A Ron is born!

Ron was my earliest baby- only 3 days past due. My sister/doula arrived on May 1 and we were both expecting to spend a lot of our time eating spicy food and walking and trying to find my pressure points somewhere beneath the blubber of my swollen ankles. Thankfully Ron is a gentleman and decided to put me out of my misery the very first morning Michelle was in town (we’ll not mention that he also caused me 3 unnecessary trips to the hospital with fake labor and heart burn bad enough I thought I was having a heart attack). So anyway, I had Ellie play hookie from preschool on May 2 and we went to the Detroit zoo. It was a beautiful day! I started having contractions at the polar bear exhibit, but that was old news to me so I ignored them. By the time we stopped for a snack I was super uncomfortable, but again, nothing new to me. At the grizzly bear exhibit, around noon, I decided that this might actually be the real thing and we decided to go home. I booked it to the parking garage and by the time we got to the car I couldn’t really talk through the contractions anymore so Michelle drove us all home. Of course we hit standing traffic on the freeway, but eventually we made it home. I called the fabulous Lindsay to come watch the girls and informed the midwife that I was coming in soon. Then I did the smartest thing I’d done all day and asked Michelle to make me some homemade guacamole and taquitos. They were sooo good. Then Lindsay arrived and I promptly dropped some kitchen scissors on my foot and started bleeding everywhere. Lucky for me Lindsay can always be counted upon to have some extra bandaids in her back pocket. So anyway, we left for the hospital around 2:30 pm I believe. I called Scott on the way to tell him to book it out of work and that if this wasn’t the real thing to be prepared for a full on melt down. So Michelle drove me to the hospital with instructions to tell me about the weirdest names she has ever encountered at the school she teaches at (Portland Waldorf- a wonderful school but they’re not known for their conformity to top 100 baby names). Once we got to the birthing center I was soooo happy to hear that I was at 5cm! No way were they sending me home. I happily changed into my yoga pants and plopped down on a birthing ball to play cribbage with Michelle and wait for Scott. After about 30 minutes Scott arrived and by that point I couldn’t really concentrate on cards anymore. Distraction is key for me during labor so I intermittently give prompts to Michelle and Scott to talk about. Its really kind of funny because while Scott is a certified chatty Cathy, Michelle is not. And my prompts center on either Harry Potter or Disnelyland 95% of the time, and while I may never grow tired of it… Anyway, turns out the midwife was fairly adept at creating distractions for me herself in the form of awkward questioning. Among her varied discussion points she made while I was in labor are my husband’s underwear, my sister’s biological heritage, our religion and her own abhorrance of pop culture (you can imagine my horror at the last point). I tend to shy away from talking about personal matters (like my husband’s underwear) with strangers so I wasn’t too thrilled by the subject matter, although it was distracting. So distracting in fact that I actually faked a contraction at one point to avoid the midwife’s questions…. I also spent some time in the jacuzzi which is just sooo nice. You have to convince somebody to get the nurse out of the room while you’re in there though because its so much more comfortable to lean back in a jacuzzi and for some reason the nurses at the ABC are convinced that your baby will turn breech if you lean back too much. I don’t buy it.

So anyway, around 6pm I started to feel like pushing. I got out of the tub and onto the bed on hands and knees like I did with Ev (ps those hot compresses that they use at the ABC while pushing are the most amazing things ever. Seriously, it makes the whole process of pushing a baby out of your body almost feel good). I just kind of pushed during contractions a little bit, but I didn’t feel a huge need to try super hard. Plus my contractions were still like 3 minutes apart (they never got closer together, weird I know, but verrry nice). The midwife suggested that I should try squatting through one contraction and I agreed very hesitantly. Nothing against squatting if that’s your thing, but for me its just not my fave- I feel very awkward in that position, plus it hurts my knees. But I agreed to do it for just one contraction so the midwife would stop asking. Well, during that contraction my water broke and splattered all over the ground (and Scott’s feet- he was so grossed out). And it turns out that Ron’s over-active bowels (he seriously has had the most blow-outs of any kid I have ever met ever) started early on- the water was very dark with meconium. So at this point the midwife was concerned that we needed to get Ron out quickly so they could keep him from breathing in the meconium. She told me I had to get him out on the next contraction and that I needed to stay squatting. I didn’t really understand what was going on and I was still trying to convince her I wanted to stand up when the next contraction hit. All I can remember about that is everyone in the room telling me to push as hard as I could- the nurse told me not to breath even. So I grabbed the midwife by the scruff of her top and screamed into her face and Ron was born! 6:45pm on May 2.

Scott helped me onto the bed while the nurse cleared out Ron’s nose and then all of the sudden I was holding him- a beautiful baby boy. I was smitten, which is really saying something because that boy smelled reallll bad. Like a farm animal. I got to cuddle with my stinky little cub for about 5 hours before the nurses were able to help me take a shower. At first it was because I had trouble clotting after Ron was born (minor freakout occurred when the midwife mentioned I might need to go to the OR- but thankfully she got it figured out- unfortunately that involved pitocin for me without any pain killers for a while). Anyway, Ron was a dream but my first night after he was born was not ideal. The drugs the midwife gave me to stop the bleeding kind of messed with my system and I started shaking uncontrollably sometime during the night. Then I had a little panic attack and the nurse gave me some pain killers (seriously, you should not be allowed to have pitocin without painkillers) and I finally got to sleep for a little while. The next day Michelle came back with the girls so they could meet their baby brother. They were both extremely cute holding him- very sweet moment for us. Michelle stayed at the hospital and Scott took the girls to oiur fantastic friend Lorissa’s house so Scott could go take a nap (he was up with me all night calming me down from my panic attack and taking care of Ron). Turns out Scott spent the time gardening- silly man. Michelle was great because she held Ron and introduced us both to Once Upon a Time- a wonderful show and distraction from the pain of afterpains (if I could get an epidural after giving birth, I totally would- afterpains are no joke). Scott and I took Ron home around 7:30 in the evening. When we got home we put the kids to bed and ate more taquitos and guac and watched Happy Gilmore. It was pretty fantastic.

And the rest is history! Ron is the sweetest- a very easy baby. From early on its been clear that Ron has an laid-back personality; as long as his pants are dry and his stomach is full, that boy is content with life. I just love him to pieces- a complete joy in my life.

Happy Birthday Ron!