Mina: A Birth Story - Part II

My daugther, Mina, was born happy and healthy on March 10, 2017. She's a 7 lb, 3oz, 20 inch ball of wonderment with large feet. This is the story of how she got here.

Part II: Thai Food and Restless Sleep

I have mentioned on this blog previously that it's a big deal when you are pregnant that you don't overreact and head to the hospital too early. So, when Adair started having contractions, we knew that it could be a while, and that maybe if we were lucky, we might have a decent night's sleep.

At this point, we did what all good Portlanders do when they are looking to kill some time: we got Thai food. Although Adair was harboring some mild concerns about eating spicy food mere hours away from the potential of accidental well-lit public poops in a hospital bed surrounded by kindly nurses and one lovely doctor, I was able to sway her with the reminder that she may not be able to have a solid meal for a while until this hootenanny was over and done with. 

Not wanting to alarm all of our friends and family for a labor that most likely wouldn't begin in earnest for many many hours, we grabbed our friends Derek and Larissa, who mostly just stared at Adair in semi-tipsy wonderment as she calmly munched away; seemingly unaware of the horrors that awaited her when the next day broke. 

I had downloaded an app designed to help you time and track your contractions. We developed a system, so as soon as Adair felt a contraction coming on, she would say "timer" and I would scramble to find my phone which I had inevitably just put down in some random spot. Note: If you ever need to urgently use the fingerprint unlock function on your iPhone...don't even fucking bother. When time is of the essence, it's gonna take you 15 minutes every time you need to unlock the son of a bitch.

Aaaanywho, we had a nice, calm, and extremely surreal dinner, sitting at a restaurant surrounded by dozens of people who had no idea that my wife was actually in labor mere feet away.

Full up on shrimp basil fried rice and some tempura, we enjoyed essentially what, looking back now, amounted to the last normal night of the rest of our lives. Adair's contractions were mild and inconsistent, so she was able to get some rest and gear up for real, big girl labor the next day. I, on the other hand, pretttty much just laid awake and stared at the ceiling for eight hours.

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We awoke the next morning, really truly wondering if it had all been a dream. The illusion was quickly shattered by the recommencing of contractions, which by now were getting slightly more intense. I definitely began to see small markers of pain appearing on Adair's face, which I did not like at all, but it did mean that we could allow ourselves to start to get excited. More likely than not, our baby girl, the subject of about 80% of our thoughts for the previous nine months, would be born today.

We couldn't really think of anything else to do, so we pretty much just chilled out on the couch all morning. We couldn't quite get comfortable though. The thing about Adair's pregnancy is that, from start to finish, it constantly presented itself as atypical. Generally, it just went against the grain; whether it was the complete and total lack of morning sickness, her body's utter refusal to look even remotely pregnant for approximately 8 months, or the complete absence of what I called "TV pregnancy symptoms," including grumpiness, bizarro cravings, swollen feet, and much much more. 

So, all of that being said, I absolutely knew that Adair's labor was going to be just as strange as her pregnancy...and it started with the contractions. At this point, they were coming quite often, but they were also very short. Again, you are supposed to remember the "5-1-1". Contractions should be five minutes apart, and one minute long, for over an hour, before you head to the hospital. Well, Adair's were coming about four minutes apart, and lasting for about 35 seconds, for hours and hours. I ask you, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? Are we supposed to wait until they get further apart and longer? Is the baby coming right now??? 

The answer: we called the doctor's office, and the folks there told us to head to the hospital! This thing was happening, and there wasn't shit we could do to stop it.