The First One

It has been requested that we share our memories of our children's births.
I've always been one to appreciate an interesting story. I don't know if you find it interesting, but I like the details - so I'll include them. Skim if you thinks it's too much.

In the beginning we began anew... we'd only been married 10 months but St felt it was time to begin our family sprouting. He asked me and I thought I'd not waste money and finish out the month's worth of pills. I did finish it, but it was with a lot of pressure to quit - he was quite ready. A fairly short while later I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach and I suspected I might be pregnant already, but then I had a period so I knew I wasn't. A week later though, I was still feeling yucky and so I St gave me a blessing. And it still didn't go away. OK - so we finally set an apt to see a Dr. On the way in I said I thought I might be pregnant. The Dr seemed to know exactly what questions to ask me and he had that knowing smile on his face. The nurse came in only moments after checking the urin sample and the Dr congratulated us on becoming parents soon! I'll never forget the look of shock on St's face! He couldn't believe it! He just didn't think it would be so fast! And I felt kind of bad about it because both of our sisters had been married longer than us and were both still trying to conceive their first... And to top it off we didn't have stable employment, nor had either of finished school yet. Pretty scarey!
Not much to tell about the pregnancy. I was still working in Park City doing Housekeeping. I would drive 40 minutes one way through the mountains, usually in the dark and frequently in the snow. I would run and grab my cleaning supplies - rush to the first restroom to clean - throw up - and then proceed to clean for the day. Quite a regular routine.
And then one day coming home from work my engine started smoking as I was almost to our apartment. I called and got my car into a shop for the next day. I called work and took the day off promising I'd somehow be in the next morning. As I was waiting for word on my car, I spent the day watching videos with a friend. I started having some minor contractions - but I wasn't due for 3 weeks. Must be Braxton Hicks contractions. Then I got word on the car - blew the head gasket. Dead Car!!!! Didn't quite know what to do yet...figured I'd talk to St that night. He was doing his 3 week summer time at Camp Williams about a 1/2 hr to the West. Then I noticed that I'd leaked a milky, mildly bloody stuff and had recently read about a "mucas plug" and wondered if that was the case. So I called the hospital and they wanted me to come in to get it checked out. So I called my mother-in-law to see if she could take me in since my family was vactioning and due to arrive at my sister's house in North Carolina the next day. She couldn't get out til around 8 that night and she talked me into taking an overnight bag just in case. I was timing the contractions and nothing was ever regularly 5 minutes apart.
So we got to the hospital and the receptionist studiously ignored us being so very busy with the stuff on her desk. About 5 minutes later a neighbor of Vickie's walked past that was a nurse there and asked what we were doing there. I answered, "we're here to see if I'm having my baby or not". You should've seen that receptionist's head jerk up in shock. She paid attention to us now. She asked, "have you had any contractions yet where you can't breath?" And of course because she said that I had my first one right then! "You mean like that?" They put me in a room pretty quickly and stuck wire things all over me and I asked if they would just let me know if I was having the baby or not....they just kind of ignored me and hustled about doing their stuff and left the room. So Vickie and I just chatted for about a half hour before someone finally came back a got busy right away again. "Umm.. so? What's going on?" "Well, you're having your baby." What?!?!?! For reals???? So I think of everything I left at home...and think I'll just have St pick them up for me on his way over. So I called him (I had called him earlier to let him know I was going to get checked out)and told him we're having the baby! And he shouted out, "Hey, guys! My wife's having the baby! Hon, can you call back in 10 minutes?" and hung up. Well, okay. I called back in 10 minutes and they laughed at me saying he'd left right away in a rush! And then he showed up in just another 10 minutes! So he got there a little before 9 pm. By then I was having pretty good contractions - I thought it was weird that the monitor recorded some contractions that I didn't feel. The body's a weird thing sometimes! Around 10 they figured it was time for an epidural. My body would just shake from the pain of the contractions. I was afraid I would have one of those uncontrollable shaking moments when they