In this previous post, I told the story (in excruciating detail, I'm sure) of the birth of our first child, 1F. Of course, we've had seven other children since then (what can I say? I think she kinda likes me), and there are a few stories to be told of their births, as well. . .
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2F's birth was much quicker than 1F's. Whereas Molly had been in labor for 13 hours with 1F, her second labor was over and done with in about 5 hours. This time, Molly let me be in the birthing room the whole time, although she had another experienced birth-giver for her labor coach again.
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When Molly was pregnant with 3M, she tripped on some steps, and broke her foot. So, to the normal discomfort of pregnancy, was added six weeks of crutches. And, when 3M had some growth-hormone issues in his toddler years, he was at first diagnosed with a form of short-limbed dwarfism (a very interesting episode in our family's life, all in its own right), and Molly and I immediately wondered if it had anything to do with the X-rays on her foot. Which was the occasion for some major second-guessing, for a while. But it turned out to be a pretty garden-variety endocrine thing, and we breathed large sighs of relief.
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With 4M, all was well, until about a week after his birth, when, out of nowhere, Molly got extremely light-headed, and lost her vision. I mean, she couldn't see - her eyes were open, but there was only a black screen, so to speak. And she passed an extremely large blood clot. Fortunately, she was visiting with one of our neighbors at the time, who put her in her car and drove her to the emergency room, with baby 4M in tow. When Molly got to the ER, her blood pressure was 60/0. Yeah - that 'zero' was not a good thing. Turned out that there were some micro-fragments of the placenta left inside her uterus, and that was stimulating some nasty infection. A D&C cleaned out the gunk, and she was good as new.
But not before spending another night in the hospital. Which got us into a kind of 'Catch-22'. Molly was nursing, and didn't want to have any interruption, so she wanted to have the baby with her in the hospital. But 4M was not, technically speaking, a patient, so he couldn't be admitted, and no-one in the hospital was willing/able to tend to him, even just to bring him to his mother (who was bedridden) to nurse. So we ended up working out an arrangement where we brought a bassinet from home, and they let me sleep on the floor (shades of John & Yoko), and when the baby fussed, I could bring him to Molly. Thankfully, that only lasted for one night. Major gratitude to the folks from our community who took in the other three kids so I could be at the hospital, too. . .
That situation after 4M was born was probably as close to abject terror as I've ever experienced. I was staring into the face of the non-trivial possibility of losing my wife, and having four children, including a week-old infant, to figure out how to raise without her. When her vital signs stabilized, I may have been the most relieved husband and father in the entire civilized world. . .
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After 4M, I don't remember so many of the details of Molly's pregnancies or labors. I do recall that, as she went along, Molly got MUCH mellower and more laissez-faire about who came with her for her birthings. Once she arrived at a certain 'comfort level', where she pretty much knew what she was doing, some friend of hers would tell her that she'd never witnessed a childbirth, and she'd always wanted to, and Molly would invite her along to watch. I remember that 2F, who was only 10 at the time, came to watch 6F being born (1F had declined the offer). 1F (who was 16 at the time) saw 7M being born. 'Labor Coach' became, for all intents and purposes, an honorary designation; I joked that we should give the hospital advance warning when Molly's labor started, so they could bring in bleachers. And I would take orders for carry-out, if the labor started going long. I think it was for 7M's birth, though, that Molly's labor coach was a bit too low-key (or maybe just timid). Molly started flagging a bit in mid-labor, so I, having been through six of these before, and having a pretty good feel for what was required, stepped in and got Molly back on-task. So I got to take my turn as 'labor coach' after all.
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By the time Molly was pregnant with 8M, she was 45 years old. And 45-year-old women just don't do pregnancy quite as well as 25-year-old women. As the due date drew near, Molly was beyond weary of being pregnant, so when a few desultory contractions began, she walked (yes, walked) to the hospital (it's a bit less than a mile from our house), hoping to get things going, but by the time she got there, the contractions stopped, and they sent her back home. The next day, contractions started up again, more vigorously this time, and when she got to the hospital (this time, she had a neighbor drive her), the docs were all set to give her the pitocin and let 'er rip (uh, so to speak), but when they did the preliminary checks, they found that 8M had flipped into a breech presentation, so they gave her a labor-stopping shot instead, and sent her home again, with a different set of instructions.
It turned out that the hospital had a doctor - a woman, unsurprisingly - who was trained in a technique for 'flipping' breech babies. And Molly, being on her eighth pregnancy, was an ideal candidate for the procedure - her uterus was sufficiently 'pliable'. So the docs told Molly to come back the following day, and they would have the 'baby-flipping' doctor on-call. I took the day off work, and we walked to the hospital again, Molly's third trip in as many days. When they did the preliminary checks on the baby, he was still in a 'head-up' orientation, so they called the 'baby-flipping' doctor, and she came right over. I watched as she laid Molly on her back and sort-of 'lifted' the baby, and just slowly torqued him around, all while hooked to an ultrasound, to keep track of the umbilical cord, and such. The whole procedure took less than a half-hour, and once he was properly head-down, she got him 'engaged' with Molly's pelvis, and all was in readiness. And at that point, the regular family doc started the induction, and a few hours later, we had our eighth child, and fifth son.
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Looking back, I'm actually a little bit impressed at the number of stories that have been generated by Molly's eight pregnancies and deliveries. I mean, we might have had eight pretty uneventful pregnancies/deliveries, and I'm sure a decent percentage, even of mothers-of-eight, have exactly that. But we have more interesting stories to tell. . .
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2F's birth was much quicker than 1F's. Whereas Molly had been in labor for 13 hours with 1F, her second labor was over and done with in about 5 hours. This time, Molly let me be in the birthing room the whole time, although she had another experienced birth-giver for her labor coach again.
