Baby Scott

It is a big day when you sell your first house. The day is even bigger if you have your first child a few hours later. Take away the epidural and add in a Posterior birth and you could argue that your big day was nothing short of harrowing.With so much going on, there are only two ways to provide an adequate account:
1) A chronology
2) A non-linear storyline laden with flash-backs and dream sequences

If this blog becomes a Broadway Musical, I vote for #2. Until then, we'll stick with #1.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20
Our house goes on the market in the afternoon.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21
R goes to the baby shower held by several of her friends.

SUNDAY, APRIL 22
We sort through all the baby clothes that we've been given, putting the newborn-size clothes in a dresser, and packing the remaining sizes into three boxes for easy access.

MONDAY, APRIL 23 (WEEK 38)
We get calls from the realty office about two showings to take place in the evening. D takes the afternoon off from work to help R get the place ready to show, and we head off to the cheap theatre to watch a film (Night at the Museum) during the appointments. There are nine people in the theatre for the show.

TUESDAY, APRIL 24
We get another two calls from the realty office about upcoming appointments -- one for Tuesday night, one for Wednesday night. We decide to go out to "The Greek Souvlaki House" for the Tuesday-night special while the appointment takes place. We come back to the house to see our realtor coming out of it with a pair of prospective buyers. Later that evening we sign the agreement for a conditional sale on our house, returning home by about 9:30pm

We sit up until midnight hammering out a budget plan in Excel, basically plotting how to buy and sustain a house in Calgary worth double our current home while cutting our income down to almost nil. R spends most of the time prostrate on the couch because she is experiencing some "abdominal discomfort".

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25
By 12:30am D has fallen asleep, but the stomach pains are keeping R awake. She suspects Braxton Hicks contractions, since it is still 2 weeks until the due date.

D snaps from his slumber at 2:00am when he hears, "I think my water just broke."

For the next hour, D times R's contractions and consults with the triage desk at the Civic Hospital to decide whether it's time to come in. Between contractions (which are now coming 3-4 minutes apart, R directs him to items that still need to be packed into their hospital bag. The toiletries get lost in the bedsheets and never make it into the bag.

D runs exactly one red light on his way to a 3:45am arrival at the hospital, trouncing Google and MapQuest one more time with a new record of 4 minutes, 19 seconds (since he is already timing the length of the contractions, it is no real stretch to check his travel time). He will leave the car parked in the fire lane for the next two hours.




By 5:00am, the on-duty resident has determined that R is dialated to 6 or 7 centimeters. R is promptly moved to a delivery room, whereupon she is seized with an urge to push. She is progressing too quickly for an epidural, so she grits her teeth and pounds through the worst of the contractions with the aid of some laughing gas. A beautiful sunrise gradually floods the delivery room with lavender hues.

By 6:00am, she is fully dilated and has begun pushing with coaching from a nurse named Regina. D is right in the thick of it, helping as much as his inexperience will permit.

By 7:00am, the delivery seems to have hit a bottleneck. R is pushing well, but the baby is not progressing any further. The doctor is summoned when some bleeding begins. He immediately identifies the problem -- the child is coming face down instead of face up. He tries to turn the baby but it is too late in the game. With our permission, he carries out an episiotomy and the impasse is overcome.

Baby Scott is born at 7:34am with a cone-shaped head the likes of which D has never seen.

The doctor spends the next hour carefully stitching R back up, with D and Baby Scott sitting close at hand. When it's all over and done with, the nurse provides R with a dose of Morphine to dull the pain. Mother and son hit it off quite well with a successful initial attempt at feeding. Baby Scott spends the rest of the day between sleep and quiet introspection (his first night is another matter).

[Fade to Dream Sequence with ballerina nurses and cone-headed leprechauns...]