Heather went into labor at ~4 AM on Sunday, when she was awakened by the contractions. We were a little surprised, being that "Zoot" wasn't due until March 6th. Fortunately, Heather had just finished painting the baby's room, so all we had to do was move the furniture into the bedroom and set everything up.

    Annoyingly enough, our midwife was out of town for the weekend and the nurse to be assisting  was out of town for the whole week. Of course, we told "Zoot" not to come out until they get back, but he didn't listen.

    So, a student midwife (who assisted the birth in place of the nurse) was sent to our house Sunday night to check the progress. Heather was only at 1-2cm with 50% effacement. Basically, we had a long way to go.

    Our midwife came out at 9:30 AM on Monday and Heather was at 7cm and almost ready to go. We were feeling pretty good at that point, especially since Heather had only slept a couple hours that night and about 3 hours the night before. The student midwife arrived shortly thereafter, and we got everything set up for the birth.

    Skip to about 2 PM on Monday, because really no progress had been made. The contractions were getting stronger, more powerful, and more frequent. However, Heather was still only at 8cm. Sometimes, breaking the water can help the situation, so the midwife ruptured the membrane at 2:55 PM. At that point, the clock was ticking, but we knew that one way or another it would be over in the near future anyway.

      At around 3:30 PM, Heather was just about at the end of her rope. The contractions were starting to double-peak and were starting to get unbearable.

      At a little before 4 PM, the midwife determined that, due to a lack of progress (she was still only at 8cm by that time), there was no other recourse than to transfer to a hospital. She called her backup midwives at St. Joe's Hospital in Lancaster. So, at about 4:30 PM, we made the 30 minute trip from York to Lancaster, in the dark and the rain. Heather said later that the trip (because of all the bumps) was like a 30 minute long contraction...

      When we got to the hospital, we were sent up to the nursery ward, and started relaying the information from the past ~38 hours. An IV was started (after four attempts, including dropping from an 18 gauge needle to a 20 gauge needle), and some pain medication was injected. A sensor was inserted to determine the strength of the contractions. The contractions were determined to be strong enough to have delivered the baby already. So, there were only two options left. Try pitocin or perform an emergency c-section. The pitocin was ruled out because the contractions were strong enough by themselves, so pitocin probably would not help, and might even hurt the situation. The baby was not under any excessive stress, but the pitocin might change that situation.

      So, at ~7PM it was determined that a c-section would be performed.  Heather was fine with this, but we were all disappointed. [The anger came later, after the Nubain and Percoset wore off - Heather]  We had tried a home birth to avoid all of the (potentially) unnecessary interventions, and here we were with the greatest intervention possible: a c-section. However, we knew that for one reason or another, "Zoot" was just not coming out naturally.


I was still able to attend the birth; I just didn't look below Heather's shoulders. :-) I just held her hand, reassuring each other.

At 9:39 PM, Monday, 23 Februrary 1998, Stephen Christopher Kalisiak was born. I don't know how to describe him, as words are escaping me. The best I can offer is: wonderful. He has straight, black hair, which according to my mother is how I looked, so apparently he looks something like me. 

Heather is recovering now, and is able to move about. We don't know how long she will be in the hospital. Probably for as long as the insurance company will allow a c-section mom to stay. We don't want any complications to pop up and be 30 minutes from where she gave birth...

Take care,
Chris

P.S. If anyone doesn't know where the name "Zoot" comes from, it can be used to refer to either the sax player on "The Muppet Show" or the female character what lived in Castle Anthrax in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".