Yarn Over: Details

Whew! Sunday was certainly a looooooooooooooooooong day for me. (Well, for Handyman and midwife, too, but this is my blog, so we're talking about me, hee hee!)

Oh, special disclaimer, here: I'm going to give labor details here (nothing too gory, don't worry), so if you have a queasy stomach for such things or are pregnant yourself, you might want to skip this post (but feel free to come back for the next one!).

Labor started at 1:30 A.M. with contractions lasting 45 seconds long and about 8 minutes apart. At 3:30 A.M. they were 5-6 minutes apart, so I woke up Handyman and he started rubbing my back, as I was experiencing that wonderful thing called "Back Labor", the dread of every laboring woman.

By the way, if you've ever given birth and experienced back labor, you'll know what I mean when I say it's the pits. The. Pits. If you haven't, just imagine pain on the scale of the recent Chinese earthquake digging into your spine for the entire length of every contraction, with aftershocks lasting for several minutes after. Really stinks. (I try to keep this a family-friendly blog, so when I say it "stinks", please feel free to substitute any other appropriate word that you can come up with. Trust me, it won't be too strong.)

At around 7:00 we called our wonderful midwife to notify her of developments, and I walked around a bit to ease some of the lower back pain. It helped, but had the annoying result of making contractions go back to 8 minutes apart. Very frustrating. Walking is supposed to speed things up.

"Supposed to" does not seem to be the operative word when it comes to my labors. "Hmmmm . . ." and "odd . . . " and "well, that's certainly interesting . . . " fits much better.

You're going to think I'm nuts here, but at around 10:00 I was getting hungry, so Handyman and I went out to breakfast at Amigos (where else?). The kids were at Grandma's house, so it was actually rather pleasant to be alone on a date, if you can count out the 10-minute-apart contractions and the worried looks from the waitresses. I'm on a first-name basis with all the waitresses and the owners, so although they were surprised to see me there, they weren't completely shocked (apparantly my oddities are well-known).

After lunch, we headed back home, and asked the wonderful Midwife to come. Things were still 10 minutes apart, but I had this vain hope that if Midwife came, my body would decide to get. things. moving. (Please note the gritted teeth and extreme frustration here.)

Wasn't happening. Nope. I think Baby Gabe was in there with his hands wedged in a Herculean pose between my pelvis saying, "No, no, I don't wanna come out . . . .!"

Finally, at 9:00, contractions sped up to a racing 7 minutes apart and lasted a grueling minute and a half. Handyman mentioned at this point that it was a good thing I wasn't at the hospital.

"Why not?" I asked.
"Because I'd be arrested for wife battery", he says.
"Huh?"
"There's a permanent indentation on your lower back from the rubbing I've been doing for the past 12 hours."
"Oh. Keep it up."

I started pushing around 10:00, and that was the mostest awfullest thing I've ever done, except perhaps when I had to push Peter out. (Really, what IS it with the boys? Breanna came out like greased lighting!) I had absolutely NO urge to push, and my big boy was grinding his head on my tail bone the whole time. You know what really ticked me off? He was kicking the ENTIRE TIME. You could actually see my stomach rolling while I was pushing. Just not fair. How am I supposed to concentrate when he's doing the Tummy Tango?

Finally, Chubby Bubby came out, a whopping 9 pounds 8 ounces. Heh. And here we all thought he'd be on the smaller side of 8 pounds. Heh.

I'm so glad Handyman resisted the urge to post a picture of me that he took shortly after delivering Chubby Bubby. (Hmmm, it seems I've already started nicknaming Baby Gabe . . . It's a family failing . . .) Aside from the possible spousal homicide difficulties that would have resulted, I looked just terrible. (Well, actually, my first thought was, "I look a lot like my brother Josh, there!". But my second thought was, "I look terrible".)

Okay, gory details over, now here's some photos. I don't know about you, but after giving birth it's rather fun swapping war stories with other moms. I can see why the old vets like to get together on Saturday mornings and reminisce over old battles. (Plus, if Chubby Bubby EVER gets out of line in his teens, I'm going to print out this post and send it to all his friends and possible crushes. Photos, too. Unedited photos.)