV. I paced the floor at the foot of the bed between contractions, slouched over with many hours of accumulated worry. Heather was already exhausted and had the demeanor of someone in a situation she knows isn’t even close to resolution. By this time, she’d already been through several rounds of pushing, waiting, and pushing again (to match up with the contractions).

The doctor had been checking in on us from time to time, but now he was permanently stationed in the room. While he was originally optimistic and jovial, at this point, his demeanor changed. He had started to drop the C-bomb every now and then at 4 or 5, but by now, he was a little more straightforward: “It looks like we may have to do a Caesarian.” Our hearts sank. We were hoping to avoid this kind of surgery. Plus, if the situation indicates a C-section even when it is not elected by the mother, this must indicate that it is more likely to keep the baby and/or mother alive. That’s not an easy thing to hear. Still, it’s not like we had a choice. Unless all of the pushing and straining all of the sudden became productive, this process would require major surgery within a few hours. We both hastily signed the form consenting to an emergency Caesarian, replete with phrases like “FULL UNDERSTANDING OF THE RISKS INVOLVED”.

It was 7:00am and though we had no idea, the sun was rising outside.

…To Be Continued.