Going to the hospital
It's just after 1Pm, and the ongoing topic has been, "when do we leave." That's of course between contractions. We don't want to go too early because we don't want her to be hooked up to machines and not able to freely cope with labour. All along we've seen modern American medicine as being less and less natural.
This morning there are no BBC baby story shows on, but we've seen them in the past. And we both agree, they are more liberal with coping methods, such as, water births and delivering while standing... neither of these can be done while under the influence of an epidural.
From time to time, Cheryl compares the strength of her contractions now to times before and remembers thinking, "this is not as bad as I thought it would be." And also thinking, "what a fool I was then." This discovery, of course, keeps repeating as labour progresses.
The last thing we were watching was some nature Discovery Channel thing where fish are fighting the current upstream to spawn... then something about flamingos. We only catch it peripherally anyway. The contractions appear to be more frequent and stronger. So, we see if we can take it just a little more.
I put in The Dick Van Dyke Show, which, not surprisingly gets a little annoying since we've seen this episode. It's the one where Dick brings home some baby ducks and they're trying to hide them from their kid. Who nags a lot for them when he can hear them. I turn it off.
Finally when we're sure we can't hold out any longer, we go downstairs and sit through a couple more contractions while I load the Jeep. We get in and off we go. Excited, optimistic, scared. We can't believe we're really driving to the hospital. I know I've thought about the short drive dozens of times; Cheryl has probably thought about it many more times.
This morning there are no BBC baby story shows on, but we've seen them in the past. And we both agree, they are more liberal with coping methods, such as, water births and delivering while standing... neither of these can be done while under the influence of an epidural.
From time to time, Cheryl compares the strength of her contractions now to times before and remembers thinking, "this is not as bad as I thought it would be." And also thinking, "what a fool I was then." This discovery, of course, keeps repeating as labour progresses.
The last thing we were watching was some nature Discovery Channel thing where fish are fighting the current upstream to spawn... then something about flamingos. We only catch it peripherally anyway. The contractions appear to be more frequent and stronger. So, we see if we can take it just a little more.
I put in The Dick Van Dyke Show, which, not surprisingly gets a little annoying since we've seen this episode. It's the one where Dick brings home some baby ducks and they're trying to hide them from their kid. Who nags a lot for them when he can hear them. I turn it off.
Finally when we're sure we can't hold out any longer, we go downstairs and sit through a couple more contractions while I load the Jeep. We get in and off we go. Excited, optimistic, scared. We can't believe we're really driving to the hospital. I know I've thought about the short drive dozens of times; Cheryl has probably thought about it many more times.
posted by richard at 13:04
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