My partner and I are lesbians and have two children. It was my partner
who gave birth to our first child, a girl, 4 years ago. The day she went
into labor I wasn't feeling well and had stayed home from work. Jan had
stayed late at her work, cleaning up, and stopped for Chinese food on the
way home. I ate wonton soup, thinking it would work like a Chinese
chicken soup. When
we went to bed around 9pm, I said to Jan, "what if you go into labor
tonight while I'm sick! Promise me you won't." She promised.
Right before midnight Jan woke me up and said "I think my water broke."
"You're kidding," I answered. I was immediately wide awake and there was
no question about her water--the bed was soaked. "What do we do, what do
we do?" we said to each other, and decided to just try to calm down. We
put clean sheets on the bed, turned on the tv, and got in. A few minutes
later,
Jan started having contraction. We planned to time them for a while, but
after having a contraction every 4-5 minutes for 15 minutes, we decided
to call the doctor. We call the HMO and the doctor told us we should
come right in since Jan's water broke (and at her last regular
appointment she had already been 2 cm dilated).
We called Jan's parents and sister to let them know. Her sister is
cross-country, but her parents are only 4 hours away and were planning to
drive down. They couldn't decide whether to leave immediately, or to go
back to sleep and leave in the morning. They had also just arrived home
the day before after spending the winter in Florida. We also called our
friend Carol who we asked to join us for labor and delivery as an extra
support person for both of us.
We gathered up our things and headed to the hospital where Carol was
already waiting. We were brought into a LDR room where Jan was put on a
monitor (but not for too long) and checked for dilation (now at 5cm).
She spent the next couple of hours having contractions and being in pain.
We walked around the floor once, but it wasn't what Jan wanted, so
mostly she sat in a chair in
our room. Carol and I talked her through contractions.
The pain was getting to Jan , and she decided to do something about it.
After we talked about it with our nurse (who was very nice--they all
were) Jan decided on a shot (of what, I don't remember). She's checked
again and is found to be 7cm. Well, the shot didn't really help, and
after a few more hours of pain, still at 7cm, Jan decided to go the
pitocin/epidural route. In retrospect, we believe that the narcotic
stalled the labor, but Jan was never against the idea of pain relief, so
moving on the pitocin and epidural was fine. It was about 7 in the
morning.
Once Jan was out of pain, we all three took a short nap. Then Jan's
parents arrived. I was looking out the window and saw a car pulling up
to the hospital garage. "I think I see your parents," I said to Jan.
"They have a tan car with a red stripe, right?" "No," said Jan.
"There's no stripe on their car." Five minutes later they were in our
room!
For the next 2-3 hours we hung out in the room, read the newspaper,
talked, and later those of us not in labor (!) ate lunch. Jan didn't
love watching us eat, but she was happy to be pain-free. They only thing
she wanted, which she was told not to take, was a Tums for heartburn. We
had a new nurse (new shift), and at around 11:30 she said that she
thought Jan was probably fully
dilated, but suggested that we let the baby move down a little more on
its own before starting to push. It was noon when the nurse came back,
asked Jan's parents to leave, and Jan started to push. Since Jan was on
the epidural, either Carol or the nurse or I would tell her from watching
the monitor when she was having a contraction, and therefore when she
should be pushing.
Pushing took a long time, but it was ok. As the baby was almost ready to
be delivered, a lot more people came into the room. A medical student (a
woman) asked if she could join, and we said yes. A resident, who we'd
never met, set herself up to do the delivery since the HMO doctor-on-call
was involved with another patient. The doctor, a man, was not endearing,
and we
were very happy that he was busy elsewhere. At 1:43pm, after an hour and
43 minutes of pushing, with only women in the room, Mollie was born. She
went right onto Jan, and I cut her cord. The placenta was born, Jan's
parents came back in, Mollie was wiped down and wrapped up.
Right after the birth, the man doctor who did not do the delivery came
back in to see how things had gone and announced that his name would be
on the birth certificate. I wish that Jan or I had told him no.
Mollie nursed right away as if she'd been born knowing what to do (!),
and afterwards I held her and would let no one else. It was wonderful.
Oh yes, and whatever illness I had had the day before disappeared!