Sunday morning, July 1, Blossom began to have contraction or two. They were pretty mild and didn’t stop her from going shopping down in Framingham for an item or 3. She came back, had some food, and rested a bit. By 6:00 PM she thought she might be in false labor so we decided to time a few contractions. I told her to not be in labor because I was still working on some things, but nobody ever listens to me. We timed them for an hour and they were around 15 minutes apart, but very irregular in duration and frequency. So we took a breather and waited to see what happened. They kept coming, and around 11:45 PM they were much more intense so we decided to start timing again. Now they were about 6 minutes apart and they hurt. This was it!
From midnight to 2:00 am we labored. Blossom was a champ, managing to deal with the pain of the contractions really well. I helped coach her with the breathing, because when those mothers hit she wasn’t thinking about anything else. I was told that was helpful, which was a bonus for me to actually be able to contribute something. The weird thing was that although the duration of the contractions was pretty consistently between 45 – 60 seconds, the duration varied from 5 – 10 minutes. So around 2:15 AM I decided that we should try and get some naps in and see if the labor had progressed any in an hour or two. I set Blossom up on a big waterproof pad on the couch (precious couch!) and after she was settled I went up to our bedroom. I lay down, turned off the light, and 30 seconds later my phone rang. “Hi it’s Blossom. These contractions are close and more intense. Please come downstairs.†By which I knew she meant get your ass down here and let’s get moving.
We timed contractions from 3:00 AM to 3:30 Am, and then Blossom new it was time to go to the hospital. She called to make sure, and by 3:45 AM we had her wrapped her up in her blue blankie, grabbed the bag, set the pad up in the passenger seat and started the 15 minute drive to Emerson Hospital. She was pretty uncomfortable in the seat and was having to roll over on her side to have contractions. Once I had to pull over so she could lean against the side of the car, which was a little awkward. We got to the hospital and lo and behold the one whole pregnant mom parking space was open! We had a contraction in the parking lot, and made it to the buzzer at the hospital entrance. I rang and a pleasant voice said hello. This threw me for a loop, because is their really any other reason I would be ringing your bell at 4 in the morning? My first instinct was to say “Hi can we come in please and have a baby?†but I choked it back and then had nothing to say. Blossom prompted me to say her name; it’s always nice to have a woman in labor thinking more clearly than you.
A very nice nurse named Ellen got us settled in a room, checked Blossom out and decided she was a keeper. We officially got the hospital at 4:20, and Blossom was 3 – 4 cm dilated. She was laboring away but Dr. Travias was keeping a close eye on the baby because his heart rate would drop whenever she had a contraction. He put her on oxygen which helped out Baby quite a bit. She started to feel a lot of pain from the pressure the baby was exerting as it dropped, but they wouldn’t give her any narcotics because of the heart rate thing. By 6:00 AM she was 8cm, and decided that the pressure was too much and it was epidural time. They got her hooked up and then she was cruising. By 7:00 AM she was 9cm and they decided to break her water.
After a bit Dr. Kondylis and Nurse Carol came on shift, which was nice because Dr. Kondylis is Blossom’s regular obgyn. We hung out for about an hour and a half then, waiting for something to happen. And that something turned out to be Baby’s heart rate taking a nose dive. Apparently Blossom had been at 10cm for a bit and Baby decided it was time to come out. So the doc and a bunch of nurses came blasting in and decided it was time to push right now! So Blossom started pushing and that settled Baby down. Her contractions weren’t coming all that frequently, so Dr. Kondylis and Nurse Carol and I had a number of conversations about work and technology and kids and other stuff over Blossom in the stirrups. Surreal.
After a bit of pushing Dr. Kondylis exclaimed that Baby had a lot of hair! As he crowned we all ooh’ed over the hair, and Blossom decided she wanted a mirror so she could see too. After a mighty pushing session she glanced up at the end and caught an eyeful of a bunch of black hair. We were nearly there, and after a big push baby’s head came out. Then two seconds later the rest of him shot out like a champagne cork.
They rushed him over to the warming table and the pediatrician worked him over. He was a little sluggish with the breathing so they gave hime a shot to counteract any effects of the epidural. When he was in good shape they brought him back to Mama for a snuggle. Then it was back to the table for some more medical stuff.
Isaac Gabriel Jamieson was born at 10:21 AM on July 2, 2007. He weighed 6lbs 1oz and was 19 inches long.
