Lucy Frances Woestehoff

Born November 22nd, 2009 at 1:31pm

6lbs 13oz

20 1/4″

And it’s a false alarm. Again.

Well, that Friday, the 20th, Mary got a healthy dose of narcotics for some of the pain she was feeling. The baby was just pushing “bone against bone”, and apparently that hurts quite a bit.

I learned how to read the “contract-o-grapher” (the thing that shows a graph of every contractions duration and intensity). During one, I remember telling her that she was having a big contraction, she looked at the monitor and responded “holy f I am”, but didn’t really feel it. Crazy. She still hadn’t really felt any contractions that were bad, and they were far enough apart where the doctor sent us home.

Very quickly I learned that kids do one thing very well. Waste their parent’s gas.  Home we went late in the evening.

The PreLabor

It was Friday, November 20th. I literally had one hour left of work. Would I make it? Of course not.

At this point, we had it down to a routine. Grab the stuff, throw it in a bag, and put it in the car. Drive, with some respect to the speed limit and park in the ER parking lot. That last part is the key. If you park in the ER lot, you don’t have to pay for parking. They only validate if you have the baby, so we parked there just in case. This time, we didn’t need to, but it took us three days to figure that out.

I was supposed to be done at 8 p.m.  Very shortly after I sent the other Manager to lunch, I had to call her back and tell her I had to leave. I’m really lucky, because no one really gets mad at anyone who is having a baby – regardless of how annoying it can be to constantly cover for someone else. My wife and I ended up at the hospital around 8:30 p .m.

Little did we know, we’d be there for a few days. More to come shortly.

It’s (almost) Time.

When labor is imminent, you’ll know. Your job as the bystander is fairly simple – show up. Sure, we paid to take the childbirth class through our hospital. It was absolutely worth it. But the one thing that they said the partner has to do is easy – just show up. $150 later, I feel a little cheated, but at least we got a tour of the Hospital (which was actually the best part).

Ok, so showing up is the basics. With labor, there is not a whole lot for anyone to do besides doctors and the future mother. You can’t make the pain go away, you can’t make time go by faster, and you sure as hell don’t want to get involved in figuring out how dilated she is.

There are plenty of things a partner can do however. There are so many uncontrollable things in the room, but your job is to focus on those you can control, and let go of the rest. What can you control? The environment. Environmental changes can make a world of difference in how she perceives life is treating her. What is in an environment that she likes? That’s a good conversation to have beforehand. Things to think about would be all related to our senses. Bright lights or dim lights, music or silence, fragrances or clean air, warmth or cool, even wet or dry. The most important thing is to give one or two options, not open ended questions. Women in labor rightfully have lots going through their minds – by giving them two or three choices instead of just asking them “what do you want” is far more productive.

Making her comfortable is our number one priority. Having a room that is too hot, or even too cold, can greatly affect her mood. Most rooms now have independent controls for their thermostats. Our room, being November in Minnesota, was naturally too cold. Turing up the heat was (eventually) one of the best things we could have done. It made Mary, and me, much more comfortable.

We had packed an iPod speaker set for music. We used it, but not as much as we thought. Part of that could have been the fact that we went into the delivery room at around midnight, and tried resting for the next 10 hours before Lucy was born. Moral of the story? No matter how much you prepare, you won’t be prepared.

Some women respond to fragrances. Always check with the hospital of what you can and can’t bring with, but some will allow you to bring just about anything. It may be best to have a plan ready. Be careful though, if you thought women during pregnancy were capable of mood swings, that culminates with labor and delivery. It’s much easier to turn an iPod off if she doesn’t want to hear music than it is to clear a room of pomegranate air freshener that she quickly despises.

Hydrotherapy is another method of relaxation and comfort that you may find appealing. Most hospitals will have large soaking tubs and showers for her to use. It’s amazing the effects that this treatment has on some women. Some even bring the large balance ball in with them to the shower.

As I said earlier, you can plan and prep as much as you’d like. Once you actually get in the room though, be ready for anything.

Getting There

By week 37, most women, my wife included, want nothing to do with being pregnant. They want everything to do with holding their baby, but getting from A to B gets more stressful every day.

