The Delivery

Please forgive the lateness of this. It’s been a hell of a first 10 days between the birth, Adam’s jaundice, and his Bris. Even now we’re finally quietly sitting down and we still have a massive to-do list to make our way through. So, without further delay, the delivery:

So I guess this story starts on a rainy Sunday morning at 6am when Anat woke me up to tell me she was having somewhat regular contractions. All weekend long she was sure it was any minute now. Maybe it was the Korean or Thai food we had on Friday and Saturday nights respectively that furthered things along but she ended up being right on the money. So we got out of bed and slowly finished packing our bags, while counting contraction intervals, and trying to rest and fuel up knowing we had a long day ahead of us. In the back of our minds, I think we thought we’d be at the hospital around noon.

After a few hours of contractions coming every 6 minutes or so, I called the doctor to ask her advice. She said everything seemed to be progressing nicely but needed to speak to Anat (who was bent over in the middle of contractions). After speaking with Anat she advised us to continue laboring in the comfort of our own home; it seems when Anat spoke to her she sounded way too calm and rational to be in active labor. So as the rain continued to fall, we continued to labor at home, Anat going through increasingly more painful contractions, me massaging her back, and Raya (Anat’s mom) keeping time and feeding us, and feeding us, and feeding us. At some point we watched Phish: Live in Brooklyn to keep ourselves busy.

Eventually, 3:30pm rolled around and with it, the Superbowl. Having a Superbowl weekend due date we had thought about the game a bit, and whether we’d watch it in the hospital and if so, if we should pick 1 of 2 local hospitals known for their flat screen TVs. Anat continued laboring through 3 quarters of boring football, and just as the game became interesting, so did our own little game. Somewhere around Tom Petty’s lackluster halftime performance, Anat’s contractions deepened. Then somewhere towards the end of the game, Anat announced that she was going to throw up. Now most times when people say that, you have a few minutes before actual chunder materializes, if at all. In this case though, I realized the urgency in her voice, quickly ran to the kitchen, grabbed a large mixing bowl and not to be outdone by Randy Moss or Plaxico Buress, had what I think was the greatest catch of the day.

We then called the doctor and based on what we told her she thought we still might be far off, but thought we still might benefit from going to the hospital. At least they might be able to start Anat on fluids given the vomit and possible dehydration. After packing up the car, we made the short 1.3 mile drive to UCLA-SM Medical Center and checked Anat into Labor and Delivery.

The next part of the day gets really fuzzy in my memory. I can’t remember so many specific details. I do remember Anat being in a lot of pain though. I remember every minute or two, another contraction would roll on through and for a minute or more it was obvious she was very uncomfortable. I also remember her not complaining much. Every once in a while she’d vocalize her pain but she never yelled or screamed, a true Scientologist wife. Throughout the night, to speed things up, we’d go on very short and slow walks around the floor; we’d walk by the NICU and nursery and then come back to our room. At some point Anat’s nurse came back to measure her progress and after 6 more hours of contractions she was almost 5 cms dilated. I remember we felt pretty deflated after that.

Throughout the whole thing we had our favorite music playing but to be honest, I think the pain was so intense that Anat really wasn’t able to focus externally. In the end the music only served to keep me awake and motivated. I remember at one point Anat took a bath only to discover that even the hottest water temperature was only luke warm. We ended up boiling water to supplement the less than idyllic bath temperature.

I also remember feeling very proud of Anat for managing the pain so well. I remember being concerned that she might not have enough energy for the final pushing phase and feeling like I wanted to do more to help her. In the end though I could only rub her back, bring her juice and talk her through as much of the pain as I could. Truth is, and she might think otherwise, but she was on her own 2 feet entirely in this one. More so, she was really carrying our entirely family on her back in what felt like a rather dark and bleak time. I remember the nighttime setting didn’t help much either. I remember thinking that if we could just get to the morning, everything would be fine.

At some point in the middle of the night, I reminded Anat that she had the option of an epidural and that I’d support her decision regardless.  She politely asked me not to mention the epidural again and I didn’t.  In the end, Anat’s reluctance to take drugs wasn’t as much bravado as it seems.  Given what we’ve read and heard, and how long the pushing phase lasted, a C-section would have certainly been a possibility if she had had an epidural.

Around 7am there was a shift change at the hospital and our nice yet nearly invisible nurse was replaced by a boisterous, and energetic, although slightly bonkers male nurse. Yes, I was a bit put off by a male nurse, given the delicacy of the situation, but I have to admit, he knew what he was doing. He was helpful and assertive and constantly checking in on us. By then the sun was also starting to filter in through the windows and a renewed sense of energy was spreading through our room. The nurse told us our doctor was on her way, which also gave us a boost of energy. However, this shot in the arm was tempered by what we thought was pretty slow progress with respect to dilation.

A few hours later our doctor showed up. Seeing her there was very comforting. She was familiar and we trusted her. We fully expected her to tell us we were only around 7 cms but after checking she told us that as soon as we could pop Anat’s bag of waters, we’d be ready to start pushing. We were totally caught by surprise. I guess sometimes there’s a benefit to thinking conservatively. Before we knew it, Anat’s water broke in what seemed like a torrent, and we were soon in the home stretch. Once Anat’s bladder had room to breath, she was finally able to urinate; an act she had forgotten about for the last 10 hours. The first 5 minutes of pushing was just Anat clearing her bladder. Some of you might think this is pretty gross but throughout and because of this and through most of the pushing all 4 of us were laughing so much. In fact, throughout most of the next 2 hours, there was a lot of laughing going on.  There certainly helped to keep things mellow.

The next 2 hours of pushing is also a bit a blur. I remember Anat trying out several birthing positions and working so hard to give it everything she had. I remember the closer she got, the more energy she was putting into this, and I remember that I was so amazed at how much she had done in the last 30 hours. The way the doctor was talking, I thought we’d be done in a matter of minutes but minutes turned into many minutes and many minutes turned into many more. Throughout this part, the doctor was constantly reassuring Anat and coaching her. She was also doing everything she could to prevent any tearing. Later the nurse would tell me that any other doctor that he regularly works with would have just pulled the baby out forcefully and not cared whether Anat tore or not. Eventually you could see a little (sic) head start to make its way into the light and with subsequent pushing, millimeter by millimeter the baby kept on coming until one big push later, at 11:47 am, Adam was born. I remember a wave of uncontrollable emotion flooding over me and being so happy and so drained at the same time.

For those of you who care, Reba (the Phish song, not the country singer) was playing when Adam came out. In fact the setlist as I remember it towards the end was Slave, Weather Report Suite (Part I), Scarlet Begonias, Reba, Ripple, Eyes of the World.

I’m sure there’s so much nuance that I’ve left out and hopefully as we start feeling back to normal we’ll start recalling more and more. In the meantime, thank you everyone that sent texts while Anat was delivering. I’m not sure if she remembers them, but I read them to her and it seemed to make the time go by faster.