Fortunately it was not too late. I continued to wail through each contraction, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to hold still for the anesthesiologist to do his thing. I remember asking in the middle of a particularly painful contraction, “How. Do. People. Do. This. More. Than. Once?!” I now know that the epidural is the answer to that question. After the catheter was inserted in my back they told me I would soon feel like a new woman. And – thankfully – they were absolutely right. Once the drugs kicked in, the only indication that I was having a contraction was the big spike that could be seen on the fetal monitor.
The next part is a little fuzzy. I just know that it took a while for me to reach full dilation and that, after 15 minutes of pushing, Nathan was born. When Dr. Kleiss asked if Randy wanted to cut the umbilical cord, he politely declined, trying hard to mask his squeamishness. When Dr. Kleiss asked me if I wanted to hold Nate right away or wait until the nurse cleaned him up, I took the clean baby option. She probably thought us to be horrible people.
He had a boatload of dark hair and kept trying to roll over on to his side while the nurse was checking him out. He didn’t cry. In fact it was about 36 hours before we heard much out of him at all. He did make little goat noises when eating though and they melted my heart. The goat noises gave way to turkey noises and now, at almost 12 weeks, he has moved on to cute little coos and gurgles much more befitting of a baby boy.
