Labor: Dad's Persective

Dad's Perspective

It has been about 36 hours since Nico was born; about 60 hours since the contractions started. Of those, about 8 hours have seen us sleeping. I expected that. That is more than I can say about almost everything else that has happened.

After hearing the wonderful news that we will be having a baby, we did everything to prepare and make up for the 4 months that had so casually slipped by. We polled parents, cousins, and friends that have been in our shoes before to get an idea of all the blessings and hurdles that were to come. I read 3 books in one weekend on the labor process and newborn care. We took a 10 week class on the Bradley Method of delivering a baby naturally. We visited 4 different OB/GYN's in 3 cities until we found the one we were most comfortable with. We were ready to go!

The past 3 weeks have been exciting. We found it a challenge to find things to do without making too many plans. We had to stay busy and not wait around for the baby. Valeria found and tried just about all the old wives tales on how to start labor. Even after eating eggplant and drinking red raspberry tea, January 7th, the official due date, came and went. We know the due date is a guesstimate and is rarely correct, but it definitely did bump up the anxiousness. We continued the stretching exercises we learned in class and walked everyday. I went to sleep reviewing all the steps of labor in my head. I was going to be the coach and had to be ready for when the big game came.

On Wednesday (1/14/10) morning I sent the email my manager had been waiting for: "I won't be in today, the baby is coming!". Valeria had been waking up from contractions since 11 pm the night before. I was awake since 3 am helping her through them about every 20 minutes. Valeria counted the minutes until 7:30 am, a decent hour to wake up and get out of bed. She showered and we went for a slow walk. Once the contractions were 5-10 minutes apart, lasting a minute each for an hour, we called Dr. Sebestyen's office. We saw Lisa (one of the certified Nurse Midwives) at 9:30 am. She said it looked like we were having a baby and directed us to go to the hospital. The time was finally here!

We walked in the brand new Women's Center at St. David's North Austin Medical Center. We had toured the place a couple times, but this time was different. We walked right into Delivery Room #4 stopping every couple of minutes to let Valeria's contractions pass. Valeria's parents were with us, so they went home to grab a couple essentials (food). We got comfortable, unpacked our stuff, and talked about how we are finally here! Late in the morning, the contractions were a bit stronger, and harder for Vale to talk and think through. I directed her to breathe and try to keep her muscles loose. There's only so many times that I can tell her to do the impossible before she starts rolling her eyes and I can tell her grunts are directed towards me. There were comments about adopting our next child and pleas for help from God: I could tell this was becoming harder.

Valeria was changing positions from laying on the bed to sitting on the stool and even sitting under the warm water in the shower. This helped distract her at the beginning, but each contraction was now very intense and she was finding it hard to hide the pain. Kathy, the Nurse Midwife that was on call that day came in around 6 pm. Things were very hard for Valeria at this point and jumped at the opportunity of any kind of pain medication. Before the anesthesiologist could insert the epidural in her back, we had 30 minutes of IV fluids to take. Kathy and I tried helping Valeria relax and breathe. If she was ready to push soon, we could avoid the epidural. I was nervous about the needle in her back. We came into the hospital trying to avoid it, and I did not like surrendering to the small chance of slowing labor or anything worse. Turns out it worked great. Valeria was able to relax, stopped fighting her body and let the process continue.

After some waiting, pushing, waiting, and more pushing, we were presented some options: hours more of exhausting pushing, forceps, or c-section. We hesitantly allowed Dr. Schmidtz to evaluate the possibility of using forceps. She said she thought they could help. Within minutes, our room was full and ready for our baby. The lights came on, the protective goggles were on, 3 nurses waited to attend to Nico right away. This time, he was coming for real. Valeria pushed a couple more times, and the giant salad tongs helped guide Nico's head to day light. I cut the cord (from around his neck) and he was out! The next 5 seconds were the scariest of my life. Our baby flopped into the Dr's arms and his cone-shaped head was not crying. The nurses grabbed the baby, cleared his mouth and nose. We heard him cough! Valeria and I hugged and cried; he was here.

Sitting in the hospital 2 days later, Nico's birthday seems so long ago. He is looking bigger and healthier every hour. Mom has lost the possessed look from her eyes. I am saddened to realize that we mistakenly thought labor was the hard part. This first week has been filled with miracles, emotion, new relationships, and so much learning. It was also been empty of sleep, rest and peacefulness. I wouldn't trade this feeling for anything.

Valeria is recovering from a draining labor, experiencing her body start the transition to not-pregnant, and learning to breastfeed. I am starting to wonder when her body will get a break from this all out assault. My mom joked that we won't get a break for 18 years! I think she is right.

I feel completely exhausted until I am holding a sleeping Nico and watching over his resting mother. The only thing I can do for them is hold the baby and let mommy rest. It makes me so happy and proud and powerful to be with my family.

As I wrap this up from home, Nico is 5 days old. Mommy is feeding him with ease in her rocking chair. We are finally getting some rest, and starting the rest of our lives. It is amazing when I read the first paragraphs of this account. I barely remember the pain, confusion, and frustration that overwhelmed me just a couple days ago. We can vividly remember the miracle that happened and how happy we were to hold Nico for the first time. Amazing how that works. Good thing, too, or else we would be adopting from now on!

We love and miss all of our family and friends. It has been amazing to learn all these things on our own, but can't help but miss the support and presence of you guys. Hope everyone gets to meet and fall in love with Nico very soon!