Birth Story

 On the 23rd, I messaged A (baby daddy 2) on Facebook and said "just in case this baby is waiting on you, say hi please." He didn't. But, he did read the message at 5:45. At 6 I woke up to pee and was having contractions... (I swear it's related... say what you will about my silly woo beliefs...) 30 seconds to 45 seconds long, and between 3 and 4 minutes apart. I texted our doula, and truly believed I was going to be wait a while before telling anyone else, but within a half an hour the contractions were between 230 and 3 minutes apart. Because I knew I had to get antibiotics, I started feeling like I should get the ball rolling... I woke Steph (who sprung into action, collecting the bags we'd packed for everyone and packing the bags we'd neglected...figuring out breakfasts for everyone, something that hadn't occurred to me...), texted Dolly to let her know it was all in the works...(Dolly was slotted to host Kai at her house) I took a shower (which is shockingly helpful for contractions by the way), and then woke Kai to snuggle him for the last time as my only child and tell him what was happening...he cried at the thought of not being with me, so I called Dolly and asked if she and Rosie could hang out at our house instead... Steph made me avocado toast, I could only eat one piece...was nauseous and the contractions were now between 2 and 230 apart. Called Dolly to ask how far she was, told her to meet us at the hospital.

The plan was for me to drive to the hospital, but once the contractions were 2 minutes apart, I couldn't do it... (Steph's driving makes me ill on the best of days) We all arrived within 5 minutes of each other.  I got put in a room (after walking into labor and delivery saying to the nurses "so...I don't want to do this..."  They got me hooked up to monitor baby, checked me and I was 3cm 50% effaced. I was in pretty good spirits for a little while there...about 45 minutes... But then rowdy Carly came out. I found out who my Dr was going to be and I didn't like her or any of the calls she was making through her minion resident (who I actually believe asked to be switched from me since after this next encounter the other resident took over). The contractions were nearly every minute and Mama wasn't trying to play that. Doula got the resident, who told me he was planning on checking me in about an hour and I wasn't admitted yet. I said "Ok, here's the deal. I'm gonna need an epidural, like...now. And while I know that isn't possible, I'm gonna need you to get everything as ready as possible for me to get one...or I'm leaving and going to Bryn mawr. (Nearby hospital)  Resident said "I'm just telling you what protocol is and we said we'd check you in 2 hours, which gives you about an hour and 15 minutes, you are not likely to have progressed all that much." And I said something to the effect of "the fuck I haven't." He went to check with the Dr, and Steph went into the hallway and asked if Dr. Gerson was in the hospital (a bigwig specialist ob who has worked here for decades...and happens to be my brothers uncle...) and all of the sudden things started moving faster. It's unclear which one of us got balls rolling, but thank god they started. In the 45 minutes between checks I had progressed to 100% effaced and 5cm. I was officially admitted and they began the process of getting an IV started for the antibiotics and for the water needed to start the epidural. I was pricked 5 or six times before they accidentally got an IV in and it was dripping slower than molasses... New resident came in and introduced herself, suggested we break my water...did that...We watched an episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and I wanted the fucking epidural whether I'd finished my bag of liquid or not...Which led me to again go Shanaynay, only this time entirely fueled by pain and this horrible not so butch moment I was in. Hysterically crying I was like "the next time you check me I'm going to be ready to push and I'm NOT doing this without meds, this is happening way faster than any of you are believing...and I do not consent to another check until I have the epidural... New resident walks in mid stream of my rant, says "ok, I won't check you then...we'll wait until anesthesia gets here, but you need to get to 500 on the bag and you're only at 100...at which point I realized the IV was fucking leaking, and the vein was blowing up. The anesthesiologist got there...I almost kissed him... He let me have the epidural despite not having finished the entire bag of water... Bless that man.  I don't remember his name, but I love him.  Next check was the new resident, she was trying to see if she could see the baby -  9 cm, 0 station. We watch Frankie and Grace, and half way through an episode I'm like... Yeah, someone should check me.  Sure enough, ready to push at any time... But we did still want to wait for the IV to be in if we could. IV lady came, first stick it was in.  Nurse came in and did the first preliminary pushes with me, Dr's came in...it was all so chill! No sense of emergency or urgency or anything, we were talking and laughing... Started pushing at 3:05, he was born at 3:27. His shoulder was briefly stuck in my pelvic bone...which can apparently be a pretty dangerous thing...but was unlikely to be in our situation.  We couldn't delay cord clamp because of the shoulder thing and he was a bit stunned after the whole ordeal....they birthed the placenta while he was getting checked/worked on and then he was in my arms ❤️

Atreyu Elon Schulman, brother of Kai, son of Carly and Steph, was born on July 24th at 3:27pm... and is absolutely beautiful.