The Doolittle Gambit: O Happy Day

After spending the night in Fargo on Tuesday night, sure that a major blizzard was coming and bringing with it Clancy's arrival, we woke Wednesday morning disappointed to find just a few inches of snow on the ground and no sign, aside from my bulging belly, of a coming baby. We spent the day in Fargo hanging out at Josh and Beth's home, walking on a treadmill at the YMCA trying to induce labor, and buying a new camera at Best Buy. At around 4:30PM we gave up hope that we would have a Leap Day baby and headed home to rescue Granmda Mary from our children.

Frequent and regular labor pains kept me awake through the night on Wednesday and continued most of the day on Thursday and through Thursday night. Friday morning I woke pretty confident that we would be headed to the hospital, but the contractions I was having would get stronger and close together and then pale off suddenly. Finally, after a few walks on the treadmill and a rousing game of Dr. Mario, old Nintendo style, with Joe, wherein I had to repeatedly push the pause button to accommodate contractions, we headed to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 5:00PM and were immediately admitted to a beautiful birthing suite with an amazing view of Fargo and the surrounding areas.

I didn't take much notice of the view at that time, but rather hopped into the whirlpool tub to get some relief from contractions. After 3 hours in the tub, the midwife broke my water at around 8:20. About three minutes after the breaking of my water, I looked at the nurse and foolishly asked if I could have an epidural. I knew as I asked that the answer was, "It's too late." It's amazing how quickly one forgets how intense the final stage of labor can be. After about 40 minutes of intense pain and torture and 8 minutes of pushing, Tikvah Elise came into the world at 9:11PM. Here's a look at her first moments.

I was so glad she had finally arrived. I was also very surprised to find that Clancy was a girl. I had been so confident that Clancy was a boy my whole pregnancy. I guess I'm a little short on the mother's intuition.

I was also confident that I had pushed a very long time to get that baby out. I remarked to Joe about this fact he gave me a strange look, as he is oft prone to do when I misspeak. He assured me that I did not push long at all. Of course, I didn't believe him. I had experienced it and I just knew I pushed a long time. The nurse, who was wildly entering data into the computer at this point said, "Well, let's look and see. You started pushing at 9:03 and the baby was born at 9:11." How, in the craziness of all of that someone keeps track of the moment each thing happens, is beyond me. How eight minutes could feel like such a long time is also beyond me. You would think I would have an appropriate gauge for these matters as I pushed with Xandra for over four hours...our minds are funny things, especially in matters of child birth.

Another funny thing about childbirth are the pictures of me just after giving birth. Exhausted but VERY happy,