Coen's birth story, as told by his aunt

Teeeny tiny
Originally uploaded by MizVoid.

We arrived Friday night thinking the birth wouldn’t be until Tuesday because the hospital changed their mind. So we kinda lingered around until Monday morning: did some laundry, put together swings, slings and such and just kinda sat on our hands waiting for the little dude. Monday morning, the boys go off to work and about an hour later Sis gets a call from her doctor.

“Didn’t I tell you I wanted you to be induced on Monday? I’m calling the hospital right now. If you don’t hear from us again at noon, call back.” So yea, we kinda looked at each other in panic and Sis called BIL to come home at noon, just in case.

BIL decided to come home now and good thing. About 45 minutes after the doctor called, the hospital called saying they had a room for her. Sis was in the shower and when BIL told her the news she didn’t believe him. BIL & I look at each other and scream and just start to scramble. He loads the car, I finish the crib bumper and once Sis’s hair is dried we rush to the car. Traffic sucked on the way to the hospital but I imagine that was just our nerves.

When we arrived they had us sit and wait while they got her room ready for her. Once we got back there, she changed and the funniest nurse ever comes in. Mostly it’s a waiting game. She is not dialated and the doctor knows they want a Halloween baby so we wait. They tell her later they will be doing a EASY Balloon Catheter to thin her cervix and get her dialated, but there is nothing easy about it.

So we watch horror films and visit. I leave they room as they insert the balloon and come back to find out while they were doing it, her water broke on it’s own. She is also 1 cm dialated. So they take the catheter back out and wait. She will be put on pitocin later.

Fast forward a few hours and the pitocin is making her contractions right on top of each other, however, Coen’s heart rate dips from 133 to 70 every time she has one. They lower the Pitocin, take her off completely, put her back on…no doing. Her cervix is still 1 cm and they don’t like how Coen is reacting.

I try to stay out of the room but I really want to be in there. However, I can tell I’m annoying Sis with my fascination with the contraction monitor and she’s in pain. So we gather in the waiting room.

Around 8:30 p.m. we get word they will be doing a c-section. We rush back to gather our belongings and give them a smooch.

What feels like hours makes us nuts so the Granny’s and I pretend to make coffee outside the operating room and get to hear the first cry! At 9:13 p.m. they play the Lullaby song over the intercom and it’s official!

The doctor comes out thumbs up and we finally relax.

About 10 minutes/hours/decades later they wheel Sis out, followed by BIL. One by one we get to go visit them and the baby. He’s tiny and perfect and has orang-ish blonde wavy hair.

He’s also stolen my heart.