Posts Tagged ‘birth’

Well, we made it! Katherine and I are now home from the hospital after witnessing, firsthand, the birth of our daughter. What an amazing experience! I can’t think of anything else in my life that can compare to this…just unbelievable! Anyone who already has kids will relate to what I’m going to say next. There is no better feeling in the world and see your first-born child and experiencing that with your wife.

Fortunately for us (Katherine more than I), labor was relatively quick in the grand scheme of things. We arrived at the hospital at 10pm Wednesday evening and by 10am the next day the doctor broke Katherine’s water. I had a little bit of time and decided to run down to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite to eat since I hadn’t had anything thus far that morning. No sooner had I returned from grabbing a takeout salad from the hospital cafe and Katherine was having some serious labor contractions.

I quickly set my food aside and asked the nurses where I could help out. At this point, the contractions were so strong that Katherine had ordered her epidural however they told her that she would have to ingest a full bag of saline ingested via IV. While we waited for the IV saline bag to empty, Katherine had a number of contractions; all with increased intensity and pain.

I really felt bad that this point. I hate seeing my wife in pain and always want to trade places with her in such instances especially when it comes to needles. I’m not a fan of needles and Katherine absolutely fears them for good reason. Usually when she has to have her blood drawn the technician, more often than not, has to stick her 2-4 times due to her small, squiggly veins before they actually are successful. I stood behind Katherine and attempted to help alleviate the some of her labor pain on a pressure point that the nurse showed me. Unfortunately, some times I wasn’t pressing hard enough. The hard part was that I saw her in pain and was a bit unsure of exactly how much force to apply. She continued to breath through the labor pains and as she completed each one her legs would shake involuntarily. At this point, I was afraid of Katherine’s legs giving out at the end of a contraction.

After 25 minutes the saline bag has finally drained and we can have the anaestetician to come do perform the epidural. It was another 15 minutes before the anaestetician showed up and a few more painful contractions occurred in that time. As the doctor placed the epidural needle I helped Katherine through a few more contractions. Once completed Katherine was allowed to sit back in bed and let the drug take its affect. Almost instantly she noticed the intensity of her contractions to be less that the previous ones. This made me feel somewhat at ease knowing that the pain was, at least, slightly “curbed” for my incredible wife! Shortly thereafter and a couple of exam checks our nurse, Grace, informed us that Katherine was pretty much fully dilated and it was time to push. No time for a catheter now as things progressed very fast.

The clock was closing in on 12pm, Thursday, April 8 and our OB doctor (Dr. Szmuc) had come in to check on us and re-assured that things were right on schedule and progressing perfectly. As contractions came Katherine pushed as instructed and a student nurse and myself assisted Katherine’s numb legs in the labor process. At around 1:30pm Dr. Szmuc came back in to check on us and inform us that he would be staying to deliver our daughter instead of heading back to his office for the afternoon. We were very thankful for that since he is whom we both wanted to deliver the baby. All the while, Katherine had been pushing for each contraction that she was having and making great progress. The baby was so close to coming out, or so I thought.

I kept reassuring Katherine, who was doing an incredible job, that the baby was sooooo close. Twenty minutes later the doctor was suiting up and getting ready to deliver our baby. As this point the baby was so close she was starting to crown and I could see her full head of black hair! Once ready Dr. Szmuc sat down in position to help Katherine deliver the baby. From this point forward, Katherine literally only had to push 4 more times and Baby Guilliana arrived into our world at 2:17pm. What a relatively quick labor…about 3.5 – 4 hrs in total! Both Katherine and I were very appreciative for this.

Again, seeing my daughter born into the world was the most amazing feeling I had ever experienced. I thought I had experienced it all when I married the love of my life at the top of Aspen Mountain in Aspen, Colorado. Don’t get me wrong, the feeling of watching your wife walk down the aisle to you at 12,000 ft was incredible and one I will never forget. However, seeing the birth of Guilliana I have to say it was truly amazing!

We welcomed our daughter Guilliana at 2:17pm on April 8 weighing 6 lbs 1 oz and measuring 19.5 inches long. We love you and are so thankful for your safe arrival!