Amanda started pushing at 5:45, just when her dad arrived at the hospital. We had been in communication with family all day long. Mark finished his shift at 3 and immediately got on the road. After a long 2 hour drive, he was with us on the Labor and Delivery floor. Another nurse came in and said, "Amanda, your dad is here." We just looked at each other and thought, "What do we do?"
Our nurse had instructed us how to push. She wanted us to do 3 sets of counts to 10 seconds during each contraction with rest in between. We were in our second 10-count when I asked if we could stop and talk to her dad. That was a special moment!
After a quick connection with her dad, we were back on task. Pushing was hard at first because of the epidural. Her face would get real read because she wasn't pushing quite right. The epidural had partially worn off by now, but not so much that it was painful -- just enough to get a feel for when she was pushing.
With a little help from what looked kind of like a wardrobe mirror, Jude was born just 45 minutes later. I think the most exciting part of the whole experience for me was to see him exit the birth canal. Here's this little baby with his shoulders pushed together and neck and legs tucked tight. He came out of the birth canal like a transformers toy, shoulders, back and legs all straightening out as he explored the newfound space of the expansiveness around him.
Because of how he sat in the birth canal, his head had a big purple knot on it for the first few hours. By Sunday morning, it had reduced to the appearance of a light hickey-bruise.
Around 7 pm, Amanda's mom called to say that her train was almost in town. Amanda hadn't eaten now for almost 24 hours and was starving by now, so Mark and I left to pick some dinner up on the way to picking Linda up. Amanda's first post-birth meal: a PotBelly's Turkey & Swiss on white with a chocolate milkshake.
As we sat and talked about her labor, Amanda told us, "If I had to do this again next week, I could do it." While there's nothing easy about labor, after her painful first trimester, she had been gifted a wonderful delivery experience.
To that I say, "Bring on #2!"
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