Ansel’s birth story

The alarm was set for 5:00 but I was up at 4:00 cuddling with a restless Immy, then showering with a special surgical soap, the remainder of which I left in our shower stall for a week after I’d been home, a reminder of reality which had been once again, all rearranged.

Jaco and I left our house at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, May 9th, 2018. It was the type of morning – alive, earth-smelling and green – that made it easy to understand why so many people speak highly of May as the time to give birth.

In September when I found out I was pregnant I’d hoped to have a VBAC birth, but after a lot of consideration took the advice of my obstetrician and scheduled another C-section as close to 40 weeks as we could, and I made it as far as I possibly could have (39w 5d).

When we got to Bartlett we were very happy to see my room all ready, my name and the nurses’ names on the little white board. I hung up my coat, put on a hospital gown, and climbed into the bed I’d stay in for two days, minus the time of the actual surgery, and signed the consent forms.

Everyone was smiling and professional, asking me if I had any questions. I asked the anesthesiologist how long it would take for the spinal block to take effect: “seconds.” Finally in came Dr. Newbury, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed. We were ahead of schedule and would have our baby within the hour.

We’d found out, to our great delight, at my last prenatal appointment, that Dr. Newbury had convinced the powers-that-be to allow music in his OR. He actually asked us if we had a request for his Pandora, and we decided to go with Bob Seger. And with that, this birth took on its own vibration…

I was allowed to walk into to OR myself instead of being wheeled in as I’d been last time. A nurse stood eye-level with me and talked to me while I was given the spinal block. She was also the one who convinced everyone to let Jacob, peering in the window in his shower cap and paper slippers, in already.

As the block began to take effect they laid me back on the table, and as Dr. Newbury and his assistant came into the room with their hands scrubbed up to the elbows i.e. McDreamy and -Steamy, I am not even joking, “Night Moves'” “I was a little too tall, coulda used a few pounds…” came on

and like actors in a one-act play, the nurse, anesthesiologist, and Jake were all right there by my head, I lost all feeling in my toes within minutes but was still able to joke around with Jacob about the songs: “Gonna take a freight train:” Marshall Tucker played at the Hotel, I know; Skynyrd, “Simple Man;”

“Don’t tell me they are going to take the baby out to ‘Witchy Woman;'” “Rocket Man’s” ‘I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…’ but it wasn’t – about five minutes after the surgery was scheduled to begin I was told there would be a lot of pressure, and then we would meet our baby.

We’d elected not to find out the gender ahead of time this go-round, and it was not an easy thing to do! Of course, we wanted to know so badly, every day. But making ourselves wait was the right thing to do as it really and truly was all about that one MOMENT our baby entered the world: “It’s a BOY!”