The story of Benny's birth,

as told by his Daddy, Dan,

with commentary from his Momma, Robin.

Sincere and heartfelt thanks for all of your hoorays and woo hoos. :)

It's late Tuesday. I spent most of the day at the hospital. I'm going to use this as a journal space for a while here. SO MUCH has happened in the last 36 hours. I feel an overwhelming urge to process it.

As many of you know, Robin spent the weekend in early labor. Mild contractions ebbed and flowed with little effect on her progress. Monday at 10 a.m. we saw her OB, who told us with some dismay that the weekend of contractions had not dilated her any further than 3 cm. The OB was concerned about the size of the baby. Robin's belly was, by this time, very, very large. Her recommendation was to go to the hospital and induce labor by breaking her water. We went home. Robin showered. I packed last minute stuff and made a quick snack for both of us. We left a big pile o' food for the kitties, locked up and headed to the hospital

It's amazing how easily one gives in to an offer of an induction on one's due date. It makes me sad that so many women have induced labors these days, but I can't really say that I don't understand the allure.

1:00p - Arrived. The nurses helped us get situated in the labor room. They checked Robin's vitals, strapped a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor on her. We sat around, waiting for the OB to arrive.

2:30p - Robin's OB arrived to induce labor. She ruptured the bag of waters with an amniohook. She wanted to give Robin pitocin (a synthetic version of oxytocin, the hormone that, among other things, stimulates contractions) but we asked her to hold off. We wanted to see if the water breaking would be sufficient induction to move things forward.

3:00 - A nurse performed an ultrasound, to estimate the fetal weight. Her estimate - 10 lbs. She acknowledged that it was "way off and high," owing to the fact that Benny's head was so low she couldn't get a good read on its circumference. We knew he was a big baby. But 10 lbs. seemed insanely off! Robin's contractions began to increase in frequency, duration and intensity. She requested a pain killer to take the edge off of the contractions. This was as much "drugs" as Robin had planned on taking. The drug they gave her, Stadol, did nothing to curb the pain, and its side effects only made matters worse. It's narcotic effects made Robin dizzy and withdrawn. She drew her head inside her arms and seemed incapable of talking above a whisper. She was making little sense when she spoke, and I could tell she was frustrated with her severely impaired ability to communicate. I encouraged her to breathe through the contractions, and the nurse told her that she needed to relax and slow her breathing down if she had any hope of dilating further.

The loopy effects of Stadol seemed to wear off after an hour. The contractions kept coming though. The breathing that we had learned in Lamaze, that we had practiced so earnestly was not helping. By this time, they had taken off the external fetal heart monitor and instead inserted an internal one. This made Robin very sad. She has always had a hard time with, in her words, "things sticking in me." (She initially refused an IV. Against her wishes, the nurse inserted one.) The internal heart monitor seemed so cruel. A small twist of red and green wires with a small plastic clamp that adhered to the baby's head with tiny metal teeth. When the doctor inserted the internal contraction monitor, Robin writhed in pain and cried.

I really think the internal contraction monitor was the cause of most of my pain throughout labor. At one point it had to be removed and a new one put in becasuse the wires had kinked and they weren't getting an accurate reading. I didn't want any internal monitors or an IV and did have conversations about that with the Dr at earlier appointments, but they insited that once you have been "induced' they must be able to monitor everything. There was no space for an argument to the contrary.

With each new procedure, Robin's hopes of natural childbirth were waning. She was quickly becoming a recipient of myriad wires and tubes that she never wanted, but somehow had become required. This undermined her sense of control. She started to doubt herself.

And I felt powerless. My wife was on a journey of steadily increasing pain. She was losing her sense of herself, her confidence, her belief in her ability to cope with the pain that had only begun to register. And, I could do nothing. I tried to calm her. I wiped her sweaty face with a cold wash cloth, fed her ice chips, talked her through the contractions that seized her body with such ferocity she would shake uncontrollably. The Stadol had rendered her hands and feet numb, a sensation that only amplified her anxieties.

I recall that the nurse offered the meds, so I'd requested a half dose, as the Dr. had said would be possible when we'd discussed it earlier, but the nurse said it wouldn't do anything at such a low dose (I'd originally asked if I could get Morphine, because I'd had it before and knew the effect it had on me, she insisted they only use Stadol because it's safer for the babies. I have yet to meet a single woman who has had a satisfactory result from Stadol). I didn't really want the meds but the pain was out of control and it had only been an hour. The Stadol was horrible, didn't take away any pain, but made me very drugged, unable to speak coherently, my hands and feet went numb (a very upsetting phenomena for me, as I suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome and have some circulation issues with my extremeties) The IV was in at a weird angle and was very painful and Dan kept leaning on that arm, but I couldn't make myself understood to get him off it. I truly just wanted to die to make it all go away. I don't think I even remembered that I was there to have a baby, I just wanted the bad people to stop hurting me.

