So when you're expecting a second baby, the question is what to do with your first when the big day comes. That's why I asked my parents to come two weeks before the expected delivery date. I thought it was enough.
It wasn't.
When I started having contractions that Friday evening two and a half weeks before the due date, they weren't that strong but they were steady at five minutes apart. After three hours of steady contractions I started to think that maybe I should go to the hospital to get checked out.
Our Plan B in case the baby came early was for my in-laws to come in from Normandy. It would be a two hour drive so we called them just so they wouldn't be suprised should they receive a call from us in the middle of the night. They decided to come straight away.
Which made the fact that I wasn't in labor a bit of a shame. Tired from their two hour drive in the middle of the night and for their two hour drive back to Normandy, my in-laws bid us farewell Saturday morning.
That evening I started to have contractions again. Having already cried wolf the night before I went to bed only it started to get pretty painful. The scenario of looking like an asshole if I wasn't in labor started to look better than the scenario where I had a baby crowning in bed.
In major deja-vu style, I took a taxi to the hospital only this time they confirmed that I was in labor. Four centimeters dialated so they admitted me. By this time it was 3am when my husband called his parents to come so he could be with me at the hospital.
Meanwhile the mid-wife asked me of I wanted an epidural. With pleasure I said as I sat in the hospital room in pain and alone. Sure she said, if you could just give me your blood test results.
Flash black to Friday morning when I asked husband to pick them up for me. When I asked for them later that day he said he hadn't had time to pick them up. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time to wait till Monday since the baby wasn't due for another two weeks and a half.
Um I don't have them I said. To which she replied that I couldn't have the epidural without them.
Words can not describe what I was feeling at this moment in pain and alone. See, with my first baby I toyed with the possibility of childbirth without an epdiural. I had no such delusions with the second. I definitely was not prepared for god knows how many hours of pain and did I mention I was alone?
The look on my face must have expressed my current state of mind because the mid-wife went to see if she could put a rush job on the blood work. Fortunately she could and it would take forty-five minutes. You couldn't imagine my relief.
Turns out forty-five minutes is a long time when you have contractions every five minutes and you're by yourself. I was relieved when the anesthesiologist finally came.
After he stuck the giant needle in me he summoned the mid-wife and some other people to come and have a look while going on and on about something in complicated medical french jargon. All I could make out of what he was saying was "rare". Freaked out, I moved all parts of my body to make sure I wasn't paralyzed somewhere.
Everything ok I asked. The mid-wife told reassured me it was. Turns out it was more difficult than usual to put in the epidural but that it was fine. Couldn't they have lead with everything is fine and then go on and on about the medical rarity and calling everyone over to look?
Anyways with the pain removed I concentrated on the status of my husband's presence at the hospital. Husband assured me his parents were on their way. I casually inquired from the mid-wife what time she thought they baby would come. She estimated early morning which corresponded to the estimation of when my in-laws would get to Paris.
So the next hours consisted of me comparing the increase of my dialation to the decrease of the distance my in-laws were from Paris and doing complicated math to reassure myself I wouldn't be having this baby alone.
Fortunately husband came around 8am. Baby came at 11:42am. A beautiful baby boy.
It wasn't.
When I started having contractions that Friday evening two and a half weeks before the due date, they weren't that strong but they were steady at five minutes apart. After three hours of steady contractions I started to think that maybe I should go to the hospital to get checked out.
Our Plan B in case the baby came early was for my in-laws to come in from Normandy. It would be a two hour drive so we called them just so they wouldn't be suprised should they receive a call from us in the middle of the night. They decided to come straight away.
Which made the fact that I wasn't in labor a bit of a shame. Tired from their two hour drive in the middle of the night and for their two hour drive back to Normandy, my in-laws bid us farewell Saturday morning.
That evening I started to have contractions again. Having already cried wolf the night before I went to bed only it started to get pretty painful. The scenario of looking like an asshole if I wasn't in labor started to look better than the scenario where I had a baby crowning in bed.
In major deja-vu style, I took a taxi to the hospital only this time they confirmed that I was in labor. Four centimeters dialated so they admitted me. By this time it was 3am when my husband called his parents to come so he could be with me at the hospital.
Meanwhile the mid-wife asked me of I wanted an epidural. With pleasure I said as I sat in the hospital room in pain and alone. Sure she said, if you could just give me your blood test results.
Flash black to Friday morning when I asked husband to pick them up for me. When I asked for them later that day he said he hadn't had time to pick them up. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time to wait till Monday since the baby wasn't due for another two weeks and a half.
Um I don't have them I said. To which she replied that I couldn't have the epidural without them.
Words can not describe what I was feeling at this moment in pain and alone. See, with my first baby I toyed with the possibility of childbirth without an epdiural. I had no such delusions with the second. I definitely was not prepared for god knows how many hours of pain and did I mention I was alone?
The look on my face must have expressed my current state of mind because the mid-wife went to see if she could put a rush job on the blood work. Fortunately she could and it would take forty-five minutes. You couldn't imagine my relief.
Turns out forty-five minutes is a long time when you have contractions every five minutes and you're by yourself. I was relieved when the anesthesiologist finally came.
After he stuck the giant needle in me he summoned the mid-wife and some other people to come and have a look while going on and on about something in complicated medical french jargon. All I could make out of what he was saying was "rare". Freaked out, I moved all parts of my body to make sure I wasn't paralyzed somewhere.
Everything ok I asked. The mid-wife told reassured me it was. Turns out it was more difficult than usual to put in the epidural but that it was fine. Couldn't they have lead with everything is fine and then go on and on about the medical rarity and calling everyone over to look?
Anyways with the pain removed I concentrated on the status of my husband's presence at the hospital. Husband assured me his parents were on their way. I casually inquired from the mid-wife what time she thought they baby would come. She estimated early morning which corresponded to the estimation of when my in-laws would get to Paris.
So the next hours consisted of me comparing the increase of my dialation to the decrease of the distance my in-laws were from Paris and doing complicated math to reassure myself I wouldn't be having this baby alone.
Fortunately husband came around 8am. Baby came at 11:42am. A beautiful baby boy.