-------------------------
When Molly was pregnant with 3M, she tripped on some steps, and broke her foot. So, to the normal discomfort of pregnancy, was added six weeks of crutches. And, when 3M had some growth-hormone issues in his toddler years, he was at first diagnosed with a form of short-limbed dwarfism (a very interesting episode in our family's life, all in its own right), and Molly and I immediately wondered if it had anything to do with the X-rays on her foot. Which was the occasion for some major second-guessing, for a while. But it turned out to be a pretty garden-variety endocrine thing, and we breathed large sighs of relief.
-------------------------
With 4M, all was well, until about a week after his birth, when, out of nowhere, Molly got extremely light-headed, and lost her vision. I mean, she couldn't see - her eyes were open, but there was only a black screen, so to speak. And she passed an extremely large blood clot. Fortunately, she was visiting with one of our neighbors at the time, who put her in her car and drove her to the emergency room, with baby 4M in tow. When Molly got to the ER, her blood pressure was 60/0. Yeah - that 'zero' was not a good thing. Turned out that there were some micro-fragments of the placenta left inside her uterus, and that was stimulating some nasty infection. A D&C cleaned out the gunk, and she was good as new.
But not before spending another night in the hospital. Which got us into a kind of 'Catch-22'. Molly was nursing, and didn't want to have any interruption, so she wanted to have the baby with her in the hospital. But 4M was not, technically speaking, a patient, so he couldn't be admitted, and no-one in the hospital was willing/able to tend to him, even just to bring him to his mother (who was bedridden) to nurse. So we ended up working out an arrangement where we brought a bassinet from home, and they let me sleep on the floor (shades of John & Yoko), and when the baby fussed, I could bring him to Molly. Thankfully, that only lasted for one night. Major gratitude to the folks from our community who took in the other three kids so I could be at the hospital, too. . .
That situation after 4M was born was probably as close to abject terror as I've ever experienced. I was staring into the face of the non-trivial possibility of losing my wife, and having four children, including a week-old infant, to figure out how to raise without her. When her vital signs stabilized, I may have been the most relieved husband and father in the entire civilized world. . .
-------------------------
After 4M, I don't remember so many of the details of Molly's pregnancies or labors. I do recall that, as she went along, Molly got MUCH mellower and more laissez-faire about who came with her for her birthings. Once she arrived at a certain 'comfort level', where she pretty much knew what she was doing, some friend of hers would tell her that she'd never witnessed a childbirth, and she'd always wanted to, and Molly would invite her along to watch. I remember that 2F, who was only 10 at the time, came to watch 6F being born (1F had declined the offer). 1F (who was 16 at the time) saw 7M being born. 'Labor Coach' became, for all intents and purposes, an honorary designation; I joked that we should give the hospital advance warning when Molly's labor started, so they could bring in bleachers. And I would take orders for carry-out, if the labor started going long. I think it was for 7M's birth, though, that Molly's labor coach was a bit too low-key (or maybe just timid). Molly started flagging a bit in mid-labor, so I, having been through six of these before, and having a pretty good feel for what was required, stepped in and got Molly back on-task. So I got to take my turn as 'labor coach' after all.
-------------------------
By the time Molly was pregnant with 8M, she was 45 years old. And 45-year-old women just don't do pregnancy quite as well as 25-year-old women. As the due date drew near, Molly was beyond weary of being pregnant, so when a few desultory contractions began, she walked (yes, walked) to the hospital (it's a bit less than a mile from our house), hoping to get things going, but by the time she got there, the contractions stopped, and they sent her back home. The next day, contractions started up again, more vigorously this time, and when she got to the hospital (this time, she had a neighbor drive her), the docs were all set to give her the pitocin and let 'er rip (uh, so to speak), but when they did the preliminary checks, they found that 8M had flipped into a breech presentation, so they gave her a labor-stopping shot instead, and sent her home again, with a different set of instructions.
It turned out that the hospital had a doctor - a woman, unsurprisingly - who was trained in a technique for 'flipping' breech babies. And Molly, being on her eighth pregnancy, was an ideal candidate for the procedure - her uterus was sufficiently 'pliable'. So the docs told Molly to come back the following day, and they would have the 'baby-flipping' doctor on-call. I took the day off work, and we walked to the hospital again, Molly's third trip in as many days. When they did the preliminary checks on the baby, he was still in a 'head-up' orientation, so they called the 'baby-flipping' doctor, and she came right over. I watched as she laid Molly on her back and sort-of 'lifted' the baby, and just slowly torqued him around, all while hooked to an ultrasound, to keep track of the umbilical cord, and such. The whole procedure took less than a half-hour, and once he was properly head-down, she got him 'engaged' with Molly's pelvis, and all was in readiness. And at that point, the regular family doc started the induction, and a few hours later, we had our eighth child, and fifth son.
-------------------------
Looking back, I'm actually a little bit impressed at the number of stories that have been generated by Molly's eight pregnancies and deliveries. I mean, we might have had eight pretty uneventful pregnancies/deliveries, and I'm sure a decent percentage, even of mothers-of-eight, have exactly that. But we have more interesting stories to tell. . .
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Our week at camp went wonderfully well. The weather was beautiful all week - mid/upper 70s, hardly any rain (quite a bit was forecast, but hardly any actually fell). Just a wonderful time in the woods, on a lake. And for the Entertainment Night, eight of us Joneses (Molly and me, 2F, 4M, 5M, 7M and 8M, along with 6F, who came up for a visit that evening) regaled the camp with a rousing rendition of 'Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da'. And yes, it was definitely nice to have Molly at camp with me, for the first time in the 18 years I've been going to this camp. . .