Now, normally, when I feel powerless, I get angry. A seething. A crescendo of force that manifests itself in sharp words. But at this I wasn't angry. I was afraid. Inside I whimpered. I fought back tears. Seeing someone I loved so deeply in such pain was almost too much to bear. The fact that I could do nothing about it only made it worse.

Once these monitors were in, however, we had a better sense of what was going on. Whereas the external contraction monitor only told us the frequency and duration of contractions, the internal monitor actually registered the intensity, by measuring the pressure inside the uterus. I was instructed by the nurse to watch a set of green LED numbers, which gave me an indication of the intensity. With that gauge, I could tell Robin when they were coming (although she would know before I did) and, more importantly, I could tell her when they were subsiding. My ability to reassure her that they were "coming down" became my only assistant in her pain management.

Of course , he couldn't really know when they were ending, but I kept begging him to tell me when they would stop. I knew what transition labor was supposed to be like, I just had no idea that I would experience it through the entire labor. It never felt like pain from my uterus contracting, instead it was a burning in front of my pubic bone, as if I were being stabbed with a hot dagger. I think my sensitive cervix and uterus were trying to get the wires out.

Robin was getting tired. She begged for a break. At this point, contractions were coming every 3 minutes, as steady as waves at high tide. Some were small, short, climbing into the 40s. The small ones would go up incrementally...23, 24, 25, 26...peak at 40 or so and come down. Some would hit her like a punch, and numbers would leap up the scale...19, 20, 25, 32, 41, 65, 72, 75...as Robin would double over in pain, breathing in gulps and spurts, her face reddening. Some would come down as fast as they shot up. Still, others would build slowly and reach the 90s, ebbing into the 50s, then climbing again, and this would continue for a minute or so, two or three contractions fading into each other. These were the worst. Robin began to rely on the lull between them, and it was terrible when they piggy-backed each other with such ferocity.

At one point, Robin whimpered for her mother, and I placed a hasty call to her parents' house.

5:30p - Shortly after Robin's mom arrived, the nurse checked Robin's cervix. 4 centimeters. Nearly three hours of contractions had done nothing. The nurse told me that the pain was so intense, Robin was unable to relax. She was incapable of breathing slowly. At this point, she strongly recommended an epidural. She had hoped to weather the pain without such drastic measures. She felt like she was losing. That she was a failure. For Robin, assenting to an epidural was a sort of spiritual white flag. She initially resisted the idea, but the nurse fervently recommended it. 90% of women have epidurals, Robin. It will let you relax. It'll give you a break. It's OK. You can still push. We can adjust the strength of it so you can push. The nurse explained over contractions that were still hitting that they would do a modified epidural. It would remove the pain of contractions, but she'd still feel the pressure. When she was dilated, they'd scale back the meds so that she could feel enough to push. She'd still be able to push the baby out. It wasn't a total "surrender," as she had thought it would be.

I begged Dan "I don't want it, I don't want it... give it to me". No matter how much I hated getting an epidural, I didn't think I'd survive the ordeal without some relief from the constant pain.

The anesthesiologist burst into the room at about 6. When he saw Robin in the pain she was in, he asked the nurse "why did we not do this 2 hours ago?" He set to work immediately, amid the fray of the nurse and I trying to calm Robin down (and keep her still, so the anesthesiologist could set the epidural). After 15 minutes, he was done.

6:30p - By now, Robin had relaxed. The epidural had given her the rest she had cried out for. We watched the computer screen, where several jagged lines stretched across the screen. The top red line was Benny's heart rate. A line under that graphed Robin's pulse as well. At the bottom, a black line charted the ebb and flow of contractions - a permanent record of the green digits I had used as my advanced warning system only an hour before. I pointed to a particular variation in the black line. A sharp, jagged oscillation, like a rocky crag jutting out from snow. This contraction would have nearly incapacitated Robin. Now, she calmed conversed with us all through it.

This is why women get epidurals... they really can be lovely things. Once you have had several medical interventions, an epidural sometimes becomes a neccessary thing to help your body deal with the intrusion.

