Cap'n John's Blog

One fine weekend

I was on the bus, just 1 block from work, when my cell phone rang. It was Liz, calling to tell me that she’s having contractions and that they’re seventeen minutes apart. Are you really having contractions, I asked her, or do you just want me to come home? She’s really having contractions, she said.

I went into work, took care of my timesheet and a couple of urgent projects which will close sometime during the next couple of weeks, and waited for my supervisor to get in. He finally made it and I told him the good news. We waited for our boss to get in and he was ready to take me right then. I suggested we wait because if the two of them ran me home, they’d be stuck on a very crowded freeway coming into downtown. Just then one of my coworkers arrived so we grabbed her and headed out. With four of us in the car we hit the carpool lane and made it back home inside 20 minutes. I’m sure the commute back in to downtown L.A. was almost as fast for my very considerate coworkers...who planned to stop somewhere for breakfast before going back to the office. The destinations in mind were former LA Mayor Richard Riordan’s “The Pantry”, which I’m not particularly fond of but does have good food at reasonable prices, or Uncle John’s Chinese American Restaurant (really an old-fashioned, single counter diner) at 8th & Olive in downtown, which has huge portions of great food at rock-bottom prices. Hey, if LAPD and LA Fire eat there, you know it’s a top spot ;)

Anyway, back home it was around 8:00am and JE was still sleeping. I snuggled with Liz for a little while as she had a few more contractions. At one point they were down to 10 minutes apart. JE finally got up and we had breakfast (my second), and played Mario Party 5 for a little while before I finally convinced Liz that he really should go to school and not come to the hospital with us, whenever that would be. So just after 9:00am I dropped JE at school and returned home to find Liz fast asleep. Around noon she woke up...no contractions. She had an appointment with her OB at 2:15 that afternoon so I suggested we hit the Santa Anita Mall and walk around a bit and see if we could jump start these contractions again. It worked and she had a couple more contractions before we got to the OB’s office.

There he checked Liz out and although the contractions were rather sporadic she was still dilated 3cm, so the OB called our hospital and told them we were on our way. 3cm dilation is one of the requirements for admittance into LDR (Labor & Delivery), the other two are contractions five minutes apart, and if your water has broken. The fourth (of the three ;) is your OB calling in advance and telling the nurses to let you in.

We got to LDR around 3:30pm (after first running a couple of small errands ;) and checked in. The nurse got Liz started on an IV and then checked with Liz’s OB what he wanted to do, as her contractions were still very irregular. Under doctor’s orders Liz was put on a second IV which helped speed things up, so much so that my darling wife was starting to get very irate and asking just where the &#$@!!! is the Epidural?!

Finally the anesthesiologist arrived and they kicked me out. Apparently policy has changed since we were in LDR with John Edward, and a few pussy fathers passing out at the sight of their beloved having a needle stuck into the spinal column has spoiled it for the rest of us. When the nurse let me back into the room Liz was feeling just fine, comfortable numb even, to quote Pink Floyd. Her OB arrived around 6:15pm and Liz’s water still had not broken, although she was now at 8cm and having good strong contractions just a few minutes apart...not that she could feel anything of course ;) So the doctor got into his scrubs and broke her water himself. We should have a baby in half an hour, he said. Sure enough, barely half an hour later, it was time for Liz to start pushing.

The OB had her in a slightly different position than when she had John Edward, and this time I witnessed the birth of one of my children, as did Liz. It was nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be, and as soon as I saw all of the hair I knew Liz had the daughter she was wanting. I told her it had to be a daughter, and she asked how I knew. I said it’s because she sure doesn’t have my hair ;)

I don’t remember whether or not I cut John Edward’s umbilical cord, but when the OB put the plastic clips on the cord and handed me a pair of scissors I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. It took me a couple of snips to get through the cord; it was not as easy as I imagined it would be. I seem to know that though, perhaps I did cut JE’s cord too. I forgot it happened with John Edward as well but it’s amazing how, when the cord is cut, it seals itself off close to the abdominal wall. You can see the beginning of a pink, healthy belly button, while the cord itself turns white due to the cessation of the flow of blood. Within a day the cord had dried up and turned black, and in a couple of weeks it will fall off all by itself.

