Although this is a family blog it has until now been the
work of Malia. I wanted to take the
opportunity to add to it in a small way by writing a little about the last
week.
-Pat
-Pat
With thoughts of painting, cleaning and otherwise preparing for the arrival of our baby we knew the clock was ticking down fast. Malia’s nesting instinct in full force, the Marker trio was eagerly anticipating a lot of lasts. The last time it would be just the three of us, the last time Evie would wake up as an only child, and most importantly the last time we would get a full nights sleep! We have really tried to do a lot of special things with Evie lately in anticipation of having to divide our attention between her and our new baby. A trip to the zoo, the Art festival and lots of time in her baby pool have been a few of the activities we have done with our special girl.
Fast forward to Tuesday June 10th. Malia had been texting me a little about how
uncomfortable she was at work, but assumed it was no big deal. These are the screen shots from my phone, and
she was obviously a lot more worried about groceries than the fact that she had
been in labor almost all day!!! On the
way home from work I received a call from Malia asking me to call my mom to
come watch Evie because she had talked to her doctor. The doctor told her that she needed to go
down OSU and be checked out at labor and delivery. Malia was very frustrated that she was being
sent down to the hospital instead of her doctor’s office five minutes
away. By the time I got home it was a
mad dash to get a bag packed, a dinner for Evie made and a quick pick up of the
house before my mom arrived. Malia just
kept saying she knew that they would monitor her and then send her home and it
would be a waste of a trip.
We left the house and made good time going against the flow of afternoon rush hour traffic. We got to the hospital at a little after five. On the way to the labor and delivery wing two things happened that made me think that this was really it. Walking through the parking garage Malia had to stop for a minute while a contraction was happening that took her breath away. The second was that we took the elevator up with the nurse who happened to be the floor manager of labor and she said Malia looked ready to go! We arrived on the 6th floor to find that they were expecting us and got Malia into an exam room immediately. The nurse had her get into a gown and hooked her up to a fetal monitor and another monitor that measured contractions. Next she did a check only to find that Malia was 6cm and the contractions were coming about two to three minutes apart. It was only now that Malia realized that it was really happening, and we were about to finally meet our new baby.
With Kathy racing up to meet us Malia was taken to her delivery room. Her nurse was very sweet and immediately asked if Malia wanted an epidural. After explaining the whole platelet story there was a mad rush to test Malia’s blood to see if she could get it. Anesthesia was already on call as well as the doctor on duty to review the blood work and be there the second the results were in. If you have been reading this blog you know the magic number is 80,000 and Malia’s count came back at 82,000. The Nurse anesthetist wasted no time in placing the line because by now Malia was having very strong contractions that were coming less than two minutes apart. As the epidural took effect it was instantly obvious the relief it provided. Dr. Bartholomew appeared to introduce herself, and reassure us that everything was going to be fine. On her way out she decided it was time to break Malia’s water. She departed saying it wouldn’t be long now, and that she would be back very soon. I barely had time to call Kathy and see where she was. Close was the answer, but I knew that she would not arrive in time. I didn’t want her to speed or drive crazy so I said that it would be soon, but without a sense of panic.
Not more than 10 minutes had passed
and the nurse decided to check Malia’s progress for what would be the last
time. Instead of determining how dilated
she was the nurse found a head! With a slightly panicked voice the nurse called
for our doctor to come NOW! I swear that
Malia pushed for less than five minutes total.
The result was our perfect brand new baby boy! Mitchell Joseph was born
at 7:57 pm, less than 3 hours after we arrived.
I just wanted to write about how
proud I am of my wife. She is truly the
glue that holds our family together, and stronger than she will ever know. The way she labored all day at work, picked
Evie up from the sitter, and still had thoughts of groceries and cleaning on
her mind is incredible. I watched her
endure contractions that were coming less than two minutes apart without any
pain relief for quite some time. She
refused to believe that she was really in labor because it wasn’t as bad as she
thought it was going to be. By the time
Kathy showed up Mitchell and Momma had been cleaned up and were resting so
comfortably it looked not like Malia had just given birth, but just finished up
a day at the spa. Malia did such an
amazing job and looked so good it has been hard for me to remember that she
needs to still take it easy. We are so
looking forward to letting Evie get to know her new brother and grow as a
family.
Sweet family. Thanks for writing this, Pat.
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