The nurse told me to take a break, go to the cafeteria, get some food. I didn't argue with her. It could be several hours until Robin was dilated further, although the nurse had seen some women go from 3 to 10 cm in an hour after an epidural. I took the elevator to the cafeteria to discover that...it was closed. I returned to the room and began to ask the nurse what I could order in when my friend C called. He and his girlfriend wanted to swing by and see how Robin was doing. They also offered to bring me food. Woo hoo! I met them in the cafeteria and we ate chicken and macaroni'n'cheese. It was cool. They came up to see Robin for a brief time and then took off.

7:00p - Shift change in labor and delivery. Our nurse up until this point, Lara, left. Her replacement, Nina, turned out to be every bit as awesome as she was for us. A word about nurses - they're angels. I cannot really describe how great these two women were. I could write a whole other story about them. Maybe I will. Dr. Salceda showed up again, to check on Robin. She was dismayed at the fact that Robin had opted for an epidural. As I mentioned before, sometimes an epidural takes away so much feeling that a woman not only cannot feel when to push, she has no desire to push. In this situation, sometimes the only choice is a c-section. The nurse calmly explained that the Stadol did nothing and that Robin was unable to progress. It seemed kind of inappropriate that the doctor, who had not been present for the past 3 hours of sheer hell, waltzed in after the epidural and expressed dismay. I had an urge to say, "Uh, you have no fucking idea what the last 3 hours of my wife's life have been like, now, do you?!" But I didn't. The nurse, of course, stood up for Robin, as she would do many times. Perhaps Dr. S's concern was because Robin had sat in her office two months ago, fervently reiterating her desire to only have an epidural under the direst of circumstances. And, perhaps she was concerned with Robin's ability and willingness to push what was certainly going to be a large baby through the canal. I'm sure she had her reasons for concern, some of them even beyond my comprehension.

At this time, Dr. S also mentioned that she was seriously concerned, based on the ultrasound results, that Robin might not be able to deliver Benny vaginally. Even if his head were to come out, his shoulders might be too big. If they were to get stuck, she would have to turn him around. This process had risks, including damaging the nerves in his arms, even causing his collarbone to break. These prospects made me shiver. We asked what the chances were of this happening. 1 to 2%, she said. I asked her for her recommendation: should we attempt vaginal delivery or opt for a c-section? The c-section would eliminate the risk entirely. I was worried at this, because I usually do a mild freak-out when doctors mention "risks of this and that" based on my perception of the generally accepted rule that you need not mention bad things unless there is a good chance they can happen. She did not give me a recommendation. She kept saying it was up to us. So, we decided to go for it. Robin mentioned that she knew that he was big, but she insisted that he was just long. She had been complaining of him kicking her under her ribs for the past month. She told me that she knew it would not be a problem. Dr. S had us sign a waiver, just to make sure. Whatever.

Nina rocked! I liked her much better than the first nurse, who seemed to be a little more on the Dr.'s side than mine. Nina had never seen a Dr. ask a patient to sign a consent to a vaginal birth and thought it was very strange. She continued to fight for me against the Dr. right until the end (and the Dr was horribly rude to her the entire time) In hindsight, I can see that Dr. S had been worried about the baby's size for several months, yet never done more than make jokes about how big I was getting. I was never concerned; Dan & I are both big people, one would expect us to have a big child.

She left, instructing the nurse to call her when Robin had dilated enough to be able to push, and had pushed enough for the head to be barely visible.

8:15p - My Dad and Stepmom called me on my cell phone to tell us they were in the waiting room. I walked out of the room to see my her in the hall, standing 5 feet from me, talking on her cell phone. Very LA moment. :) They came in to say hello. Robin was in good spirits at this point. Nina had checked Robin's cervix while I was greeting my folks. 9 1/2 centimeters! It was approaching go time. Robin was told to wait until she felt, in the words of the nurse, "like you've got to take a really big dump." That would signal that the head was sufficiently through the birth canal so that she could begin pushing.

8:45p - At this time, Robin began to feel like pushing. Everyone cleared out. The nurse got Robin into position and showed me how to support her leg and head. The nurse counted her off and Robin began. When Dr. S came by earlier, the nurse had slowed the flow of epidural fluid down, so that Robin began to regain feeling. With her energy renewed and her feeling restored, Robin began pushing really well. Nina was taken aback by how effective her pushes were. She told Robin that she expected that, at this rate, pushing might take another hour or so.

The next hour went by in a blazing instant. At some point, I caught a glimpse of head popping out and the Dr. was in shortly thereafter. She set herself up with a tray of instruments, scissors, scalpels, just in case. She mentioned that Robin might need an episiotomy.