Friday night John Edward and I left Liz & Amber at the hospital while we went home to get a good night’s rest. Yeah, I paid for it. Saturday night was spent in the recliner chair next to Liz grabbing an hours sleep here, half an hour there.

JE and I woke up Saturday too late to make his swimming class, so we had a leisurely breakfast, played some video games, had a shower and finally found the chocolates and candies I’d put aside for the LDR nurses. No, they weren’t in the shower :P We stopped at LDR (Liz was moved to the Nursery/Post-partum the night before) to drop off a box of See’s Candies and a box of Godiva chocolates for the nurses there, and I also dropped off a two pound box of Ferrero Rocher Hazelnut chocolates to the nurses in Post-partum. When I gave the chocolates and Thank You cards to the nurses they acted amazed, as if it was the first time anyone had ever done that. Which amazed me! My sister is an RN back home (Down Under), and she and the other nurses are always getting Thank-You gifts from their patients.

The plan was to stay with Liz until around 2pm, then take JE home for a nap, but we ended up staying with Liz all afternoon and JE finally crashed on the bed next to Liz and Amber. The in-laws arrived with food which Liz scarfed down, she then also ate most of the dinner provided by the hospital an hour later. The hospital food was pretty good, but when I attempted to order a second sandwich with Liz’s lunch, I was told I’d have to pay for it. I’d have to go to the hospital cafeteria, pay $5.50 and get a coupon number which I could take back to Liz’s room, call room service again and request the sandwich and provide them with the coupon number. FUHGEDDABOUDIT!
I still went to the cafeteria, and for just $3.50 bought a Cheeseburger, a decent amount of French Fries and a large soda. Of course Liz and JE ate most of my Fries when I got back to the room because their lunch still hadn’t arrived.

Liz herself ordered dinner and breakfast and we got more food that time without someone giving us BS about having to pay for extra food. Hell, no! We’re not paying for Room Service Hospital Food! That’s what our Health Insurance is for! Although I did make a second trip back to the Cafeteria Saturday afternoon and bought a coffee and a Blueberry Cake for all of $1.35. The cake was delicious, according to Liz and JE :P

Liz’s in-laws took JE home with them Saturday night, and I was ready to head home myself when Liz asked where I was going. Well, I had to go home, Anzac needed feeding, I had to check the mail, etc. Ok, so I was planning on staying at home too, I would have come back the next morning. But someone decided I needed to sleep in the chair next to her, like the couple in another room had done the night before she argued. I countered that I'd done that last time, with John Edward. I slept in the chair again this time too :P

Fortunately the chair didn’t just recline, it pulled out into a single bed. It wasn’t anything like our King-sized bed at home, but it was better than sleeping sitting up in a chair as I’d done last time. I did ponder whether or not the couple in the other room had worked out how to convert the chair into a bed. I sure hope so, or it was a mighty uncomfortable couple of nights for the father.

So we’re home now, and the object of today’s post is lying in my arms, which has meant a lot of one-handed typing. She’s been opening her eyes a lot more recently and Liz & I think she might have these amazing blue-gray eyes. Ahh, back to a normal pace of typing. A bout of sustained crying led to a nappy (diaper) change and now Liz is attempting to feed our little preciousss ;) who can’t make up her mind if she wants to be fed, or if she’s content to just be held by mommy ;)

I’d like to thank everyone for their best wishes. Liz had a really smooth delivery, and both her and Amber have been given clean bills of health by their respective doctors, and now we’re home and having fun. JE will be here in a little while, and per the post-partum nurse’s suggestion (who has had three kids) I bought a small toy for JE, which is from Amber. He loves his little sister but I think he’s going to be jealous of her too. Daddy is going to have to make sure JE gets lots of love and attention while mommy is doing what she has to with Amber. The joys of being a parent just doubled :)