The Story: McKye's birth

The Story: the surprising arrival of McKye

On Wednesday, Oct. 1st Angie gave me a call and in a excited voice she said, "The doctor just called and said that my protein had double and we need to come into the hospital tonight and try to induce tomorrow." I knew we were getting closer to the date but tomorrow and only 35 1/2 weeks along.

So we gathered our stuff together and would continue to look at each other in the shocked reality that we might have a son tomorrow...crazy. We arrived at the hospital at around 10:00 pm and started to get situated. Which a hospital is not necessarily the best place to get comfortable as you await labor and delivery the next day.

On Thursday, they started the pitocin to induce the labor. The contractions started to get stronger and stronger. If Angie had her desire she would have already been on the epideral but they wanted to at least get to the point where the contractions brought the "evil twin" out. Well, she came out and the epideral was finally given. The only problem was that it usually takes 10-20 minutes for it to work and 50 minutes later, Angie was still in some very painful contractions. We were scared the epideral was working and they would have to try it again but finally the pain started to subside.

Now with Angie relaxed and about 4 cm dilated, the nurse said that it would probably take about 6-10 hours before she needed to push. It was 12:30pm, so as a friend stayed with Angie I went to Qdoba to get some food for the long journey ahead. While I was in line ordering a chicken quesadilla, I got a call from Erma, Angie's friend who says, "Adam, Angie is at 10 cm and pushing. You need to get back here right now." So there I am in line and tell them that I need to go because my wife is about to have a baby. They smile and cheer me on as I run back to the hospital. I get back into the hospital room which is packed with people and see my wife pushing. She pushes through a couple contractions and the doctor notices that the babies heart rate is not coming back after the contraction. So the baby needs to come out now. The forceps came and (thank God for the epideral) she is grabbing the baby and pulling him out. He comes out all covered in stuff and I wait for the cry but it does not come. They put him over at the examining table and I finally see his chest rise and fall. Our baby is okay.

This wasn't the end of the journey. Angie is given magnesium through an iv to prevent ceasure due to the pre-eclampsia. Well, she starts violently shaking in response to all the drugs in her body and to the magnesium. Pretty soon she is projectile vomitting across the room as I am trying to sooth our son. After an hour she finally stops shaking and goes into a serious drugged state. Basically she is drugged up for the next 24 hours.

McKye did remarkably well with all the test and was able to stay in the room. So I would change him, feed him and hold him. I didn't need a book or movie to past the time, I would just look at this cute son of ours and tear up.

The next day after they took her off the magnesium Angie started to do a lot better and we were transferred to the mother baby rooms. There I saw the most beautiful thing - my wife falling in love with our son. She would speak, sing, laugh, and cry at him. Some of it I believe was the roller coaster of hormones. At one point, we were both crying as she told him, "I thought you would not be worth all the pain of pregnancy but you were totally worth it."