Happy Birthday, Elsie!

Today is Elsie's birthday. Elsie Robinett is my dear mother-in-law. She is 91 today. We had dinner with her and her four remaining children (we still miss you, Marilyn!)

This is my husband, Jackie, sitting with Elsie just before we ate. The wonderful meal was prepared by Sharon and Carolyn! Thank you, ladies!

And Happy Birthday, Grandma Elsie! We love you!

Transport Tryouts or Bathtub Hubbub

Boy oh boy! I know, I haven't posted in two weeks. I've been thinking about different possibilities for posts, such as the completed quilt that I've been working on for four (yes, four!) years for Emily, or the wonderful radishes and strawberries that are coming out of our garden.

But what I really want to write about is the birth that happened two days ago. So I will.

I was called at 12:30 am by Betty (not her real name) to let me know her water had just broken. Everything was good. The water was clear, baby was moving, no contractions -- yet.

So I told her to see if she could go back to sleep. I tried to. It never works for me. She called again at oh, 1:30 to 2 am, I can't remember exactly when. She was now having contractions every 5 minutes, and no, she couldn't sleep. Uh huh. I couldn't either. But I didn't go to her house yet. She still sounded cheerful. First-time mom. Just a little early.

At 3 am, when Umbert (not his real name) called, I could hear Betty in the background, really working with the contractions, and she had two in the brief conversation that he and I shared. Ok, now it's time to go!

So I got there at 3:15. At 3:30, I check her and she's already at an 8! Wow! Fast for a first-time mom. By 6 am, she's pushing hard. She pushes for an hour and a half before she poops out. She's pushing with pain every time. It's hard to keep going when there's pain with the pushing. There's a bit of cervix that keeps slipping down over the baby's head and she pushes against it every time. Ouch! I try to push the cervix out of the way for her, but the baby's head is so molded that the cervix just slips right back down. It's not much cervix, just 1-2 mm thick, but enough to cause her to give up.

She wants to go to the hospital for pain relief. So we go. The problem is, the hospital won't give pain relief when you're completely dilated. So we stayed at the hospital for a whopping 20 minutes, then Betty signed out "Against Medical Advice" and we left.

The problem at this point is that she's been "complete" since 6 am, and it's now 10 am, and the contractions haven't quit, she just hasn't been pushing since 7:30 or so. Baby is fine. Mom is fine, but hurting with every expulsive contraction every 4-5 minutes. Really ouch! I mention before we leave the hospital that I have a daughter in this town. She has an apartment we might borrow, instead of having another 45-minute drive back home. Surprisingly, Betty takes me up on it!

Now I have to call Emily. Emily is thunderstruck (weirded out -- she's only 20 years old), but responds by calling me when I text her the following message: "Where are you? We need your apartment to have a birth in. This is not a joke!"

We then meet her at her apartment where she is frantically vacuuming. Oh well. We didn't come to see how clean it is, although we thank her for her efforts wordlessly. She and her roommate clear out. Funny how they don't want to be there. I would have! And I really would have appreciated some help, but oh well. Birth is not everyone's cup of tea...

So we clean the bathtub, fill it up, put Betty in it, and she gets going on the pushing again. It's now 10:47. She pushes very hard, but we're still not seeing head, although it's getting close. She gets tired after about 45 minutes, and I suggest draining the water out of the bathtub to clean it and refill it. She complies, lies on the bed for about 30 minutes, taking another break from pushing.

Back into the tub at 11:57, and this time, when she begins to push, we get another burst of energy. It's called hope! Because now, we begin to see baby's head as she's pushing. She redoubles her efforts. By 12:30 pm the baby's head is crowning, and finally, finally! her head is born. Then, her fit is so tight that I have trouble checking for cord around neck, but soon ascertain that there is none. I also realize that I will have to help this baby. Her shoulders are stuck. So I tell mom first to get on her knees in the water, then I tell her she'll have to stand up with one leg on the side of the tub. I finally get a little leverage on the baby's shoulders and we get her born. She responds very quickly to me stimulating her and suctioning a little with a bulb syringe.

At 5 minutes after the 12:41 birth, she is a perfect 10! I'm not sure what Emily will think about this birth in her bathtub, but I think it's pretty cool!

It's a good thing I thought before we left their house that I might need some basic birthing supplies in case she had the baby on the side of the road. We really made use of them at Emily's apartment!

As it was, we couldn't weigh the baby or do some of the other things we normally do postpartum until we got back home. She weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces! Big baby, first-time mom. Oh, by the way, no stitches were needed for mom.

And we cleaned Emily's bathtub before we left.