Zavier’s Baby Story {MommyA-Z Flashback}

Here’s a MommyA-Z flashback from 3.23.11 of Zavier’s baby story, back when I referred to him as “Baby Bear.”  I can’t believe that two years have already gone by…he surprises me everyday – just like how he surprised me with his grand entrance into this world.  Enjoy!

5 days before Zavier was born @ about 37 weeks

On Tuesday morning at work, I started feeling those same faux-tractions (i.e., Braxton Hicks) that I had when I had during my failed Mission to Induce Labor this past Saturday.  I tried to brush it off because I knew I was impatiently obsessing over Baby Bear’s arrival and I didn’t want to excite myself.  I tied up all my loose ends at work just in case and took the afternoon off to take Arielle to see the doctor.  It turned out that she had an eye infection and ear infection.  On the way home, the contractions got a little bit worse so I called Jeffrey and told him to leave work before traffic hit.  By the time Arielle and I got home, ate lunch, and had our nap, the contractions were gone.  I felt a little embarrassed that I had another false alarm and made Jeffrey leave work early, but at least I didn’t make us go to the hospital again this time.

At 1 a.m., I woke up to contractions that actually hurt.  I jumped into the shower to try to relax a little, but the contractions remained steady and grew stronger, about 4 minutes apart lasting 45-60 seconds.  I woke up Jeffrey at 1:30 and he started getting everything ready.  There was no way I was going to go to the hospital and have another false alarm, so we waited until the contractions lasted 1 hour until we called the doctor at 2 a.m..  They were on vacation and the backup doctor was not returning our call, so we went ahead to drop off Arielle and Coconut at HouMel’s house and made our way to the hospital.

The only thing I remember about the drive to the hospital was, “This is the longest ride ever. Really?! Jeffrey is only driving the speed limit.  Hurry up!!”  I think he’s pretty immune to emergency medical situations since he’s a paramedic so he was perfectly calm the entire time.  Jeffrey parked illegally at the front entrance and promised the security guard that he would come right back and move the car after he dropped me off at L&D.  As he wheeled me up to the 3rd floor, he thought it would be fun to role play as if he were at work in the ER wanted me to pretend that I was one of his patients.  So he started asking me questions like, “Oh, is this your first baby? So, do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”  I tried my best to play along, but I was in too much pain.  We got to the labor room and he helped me change into my hospital gown in the bathroom.  By this time, the contractions were hitting me really strong and I really really had to poop.  Jeffrey wrestled me off the toilet and guided me to the bed, then he left to move the car.

From that point on, the pain was so intense that I could only yell out bits of words here and there.  The nurse came in and I shouted things like, “EPIDURAL!” but she said she needed to run some tests first to see if I was a good candidate for an epidural.  She told me I was about 5 cm dilated, but that this would go really fast.  She proceeded to attempt to strap on all the monitoring devices, but she only got as far as the blood pressure monitor.  Next thing I knew, I was screaming, “WATER BROKE!  WHERE’S DOC?!!! WHERE’S DAD?!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!”  Then, the baby pushed his way through and was out on the hospital bed.

It all happened so fast – my water broke at 3:00 a.m. and the baby was born at 3:01 a.m.  By the time Jeffrey came back from moving the car, he had no idea that he missed the entire thing.  He walked into a room and saw a flurry of nurses, a doctor sitting at the foot of my bed, and the baby being examined on a warmer in the corner of the room.  He was able to snap a few pictures of the baby before they whisked him off to the NICU to run some tests.  They were worried that the baby was in distress from coming into the world so quickly.  He had the cord wrapped tightly around his neck twice. Also, had taken a crap inside the bag of water so he had poop in his nose and mouth when he was born so they were worried that he had gotten poop into his lungs.

By 6 a.m., they let us visit our baby in the NICU where the nurse was beaming about his progress and told us he was a champ.  I finally got to hold him and feed him, then he was released from the NICU and stayed with me in my recovery room.  We were eve able to take his newborn photos that morning.  The following day, Baby Zavier and I were able to go home to be with big sister Arielle on her 2nd birthday.