November 17, 2007

Overall my pregnancy was really surprisingly.....great! I had assumed that being pregnant would be the worst 9 months of my life and don't even get me started on what I thought delivery would be like. I must say that my expectations were VERY low. But in the end, I really enjoyed being pregnant. I must give credit at this point to Alex for being an incredibly supportive husband and excited father-to-be. Also important to the process is the fact that I had cute maternity clothes (many thanks to those who contributed to this fact) and that my shoe size did not change and I never gave up high heels.

On Friday, November 16 I went to my weekly pre-natal visit (during the last month or so you go to the doctor EVERY week). On that day I saw my favorite doctor in the practice, Marc Siegel. After the exam, he informed that he'd be at the hospital on Saturday if I wanted to have a baby. I told him I'd consider it, but didn't think much of that happening, since I was due on November 27th. I also couldn't imagine that I'd be early since we learned in our childbirth class that 80% of first time mom's go past their due date.

But there was just something about November 17th that was meant to be! In fact, Jake has the same birthday as my Great-Grandpa Jack, one of the Jacob's he was named for.

Early Saturday morning around 4 a.m. or so I woke up, which wasn't unusual at all because I hadn't been sleeping all that well (an omen of things to come) anyhow. I started to sense that this wasn't normal pregnancy discomfort. First I tried to remember what I had eaten the night before that might have made me feel this way and then it sunk in, could I be going into labor? I found my copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and came to figure out that we were having a baby. I woke up Alex about 7 a.m. with the news. Much to his credit, he didn't freak out, grab the bags, run to the car, and leave without me for the hospital as Hollywood might have you believe all men do. We started to time contractions, packed bags, showered, Alex had breakfast, watched a movie (although for the life of me I can't remember what it was) and just hung out. I was pretty paranoid about going to the hospital too early only to be sent back home so we hung at home until about noon. By that time, I was feeling the contractions and was very much looking forward to the blessed epidural!

The hospital was quiet and Dr. Siegel was hanging out with a bunch of the nurses at the front desk. I told him that I was going to take him up on his offer to have a baby today!

Our nurse Tracy was amazing as was everyone who was on the delivery ward that day. My personal favorite was the anesthesiologist. Dr. Siegel examined me and as he did, my water broke and there was no turning back. The fact that my water broke in the hospital and not at my office was of great relief to me. I was having nightmares about it happening in one of our conference rooms at the Partnership and Ralph being mad at me! Once I had the epidural, which was much less traumatic than I expected (again...low expectations) it was probably about 2 or 3 p.m. and I was good to go and ready to have this baby.

We watched football (hello...it was a Saturday in the fall), talked on the phone, emailed, and played brick-breaker while we waited. We got close and then the baby decided that he was also bored waiting around and started to play with the umbilical cord - to this day he loves pulling on any things especially sweatshirt drawstrings and necklaces. They were cautious but not overly concerned so they gave me some oxygen and wanted to wait to see if he'd let go and make sure he didn't get caught up. When they felt that he was okay and wouldn't be in any danger, I got the go ahead to start pushing.

Again, I'd like to give a shout out to Alex for his heroics in the delivery room. After months of swearing that he had no intention of watching the birth he was right there with me and even cut the umbilical cord. He seemed to know what to say that day and my favorite was this:

"I love you, you're doing great, and am I giving you enough personal space"!

I'm not sure exactly how long it took but it couldn't have been more than an hour at the most and then we were lucky enough to be introduced to Jake. There just aren't words to describe that wonderful moment!