I was at work. My phone rang in my pocket, and the vibration wasn’t great enough for me to notice immediately. Of course, my boss, my boss’ boss, my boss’ boss’ boss and someone from our corporate office were all in the building at the time. It was actually our Market Manager (my boss’s boss), who showed me a text message saying “Are you by Matt? Mary’s trying to call him and he’s not answering”.

Within about 45 seconds, I was out the door, keys in hand. I made my way, gingerly observing most traffic laws, to pick up my now contracting wife.

We arrived at the hospital, found our way to PETU (Perinatal Evaluation and Treatment Unit, also known as “the place that isn’t as comfortable as the place you have the baby”). Staring blankly at the nurse at the desk, she realized why we were there, put us in one of the rooms as we waited for the doctor to seen us.

It was a busy night for almost-laboring mothers. We went in the smallest, most cramped, and most non-noiseproof room they have. How do we know? Wasn’t the first visit, and we could definitely hear how the other four moms-to-be were doing. One was beyond unhappy, and voiced it. Well, maybe she was happy, but I couldn’t understand what language she was shouting. Luckily, Mary was basically quiet during every single contraction, just horribly uncomfortable.

After about six hours of sitting on monitors and checking out her stats, “well, it is past midnight and you guys aren’t going any faster, so let’s give you two liters of saline, drug you up a bit and stop those contractions” the doctor said.

False alarm. Blah.

Home we went, and back to work in four hours for me.

Getting the Nursery Ready

It’s a right of passage. Every new or expecting father has to set up the furniture in the nursery. Ours wasn’t that bad. To an extent. We decided we’d need a crib, rocker, changing table and a dresser.

Four pieces of furniture. Easy.

Or so I thought.  Apparently this “right of passage” is such, because crib manufacturers intentionally write horrible instructions. Let’s just say it took awhile, and plenty of cursing during the process. Eventually, I had it all together, and life was good.

The dresser? About 24 different pieces of wood, all of them different, and none of them labeled. Great. Another few hours passed, and I finished it. Life was good.

Oddly, the glider chair and ottoman were the easiest to put together, even though they had the most complex of pieces. Probably because it only had two pieces really.

The changing table was fairly easy. It still took about an hour.  In total? I’d say I spent about six hours putting everything together. It’d be easier if they made better directions, labeled pieces, and had one length of screw instead of two lengths that were about 1/16th of an inch difference.

Then again, it could have been overly hard because I was hung over. I guess we’ll never know.

The First Big Scare

“Hey it’s Chris, can you come pick Mary up from work? She isn’t feeling well.” It’s a sentence that you don’t want to hear any day, but when your significant other is pregnant, it gets emphasized about ten fold. Is she just not feeling well? Morning sickness? Fatigue? Or is it something worse? All of those cross your mind as you put the pedal down and make your way to her rescue.

I arrived to pick her up, and all she could do was give me the “embarrassed because I’m a pansy” look. She’d been cramping up, and it hadn’t gone away. It was time to take her to the doctor, regardless of her stubbornness. With that, we quickly departed and made for our way to urgent care. Upon arriving, we learned something that came in handy later on. Pregnant women come first. We were shuttled to the front of the line, and immediately seen by a doctor. The doctor consulted the OB doctor that was on call, and before we knew it, we had instructions to go to the hospital for an ultrasound.

Call your parents. If this, or anything remotely similar happens to you, I can suggest nothing less than to call your parents and let them know. I say this for two reasons. One, they’ll rush to your aide and keep you company. Two, if something was wrong and you didn’t tell them the instance you knew, well, you’d be the only 28-year old that gets grounded.

We were lucky. It turns out everything was fine. Plus, we were lucky enough to see our little seahorse. That early in the stage of things (about 10 weeks), it is hard to determine what anything is. As long as something was there, we would be thrilled.

Throughout the whole pregnancy, Mary’s favorite sound has been hearing the babies heart beat. The quick “whahwhwhahwwhahw” sound that you’ll soon learn to love does nothing but soothe a concerned mother-to-be. It also helps the partner realize just how real this is. There’s a human being inside there somewhere.

And it’s most likely your fault.