Childbirth, Round 1

I couldn't wait to go into labor with Jonathan. The thought consumed me from the moment he was term. Well, more from the second I knew he could survive life in the outside world. He didn't show up on his bright, sunny, Easter Sunday due date. I even had it circled on the calendar for him. Silly boy. When I showed up to church and was scolded for doing so, I knew life would be misery until the day he decided to make his grand appearance. I would go to the mall to take my mind off the empty nursery, just to have someone poke my belly and ask when I was due. "uh, last Sunday." I buried my head in shame and walked to Cold Stone.
I was about a week over when I had the office appointment that I had predetermined would be my last one. It was my first day meeting Dr. Brown, but I told him I was done. James swears there were threats and tie grabbing involved, but I don't remember anything like that. Just a very sweet, very big, very miserable Danielle that couldn't see her toes or the bottom half of her shirt. He must have had experiences like that before, because he wasn't phased a bit as he told me to arrive at St. Joe's at 4 o'clock that afternoon. We made a gloriously brief trip home, and had our last meal as a carefree twosome at KFC.
We stayed up that night in the hospital room, too excited to sleep, and played cards and daydreamed about what our son's face would look like. We didn't have any idea, because he buried it on every ultrasound I ever had. Somewhere around midnight I finally drifted off to sleep, only to wake up very wet 2 hours later. I couldn't believe it- my water broke! I sat there for a moment in silence, just enjoying the moment when it finally hit me I was going to be a mom. I pushed my call button, and a very rough sounding voice disturbed the splendor of the moment. James was waiting anxiously at my side, as we heard "What do you need?" "How dare she?!" was all I could think. "If I rang my button, that means I need my nurse!" I didn't want to tell some voice over a speaker that my water broke.
Once I was all settled in, I realized what labor was all about. It is a nice, little word that means you can't get comfortable, can't sleep, and all you are allowed to think about is how exhausted you are and how much work you have ahead of you. Very clever of them to just put that all in one, innocent-sounding word.
Labor was slow, at first, but toward the end everything picked up speed. I remember being miserable, especially when I was all ready to push but had to wait on my doctor. He had just gotten scrubbed up to do someone else's Cesarean. My nurse got me some nubain, which I will forever hold dear to my heart. It doesn't really take away the pain, but gosh it makes you sleepy. And it sure made me strange. 45 minutes later, when my doctor was finally present, I announced to him that I didn't have a shower that day and I wasn't wearing deodorant. He laughed and made some sort of a joke, at which point I started flapping my wings. "Cakaw! I'm a bird!" When my son was born, ten minutes later, I looked at him and beamed. "Look! He's purple!" No one understood why I sounded so excited. That was when the real misery hit. I was suddenly convinced, due to my altered state of mind, that the entire labor had been a dream. "I can't do it again. That was a dream, and I can't do that over again." It took awhile for me to believe everyone who told me it was real. I will never forget clutching that little boy like he would disappear if I didn't.
Somewhere around 7 that night, I was hit by a wave of guilt. "James! We haven't changed his diaper yet today! He's 5 hours old, and he is still wearing his diaper from birth!!" I wanted to cry I was so upset. Of course, he hadn't even peed yet. He was fine. But I felt terrible.
The whole night was kind of a blur. Jonathan was up every 2 hours for a feeding, which meant that I got exactly 90 minutes of sleep, then 30 minutes of wakefulness, the entire night long. I couldn't care less, I was still walking on a cloud. The next night was a lot more difficult. He was hungry, but sleep is a necessary component for milk to come in (sorry if that's TMI guys), so I had nothing to really offer him. We were up the entire night long. I think we maybe got 2 hours of sleep total, and that was only because I broke hospital rules and brought him in bed to sleep with me. I got another 45 minutes that morning, while James had most of his hand gnawed off by a very hungry baby. We went home, exhausted, that morning. In retrospect, I wish I had sent him to the nursery for at least part of the second night. I was so darned scared the nurses would ignore him. Silly new mom.
I think it's somewhat traumatic to come home from the hospital. When you are there, all your meals are made for you, your bed is made for you, all you really have to do is get up to go to the bathroom and make sure you take care of your baby. Once you get home, responsibility just smacks you in the face.
James was in the middle of classes ending, so Jonathan and I spent about 4 hours alone together. He was starving, I was exhausted. Instead of feeling sweet relief when James was 10 minutes from being due home, I started thinking, "Jonathan would be just fine until then if mommy accidentally drowned washing her face in the sink...." Of course, I couldn't think of a way to accidentally drown, and James was home before I knew it. I remember just hugging him, bawling my little eyes out. He held me and reassured me, and told me to go ahead and get some sleep. "But Jonathan is starving!" I protested. "He needs me!" In his very wise way, he explained that Jonathan could not feasibly starve to death in 60 minutes. I believed him and gladly turned over our young son to his daddy. I awoke a little while later feeling like the energizer bunny. And I finally had milk! Jonathan ate like it was his last meal (which is funny, since it was his first), and finally passed out from contentment. Best day ever.