Jimmy's Birthday: 31 December 2008

The day began for the three of us in room 8106 of the University of Virginia Medical Center. First, a couple of notes about how we came to be there. After being admitted around 4 pm the previous day, we moved to birthing room 8106 where we met our night shift nurse, Beth, and the resident that would be taking care of us at night, Heidi. Perhaps more important for Bekah, we met anesthesiologist Kevin, who gave Bekah a great epidural at about 8:00 p.m. or so. She was feeling pretty good from that and her uterus was continuing to contract, albeit at a pretty leisurely pace. So, the docs gave her some "potosin" to speed things up and we began waiting for everything to open up so Jimmy could make his way down the birth canal and into our lives. And that gets us to December 31st.

The first four hours of the day were fairly unremarkable. Bekah continued to progress and I continued to nap in the recliner chair in our birthing room. At 4 am, she was "complete" and we started to get a sense that everything was going to start happening. The hour from 4 to 5 am was the proverbial calm before the storm. The next 3 hours and twenty minutes were intense with Bekah pushing every 2-4 minutes the entire time. Her attitude, fortitude, and sheer strength of will during those 200 minutes was incredible not only to me but also to the many nurses and doctors who were in the room at various points during that time. The attending doctor commented at about the 3 hour point that it had been a long time since she encountered a woman who could push for 12 seconds.

So what were these 200 minutes like for me? Totally surreal. I'm still sort of numb from it all and wondering if I can even come close to adequately describing it in words. I was more involved than I expected I would be, which seemed to heighten the intensity of the whole experience. One of the things that made the time even more surreal than it would otherwise be was that it involved so many people. Bekah started pushing at 5. There was a shift change at 7, meaning new nurse, new resident, new attending. Basically a whole new team arrived just as the 4th quarter was beginning. This was a bit unnerving at first, but ended up being a blessing in disguise for the day shift team that we inherited at 7 was extremely solid. Pam, our new nurse, was especially good, and had several good ideas on how to speed things along and make progress. Also, it was great to finally see an attending doc at about the 170 minute point. The last thirty minutes were especially intense and I found myself on the verge of tears (of joy, worry, wonder) on several occasions. Bekah's primary OB doctor came on as the new attending at 8 am and walked into the room at the most intense period, however, he did not take over for obvious reasons. However, he did stay and observe and offer his thoughts to the doctors. This meant that at the time Jimmy was finally born (8:19 am) there were two attendings, two residents, and three or four nurses in the room. When he did finally come, it was simply the most amazing and wonderful thing I'd ever witnessed and probably ever will. How else can one describe it? I was overcome. My son was here.

While everything that had been moving so fast for me suddenly slowed down as I beheld this new and eternal object of my love, everything around me seemed to continue at warp speed with all of those doctors and nurses still working at a dizzying pace. At the prompting of one of the nurses, I did what I do best: grabbed my camera and through tears began snapping any picture I could of this beautiful new addition to my family.

The rest of the day progressed as one would expect. Jimmy got weighed: 8 lbs, 13 oz, measured: 20 3/4 in, and cleaned up. Bekah got treated. We got moved to a new room. I continued to take pictures. We held Jimmy a lot; looked at him a lot; called, emailed, and texted all our friends and families; uploaded pictures to facebook and picasa. We slept a little. I went and got us burritoes from Chipotle from dinner as we celebrated New Year's Eve with our son. I wish I could say we made it to the ball dropping in NYC. Instead, after Jimmy's 10:00 pm feeding, all three of us drifted into a peaceful sleep knowing that 2009 would be one special year just as the last day of 2008 was one special day. God is good.