gave me the epidural and something bad would happen, but I wanted the pain to end even more than I was afraid. So I just closed my eyes and let them do it. And immediately that pain in the lower back just disappeared. Ahhh!!! They told me my doctor was at LDS Hospital since it was Thurs and it was the one night of the week he worked over there, but that they'd called him up to see if he could come. We asked one of the nurses when they thought I'd have him and they estimated that it would probably be about 5:30 in the morning. *Sigh* This was going to be a long night. At almost 12:00 am the contractions really started getting bad. The nurses told me not to push, the doctor was on his way. It was weird how my body just wanted squish and squeeze and push - gross to say, but it's almost comparable to a bowel movement. Vickie was coaching me into breathing deep so as to not hyperventilate and to try to help me not push. St was holding my hand repeating what the nurses told me. The only time I yelled at him was to tell him "YOU try NOT to push!!!" Try holding it all in when it wants to come out! No easy task! But I felt really bad when I could tell I hurt his feelings. The doctor arrived a little after 12 am and I called out to him to "Hurry up!" "Just let me get dressed here!" as he was putting on the medical robe and gloves. I really didn't care! I just wanted him there so they'd let me push! The Dr invited St to come and see. "You see there? That's the baby!" "That's him?" St asked incredulously. "Yup. I see what's holding him up...here!" And he took some scissors and I felt incredible pain and then that last nice shove and ***relief!!!!***** And a big squawl! I was in a daze. Stephen was the one to help him into the world and they laid him on my tummy. I remember just thinking, "oh, that's nice." But I was out of it! St clipped the imbilical cord and they scooped him away to go do their stuff to him. I heard more baby hollers, St crooning to him and the crying stopped suddenly. St later said he immediately stopped the crying when St laid his hand on his tummy. The baby knew his daddy loved him and that was all he needed. The nurses told me I could let go of the handle grips and I just couldn't move. Vickie and the nurses peeled my fingers off gently and worked around me. And then the Dr. came over to stitch me back up - and OUCHY OUCHY OUCHY!!!! STOP! I felt each stitch and he told me it was too late to stop! I was too shocked to cry! It HURT!!!!!!!! I guess they thought the epidural was supposed to be working... I think it was still set at a lower level expecting the birth not to take place for another 5 hours! That was the worst part of the whole entire labor!
A few hours later they brought him in to me and I remember his almond shaped eyes just kind of glowing and looking at me. A little like a tiny alien. It really surprised me that he needed to be taught how to nurse (and that I needed to learn how, too!) - it took us a few tries before he got latched on right. He would get frustrated that he wasn't getting what he wanted and lose his latch and fuss and search and get latched on and fuss. It would've been funny had it not been so frustrating. When I filled out the birth certificate info, St wanted me to name him Charles Easton West. I'd thought about it lots and decided we just couldn't do that to the kid. Kids are mean enough that I didn't want to chance it. Plus! He could never be a CEO with the name plaque Easton West! People would never take him seriously! So Charles Reid it was. Sorry, honey...
Later on in the day I was feeling just fine and we were bored so we decided we'd take a walk with the baby around the halls. We headed to the cafeteria but got shooed quickly back into the maternity section when somebody caught us. "You can't bring that baby in here!" Hm! Well, how was I supposed to know that? We got a release that evening and got to go home. The phone calls were fun to make. The hardest one was calling in to work and telling them I wasn't coming back because I'd had the baby. I felt quite guilty for breaking my promise of coming in. But they had a plant delivered to me anyway. I thought that was really sweet of them. I tried calling my best friend from college (Nannette Tinsley) to let her know - especially since she was expecting her 2nd baby in a few weeks. After a few tries I got through and it was her mother on the phone! I kind of fumbled and explained why I was trying to get ahold of her and asked, "so did she have her baby too, or something?" I couldn't figure why else her mother would be there - she's from Missouri. Yes, she'd had her baby 1 hour before Charlie was born. But she'd had a really rough delivery and had some hemorraging. Pretty scarey! So she'd had her baby 2 weeks early and mine was 3 weeks early - so Joshua Tinsley ended up only being 1 hour older rather than a week!
And that is how Charles Reid West came into this world.