Levi Birth Story

On Friday, June 6th

afternoon. Tonia had been having contractions all through the day, a little more regular

and stronger than the ones she had on and off for the last week or two. She let the

midwife check her dilation and she was at 3-4 centimeters. We stopped for a quick bite

to eat before I went back to work. Tonia asked “really, how long will it take for you to

get home if I call you?” I said about 30-45 minutes. She said “I hope you’re not too

late.” I told her to call as soon as she’s sure she’s in labor but I can’t take every day off

“just in case.”

I went back to work and finished at almost 8 o’clock, then went straight home.

When I arrived about a quarter after 8, I took a shower and had a little bite to eat. Tonia’s

mom, Diane, was nesting. Tonia, despite having contractions all afternoon and evening

was now certain this wasn’t the real thing. I knew better. I tried to get to bed to get some

rest because I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping through the night, and tried to get Tonia to

do the same. Finally, at almost 10 p.m. Tonia and I were going to lie down, and let our

daughter, Solana (almost 4 y.o.), stay up with Diane, since they are both impossible to get

to sleep when they want to get things done.

As soon as we laid down – literally the first contraction lying down – Tonia

jumped up and said “Get up! We’re going to the hospital.” We somehow spent the next

hour and a half packing the bags we already had packed and I tried to eat anything in

sight since I hadn’t had a real dinner and knew I would be up a good portion of the night.

Somewhere during the packing I called the hospital and told them we were on our way. I

neglected to tell them that we were serious about showing up late and were more likely

to need the “curb can” than the pitocin, which I realized later we should have told them

before we came. Tonia spent every contraction and the immediate seconds afterward

frantically trying to get everyone going and then dilly-dallied until the next one. My

favorite interaction, starting with Tonia:

“Could you make me some toast?”

“Wheat bread or an English muffin?”

“An English Muffin would be good.”

I get out the toaster, drop in the muffin and 5 seconds later Tonia, leaning against

the counter demands “Leave it, we’ve got to go!” I threw the untoasted English muffin in

a sandwich bag and off we went.

Finally, we arrived at the hospital around midnight and were casually given a

room and nurses slowly gathered up supplies and brought them in. One of the first things

they wanted to do was give Tonia an IV start, not hooked up to anything but just to have

“in case.” We had already cleared with the midwives that this was not required and

Tonia firmly said “I don’t have to have one. The midwives said you wouldn’t believe it

and could call them.” One nurse said “you want to have a baby, right?” Tonia snapped

back “I don’t need an IV to have a baby!” I was beginning to dread the relationship we

would have with the nurses, we gave them a copy of our birth plan and by the next time

they came into the room they were ready to go along happily.

, we had a regular weekly checkup with our midwife in the

We asked if Gloria (the midwife we knew was on call) was on her way and they

said, “Oh, we’ll call her when we need to.” This is when I realized they didn’t know that

she had been “in labor” for probably 10 hours and they were acting like she would be

here for another half day before the baby came. Thankfully, they came soon to do their

initial exam and I saw the “ah ha” on the nurse’s face when she did the internal exam and

Tonia was 7cm and 100% effaced. I don’t remember if she said she was going to page

Gloria or actually yelled out to the hall, but Gloria was now on her way.

Tonia put up with the ACOG mandated 20 minutes of electronic fetal monitoring

with only a little grumbling. Luckily they let her stand instead of lying down. Gloria

arrived, a little groggy. This was her 3rd

asleep after being up since the first one, which arrived before 6 a.m. so she probably was

there by 4. At some point Tonia wanted some music – comforting but not too calm –

what else but Johnny Cash? For the rest of the labor and delivery the same Johnny Cash

CD was on repeat in the background.

Tonia was again (as with our daughter) a super-champ at breathing and making

it through the tough contractions. During these she doesn’t want to be touched,

encouraged, talked to or anything. Most of the time she kind of hung around my neck

then for a while sat on a birth ball. Once in a while at the peak of a contraction she would

grunt “help!” After a couple of these I waited until the contraction had passed then

asked, “When you say ‘help!’ you mean ‘Just shut up and don’t do anything,’ right?”

She confirmed this and I went back to just sitting there in front of her, grabbing her some

water once in a while and reminding her she doesn’t have to apologize to the nurses for

getting blood on the floor. By this time, the nurses were anything but annoyed, they and

Gloria remarked a couple times how easy Tonia is – all they have to do is stand around

and watch.

Eventually it was getting to be time to push. Gloria tried to get her to lay down

(“semi-sitting?”) but as the first contraction began Tonia jumped up and said “no way!”

She tried squatting on the floor but this left the nurses and Gloria trying to figure out

how to catch a baby 4 inches off the ground. She squatted in the bed for a short while

then switched to kneeling on all fours. Gloria was really encouraging her to push and not

satisfied with her efforts. Sitting there basically as a passive observer I started to realize

that Tonia’s tremendous ability to endure the earlier contractions must have something to

do with her lack of pushing – she was essentially just trying to let the contractions go by

rather than turn them into a push.

After a little while, Tonia decided to try lying on her side. She was very

comfortable in this position and stayed in it until the baby was born. She still wasn’t a

gung-ho pusher but eventually got into pushing when I pushed against her top leg during

contractions so she had something to push against. A few contractions after the head

began to show, Tonia came up with the guts for one enormous, long (3 minutes), push

and out came our baby boy at 2:39 a.m. The midwife and I caught him and passed him

right up to mom’s chest. He cried for just a minute then got really calm and quiet and

seemed to be taking in the world. After a minute or two I cut the cord.