Around 8:30 am Theo and I were playing in Lucy’s room. Melissa nonchalantly walks into the room to tell me something and happens to mention, “I have been having regular contractions for the last 30 minutes.” I said, “WHAT?? She said, “Yeah, but I don’t know if it is the real thing or not, so don’t panic.” I heard that phrase “don’t panic” a lot that morning. I said, “we have to call your mom and Sam” (since her mom was going to watch Theo and Sam was going to help out during the birth). Melissa said, “Not yet. Let’s go for a walk and see if the contractions go away.”
So I took my wife who was in labor and my toddler son on a walk at the park as if it was any other day. I was attempting to keep myself calm, cool, and collected, but stopping every couple of minutes while Melissa experienced a contraction made that hard to do. Hard to enjoy a walk in the park with the family knowing that Lucy could arrive at any second and we are far, far away from UNC hospital.
We arrived back home from the walk and Melissa was still experiencing contractions. I said, “Are you calling your mom and Sam now?” She said, “no, I want to wait and see if this is real. I don’t want them coming here, if it isn’t the real thing.” I was about to lose my marbles at that point because it was going to take at least three hours for them to get to Raleigh and we needed them to be at the house before we went to the hospital. In addition to being stressed about her family, I was also thinking about the dogs. We agreed the dogs would go to camp, but Melissa wouldn’t give me the green light, so there I sit. Wringing my hands about her family not on the way and the dogs not on the way to camp. In my anxiety explosion, I finally said, “I need you to call your family. This is the real thing. Let’s move forward from the denial phase and embrace that this is real.” Eventually, she got the point, that I needed her family to be on the way and then I would leave her alone. She called her family and I took the dogs to camp.
As the afternoon progressed, Melissa continued to have regular contractions. I entertained Theo as Melissa stayed upstairs bouncing on the yoga ball working through the contractions. I checked on her from time to time, but she didn’t want to talk and wanted me to steer clear of her, so I got the message and stayed downstairs. Melissa’s mom and sister arrived. Theo napped. Then Melissa, Sam and I went on a long walk in the neighborhood hoping to aid in the laboring quest of moving the show along.
We got back to the house after the walk and Melissa said that she should check in with the midwives. She called them and they told her to come in because it was too hard to predict how fast Lucy would come. And considering that delivering a baby in the car on the way to UNC was not in my life’s plan of ambitions, I welcomed the encouragement to go to the hospital sooner rather than later. We headed to the hospital around 3:45 pm.
It was stressful leaving Theo behind with Melissa’s mom, even though I knew she was going to do fine taking care of him. Theo isn’t used to any other caretakers except the two of us, so it was definitely stressful on us both.
I dropped Melissa off at the front door of the UNC Women’s Hospital and a volunteer wheeled her to OB triage. I had to go across the street and park the car. When I got to back to OB triage, the lovely lady at the receptionist’s desk did not want to let Sam and I into the room because the room was “too small.” I politely let her know that I was Melissa’s partner and I was going back to the room, so she needed to show me Melissa’s room. I arrived to the room with Melissa about 5 pm. The midwife had just checked Melissa and told her she was only 4 cm dilated. In addition, Melissa’s contractions essentially stopped on the way to UNC. So after 8 hours of consistent contractions, the contractions had stopped and Melissa was stalled at 4 cm. Melissa melted down. I think for numerous reasons: 1) because we had just left Theo with his gramma (although he doesn’t know her all that well and we weren’t sure how Theo was going to do with her), 2) because Melissa was having flashbacks of Theo’s delivery (after 24 hours of laboring, Melissa only progressed to 4 cm. Eventually this lead to 32 hours of labor, 3.5 hours of which were pushing, with the aid of pitocin, and an epidural), 3) because she felt like she had really worked through the contractions at home (which she did) and thought that she would have been further dilated, and 4) because this has been an incredibly difficult pregnancy, so the thought of working so hard for the last 8 hours thinking that an end point was in sight, and then to be told you have stalled out…no less the pregnancy hormones, Melissa melted (for many good reasons.) The midwife asked Melissa what she wanted to do. Melissa said, “to get Lucy out as fast and safely as possible. I want this to be over.” So the midwife happily agreed to “pit and epi.” Melissa opted to hold off on the epi to see if she could make it through the delivery without it. Melissa knew that she could always ask for the epi “up until the baby was coming out.”
Melissa was getting situated in the room. The nurse told her she couldn’t eat after she had the Pitocin, so Melissa quickly sent me to get her a sandwich. By the time Melissa finished eating and the pitocin started, it was about 6 pm. Melissa and I walked laps around the unit hoping to encourage Lucy to come out. The first round of pitocin didn’t do much, so the nurse increased the dose about 15 min later. The second round brought a little stronger contractions, but still not over the top contractions, so the pitocin was increased again after 15 minutes. Lucy’s heart rate started to drop, so the nurse asked Melissa to lie down. After Lucy’s heart rate returned to normal, Melissa asked to get up because the contractions were too much laying down.
At this point, it is about 7 pm. The contractions are really getting strong. Melissa asked for the yoga ball to sit on. She worked through two really, long and hard contractions and then called for the nurse. Melissa was done. The contractions were strong and Melissa was ready for the epidural. The nurse went to get the midwife. Melissa started having a monstrous contraction. It seems like this contraction last about 10 minutes, but I think it was really about 3 minutes. She is screaming in pain and begging for an epidural. The midwife said that she couldn’t give Melissa anything without checking her first. Melissa climbed on the bed and then realized the sac broke. The midwife checked Melissa and looked at the nurse and said, “get the tray, she is 9 cm, this baby is coming now.” They told Melissa that the epi won’t arrive because she is about to deliver Lucy. Needless to say, Melissa was not happy about that news.
I looked down and could see Lucy’s head moving down the canal (very wild to see this as I was looking at Melissa’s parts externally, but yet I could see Lucy moving internally). Lucy crowned and I was telling Melissa, “she’s coming, she’s here, here comes her head!” Melissa did not believe me. She was in tremendous pain and had no idea that Lucy was about to arrive. Melissa pushed maybe a couple of times. I kept telling Melissa that Lucy was so close and then her head popped out. 7:15 pm Lucy was born. The cord was wrapped around Lucy’s neck, but the midwife easily unlooped it and Lucy immediately cried. The midwife held up Lucy and showed Melissa that Lucy had finally arrived. Lucy was placed on Melissa’s chest and then we kissed her and cried. Just very thankful that she was here and arrived safely.
Melissa was quite the trooper all day. She did an awesome job throughout the whole 12 hours. I could not be more proud of her for enduring this pregnancy and safely delivering our little girl.
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