Welcoming Rachel Alexandra to Our Family

For years now I have been pretty sure that I have wanted a daughter. Three days ago that desire came to fruition when a beautiful little girl came into this world at 9:30 in the evening on July 10th. For my wife Bree, it was a long pregnancy, somewhat longer in fact than what she had been anticipating. Through most of the pregnancy she and her doctor's had set her due date to be June 22nd. The official due date was later pushed back to June 29th based on the early ultrasound results. However, the of June came and went with no baby. So almost two weeks later, when my wife seemed to have given up almost all hope of ever going into labor on her own, we went in for a scheduled induction at the most unpleasant hour of 5:30 AM. My suspicion is that the medical staff doesn't want its patients overly alert or energetic so that they will be bothering them will all sorts of questions or requests.

At 10:30 in the morning, after several hours of sitting around and waiting, the doctor finally came in and broke Bree's water bag in the hopes that that alone would send her into labor. In many cases this is supposed to work, particularly with women who are as far along as she is and who have already borne one or more child. But as with the last time Bree's water broke when she had Owen, she did not go into hard labor afterwards. This was a disappointment as Bree and was hoping for the birth to be as natural as possible. So at about 4:30 in the afternoon the doctor's started a slow pitosin drip.

Shortly after five, when Dr. Elizabeth Warner, her primary Ob/Gyn arrived. She came in and after a little small talk proceeded to deliver a very tough love speech to Bree and myself about the risks involved in starting a chemical induction at this point. The primary issue involved the increased risk for uterine rupture in patients who have undergone previous c-sections. While we were both somewhat aware that there were some increased risks involved, neither of us were thinking that the risks were anywhere near as significant as what she was now describing. I think we both came away from this meeting with the doctor feeling more than a little disheartened. There is no question that we both felt that the prospect of Bree's having to go through another c-section was now greater than ever. And while I had been worried about some sort of catastrophic incident before, our talk with the doctor only made my concern much more acute.

The turning point seemed to be about the time when our doula, Becky, arrived around 5:30. She and Bree had been working together for quite some time preparing for this day, and to be honest, I had been hoping for some time that she would get there to add another perspective to what was fast turning into a very stressful situation. Becky's presence seemed to have a positive affect on my wife almost immediately. Becky's attitude was positive from the start and she was able to give Bree the honest and caring encouragement that she was needing desperately at this time.

Amazingly, as Bree's outlook seemed to improve, she also began to have some serious, get down to business contractions beginning around 6. She also began to feel very sick to her stomach and was spending more time in the bathroom. At first, I did not even recognize this as the actual labor kicking in, but Becky assured me that everything that we were seeing were good signs and that she remained confident that Bree would be able to do this on her own, without surgery. Becky was confident in her role as birth support. She was like some sort of touchy-feely field general directing my to rub my wife in places where she should be rubbed, hold heat packs to her back, hold her hand when it needed holding and to get ice from the ice machine down the hall to make ice packs to cool her forehead. All this time, while I did what she asked of me, I remained focused with hawk-like intensity on the baby's heart rate monitor. At one point, while Bree was in the bathroom, I noticed a sustained drop in the heart rate, where the rate dipped to around 70 or so beats per minute. This is considered dangerously low for any baby at this point in the delivery. I went immediately to the nurses station across the hall to request that somebody check on my wife. At the same time, the doctor and nurse, rushed into the room from across the hall where they had been monitoring. They basically dragged Bree off of the toilet and back into bed where they could make sure that they were getting an accurate reading on the baby. Thinking about this now, the memory seems almost hazy and dreamlike, but at them time this incident was absolutely terrifying and intense.

From here on out the order was for Bree to remain in bed where they could make certain that the monitors were all in place and were functioning accurately. The doctor checked her dilation level and found that she was at 9 centimeters. I was amazed because only about a half an hour before she had been dilated to only 6 cm. A series of hard retches in the next few moments put her at the full 10cm and the time for the honest to goodness pushing was on.

After only a few the doctor pointed out the baby's dark hair barely visible down in the birth canal. A few pushes after that the amount of hair I could see had increased to the size of about a half-dollar. Things progressed very quickly, even though Bree was obviously in a great deal of pain. She screamed and cried and at one point begged for an epidural, but Becky sitting close at her side somehow convinced her to continue. I'm afraid, that if I as the husband had tried to tell her at this point that she didn't need any pain medicine, I might have been spending the rest of my life trying to live it down.

Even at this point I was not so sure that she would be able to deliver this child without surgical intervention so I was very relieved when Dr. Warner announced that she was confident that the head was past the pubic bone. The head looked like the top of a beer can covered in wet black hair as it slowly inched its way out of my wife. When the whole head was finally out the doctor grabbed on to it and began pulling on it very hard. I was afraid that she would break the child's neck. But from here on out, it was only a couple of minutes before Rachel came out. Although Bree maintains that this was actually the most painful part of the process, as the shoulder, hips, knees and feet passed through her with their uneven surfaces. She was all purple and wasn't breathing when they first pulled her free from the birth canal, so they promptly cut the cord and took her over to a nearby platform where after sucking some fluid out of her throat, our daughter took her first breath and let out her first cry.

The relief I felt at this point can not be overstated. The nurses checked her out and everything looked good. Furthermore, until now, we had not know the sex of the baby. Through most of the pregnancy I had been thinking it would be a girl, somehow I was expecting to see a penis and scrotum when this baby was finally pulled free. I looked closely, but there was none, which was still fine with me. I miss my son every day more than I can express sometimes, but I am grateful to have a little girl in my life and expect that she will grow into an incredible person who my wife and I can have endless fun raising. Once again, I am proud to say that I am a father, a proud father. This little girl is so lovely and already is showing her own personality.

We celebrated tonight with a bucket of fried chicken from KFC and a bottle of Alsatian Riesling.

Soon I know it will be time to feed again so I need to get some sleep and be ready.