I said "You aren't going to cut me??", and got a mumble in reply. What I really wanted to say was "Get away from me with those scissors!" In the end, after yanking on my perinium very hard, she did cut me, and I suffered a 3rd degree tear from it. I refer to it as a vaginal c-section. The epidural had worn off completely by the time she started stitching me up, so the anesthisiologist started pushing more meds. By the time they kicked in, she was done and I was numb from the waist down, with pins 'n needles prickling. It lasted for several hours, but at least it took a long time for me to feel the pain of what had been done. I had a hard time walking for over a week afterwards.

Robin continued pushing after the Dr. got situated.

9:54p - After several really good pushes, Benny's head was almost completely out. Nina told Robin that the next set of pushes would be the last she would need to do. In one last push, Benny came tumbling out. The Dr. caught him and placed him on Robin's belly. We were both so consumed by pushing that it sort of startled us to see this little person suddenly on Robin's belly!! I'll never forget the sound of his first cry. A gurgly, soft little cry. After 40 weeks, Robin's pregnancy was over.

And I exclaimed "Oh my God, it's a baby!!" Benny looked up at me with the most perplexed expression, as if to ask "What the Hell just happened!?" I will never forget that look.

I had expected that the moment that Benny came out, I would be overcome with emotion. Every time Robin and I watched a birth in Lamaze class, we cried with joy at the sight of a mother and father's first face-to-face connection with their child. Although I did cry a bit, I was consumed with a completely unexpected feeling of peace and calm. Even though there was still a lot going on in the room, two nurses rushing to assist the doctor in stitching Robin up (the doctor did perform an episiotomy, but Robin did tear quite badly as well), pediatric nurses waiting by to check vital signs and perform tests, it was just the three of us. For a few moments. It seemed very precious, like time stood still for just a few instants as Robin and I had the first opportunity to welcome our son into the world.

***** We were able to sit with Benny for about 45 minutes or so. The ped nurse, Anna, placed him in the baby warmer and checked him out. He sounded a bit congested so she used a small tube to clear out his breathing passages a bit. I was amazed at how little he fussed.

Eventually, I went out to greet my family. Robin's parents and her sister, my Dad and B (Mom #2). I chatted with them for a bit before letting them in the room - the scene after a birth is a bloody mess. It did not faze me whatsoever, but a placenta in a plastic tub on a table in the middle of a room hardly sets the atmosphere for warm family bonding!

I thought the placenta was kind of cool. The Dr. was a little concerned that one spot looked bumpy, that one of the symptoms of high blood pressure or toxemia, but my blood pressure had always been on the low side. The umbilical cord was about half as long as normal, explaining for me the strange itchy, tickly feeling I'd had inside just under my left ribs for about 4 months and the bumpy placenta; I think the short cord was pulling on it. I guess we are lucky he was big and couldn't move around much in there; one good flip wrapping the cord around the wrong way could have detached the whole thing.

My Dad was really funny. Cute even. He had his digital camera and snapped some pics of the three of us. Everyone was beside themselves with joy, and it was fun to witness our parents get the first taste of grandparenthood.

At about 11 pm, a nurse came to take Benny to the nursery. I accompanied him, and stayed with him for the weighing and measuring, his first bath and all the tests. After this, I said goodbye to the family and, after returning to the delivery room to collect all of our assorted belongings, met Robin in her recovery room down the hall.

Benny stayed in the room with Robin the whole time, save for occasional trips to the nursery. At about 2:30 a.m., I went home. We had a private recovery room, but the "bed" that they had told me I could sleep on was little more than a reclining chair. I opted to sleep in my own bed. Plus, I needed to feed the cats.

As I drove home, I began to realized that I was a father now. A Dad. Somebody's Daddy. A little 9 pound wiggler named Benny. Who was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Even though it was late and the streets were barren, I practiced my safe baby-on-board driving. Took turns slower. Succumbed to a yellow light, rather than maniacally blazing through it as I am prone to do.

The past few days have been a gradual uncovering of a new kind of conscience for me. An awareness of my new role. A new outlook on the world that began with the little pink line on the pregnancy test 38 weeks ago and that is just beginning to make sense.

It's taken me about 2 years to find some peace with Ben's birth. My episiotomy stitches got infected and recovery took a long time. I was very angry with the Dr. for everything, but most angry with myself for not standing up for what I needed. I've learned a lot from the experience and am now an advocate of a woman's right to a natural birth. We are now planning to have another child and it is my committment that this one be born in the comfort and peace of our home. I did get a perfect, healthy baby, now I want a birth that is perfect and healthy for me.