My oldest grandson turns six years old today! Wow! Hard to believe. Elias is the funniest kid. You may have read some of the things I've posted about him here and here.
Elias is the only grandchild I've actually been in the room with as they were born. I think I prefer the waiting room! Eli's dad was in the army and overseas, so I was elected to drive Holly to the hospital. Poor Holly. After what happened with her first child's delivery, she wasn't taking any chances. We made several (read 4 or 5) false alarm trips to the hospital. Maybe we could call them dry runs! Now you have to understand--being military meant using the army hospital on post. Which meant either driving her car or jumping through a bunch of hoops to take mine--stopping at the visitor's center to sign in and get a pass, having the car inspected for bombs, etc. Just your routine stuff.
I think it was about 2:30am when I got the call that it was time. My reaction was probably a lot like the townspeople when the little boy cried wolf. Though if I'd been thinking, I would have realized she was three days overdue. So I head over to pick Holly and Melody up. Then back to my house to leave Melody with Grandpa. Holly stayed in the car while I took Melody inside and made a pallet for her on the living room floor. I decided to get a book in case things took a while. Oh, and I might want a snack and something to drink. So I filled a water bottle and grabbed a cereal bar. Better use the bathroom while I'm here.
Finally make it back to the car. Holly is unusually quiet. We drive the 20 or so minutes to the hospital, me chattering all the way, her hanging onto the "oh crap" strap above the passenger door. We get to the ER and they send her back to Labor and Delivery. The woman is quite slow in getting her admitted and Holly tells me she has to use the bathroom. The dumb army nurse won't let her use the bathroom right behind the desk "because she hasn't been admitted yet". So we head back down the hall to the ER bathroom. I wait outside the stall. She tells me she can't stand up from the toilet. I tell her we really don't want to have to fish the baby out of the toilet and short of crawling under the door (which I'd really rather not do), I can't get in there with her. She is finally able to reach the latch and open the door. I squat in front of the toilet with my back to her and she puts her hands on my shoulders and stands up with me as I stand. Back to L&D.
They get her settled in a room and check to see her progress. I'm sure my face drained of all color when the nurse said Holly was dilated to 8. They couldn't give her anything because she was too far along. To Holly, a labor pain and a paper cut register about the same on her pain scale. I was pretty sure I didn't want to be anywhere near for the next couple of hours!
She did really well considering. Elias was born about an hour and 15 minutes later. It probably wouldn't have taken that long if he had gotten turned the right way. There were five women in the room (including Holly and myself) and one male nurse. The man was the only one who said anything to Holly about screaming. He actually told her it couldn't hurt that badly. I told Holly afterward that she was nicer than me. I would have motioned him closer, grabbed his "family jewels", twisted and said "now that can't hurt that badly". Okay, maybe I wouldn't have--but I sure would have wanted to!
And THEN they asked me to cut the cord! Anybody know why oh why I wore a sweater? Can I get a chair? Maybe a fan? Smelling salts?
2 comments:
great story! happy bday elias!
Drama! I don't think I want to be in any delivery room but my own. Well, if I could get out of that one too, I would!
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