I’m a Dad!
September 5, 2002 – 1:07 pmHi. Welcome to my adventure.
My son, Liam, was born on July 25, 2002. He is my and Jennifer’s first child. We tried and tried to have a baby – even went through a bit of a nightmare with infertility treatments. They didn’t work. After a several of rounds of me giving Jen a shot in the tummy for 5 nights in a row (these didn’t hurt) and then a final shot in the “hip” on the last night (this one stung a little), we decided to scrap that ordeal and concentrate on adopting a baby instead.
We checked out a couple of different adoption agencies and finally chose Little Angels Adoptions. They were located in Eldorado Hills which wasn’t too far away from us. They are a very nice couple; he is a lawyer and she a facilitator. Jennifer and I created our resume and Deb and Jim and their wonderful staff got it out to some birthmoms. They called us a couple of times to ask if we were interested in a couple of situations where the birthmom was a drug addict or wasn’t sure who the father was. We talked it over and for our first baby we didn’t want to have to deal with the complications those situations may have presented.
Then, in January of 2002, Jennifer called me at work to tell me she had taken a pregnancy test “just on a whim” and it was positive.
Jen had a very easy pregnancy. (I can say this because I wasn’t the one gaining weight or retaining water.) She never had any morning sickness; she had almost no symptoms whatsoever at first, so much so that she worried she had lost the baby. We rented a Baby Beat heartbeat monitor and it was a godsend. It’s just like the dopplar ultrasound thing the doctor carries around in his pocket to listen to the baby. I highly recommend it if you or your wife is at all concerned about the baby. It costs like $450 to buy, but you can rent it for $30/month and every third month is half price.
Jen had a seizure while at work on July 5th. We’re still not sure why it happened. She got a ride to the hospital in an ambulance and everything. I got a ride on the adrenaline wave. She was having light contractions and we were afraid the baby was going to be born that day, which would have been about six and a half weeks early. Thankfully, the contractions calmed down and they sent her home the next day with a prescription of phenobarbitol, and a recommendation to not go back to work. She didn’t.
On July 25th, she woke up thinking the baby had pushed on her bladder causing her to wet herself. After she changed she kept leaking and we began to wonder if her water had broken. She called the doctor and he said to go on in to Labor and Deliver and find out for sure.
Turned out her water had broken! But she wasn’t having any contractions and she wasn’t dilated at all. So, they put her on an IV of antibiotics and Pitocin, which is a labor inducing drug. They did this around 10:30 AM. They would check her every half hour or so and if she wasn’t having any contractions they would up the dosage of Pitocin. By around noon she was feeling light contractions. By 2 PM she was having fairly strong contractions and was dilated to 4cm. Around 4 PM she was in heavy labor, using Lamaze breathing to get through the pain. They warned us and Jennifer had read that Pitocin causes contractions to be more painful. Jennifer was in quite a lot of pain and I think it was around 5:15 when she wanted an epidural; she just couldn’t take it anymore. The nurses got her sat up and an anesthesiologist came in to administer the shot. When she sat up, Jennifer said she felt the urge to push. They had her lie back down. They examined her and discovered that she was dilated to 9cm – no epidural.
The doctor came in and told her if she felt the need to push with the next contraction, she could. I was in a dream state, the baby was coming! Was I ready to be a dad? I didn’t think I was! There was nothing for it, he was coming whether i was ready or not.
Jen pushed through I think 5 contractions and the doctor said he was going to use the vacuum extractor because Liam’s (we had a name picked out before we even got married) heartbeat was dropping between the contractions and he (the doctor) wanted to get him (my son) out of there. She pushed through 3 more contractions with the doctor pulling on Liam’s head with the vacuum thing.
My son was born at 5:41 PM on July 25, 2002 and it’s just about the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.
I hope to use this blog to chronicle my adventures in parenting. The ups, the downs; the victories, the defeats; things I learn, things I teach; funny situations, scary situations. All of it. I hope you get something out of it, even if it’s just a laugh or two. Enjoy!
3 Responses to “I’m a Dad!”
I have to say Aaron that you leave out quite a bit in your “birth day” description. First of all I would like to say that my brother-in-law was AWESOME!!! I was so impressed by him and the love that I saw shining through him towards my sister. Second Jenn you were such a trooper! You actually make me rethink working in labor and delivery just to have the chance to be around women with even half your strength and courage. Even though you did say some interesting things to Aaron and pretty much the room in general when the contractions were really tough. Aaron you will be an amazing dad as my sister will be a wonderful mom. I am so proud of both of you and can’t wait to spoil my nephew with “noisy toys” and give him sugar candy right before you pick him up from me. I will be sure that my boys teach him all the great stuff like playing in mud, dirt bike riding and getting scabed knees. I love you both more than you will ever know!
Jill
By Jill on Sep 17, 2002
Welcome to fatherhood… thanks for sharing your son’s birthstory.
By Mariann on Oct 15, 2002
Enjoyed your birth event of your son. Just surfing the net and can across your site. Your story reminded me of my story a bit, I have a son that is almost five(in October). I remember that things started happening in the morning and when we got to the hospital in the early afternoon things just started going so fast. We went to Lamaze, but when she went into heavy labor Lamaze went out the door. She wouldn’t listen to me about breathing(or she couldn’t hear me
). My wife also had an epidural but it worked only for a short while. She was ready to go.
I have a funny little story about how nervous I was. I had to go down to the cafe on the lower level of the hospital to have some lunch being it past lunch time and I needed to calm down. Well, I bought a cheeseburger and milk(brief description of my lunch) and I was going to put some mustard on my burger. At the same time I was thinking of the birth that was coming. It was then that I realized that I had poured my milk on my cheeseburger! Boy was I embarressed. I looked around to see if anybody was watching and thankfully nobody had seen me.
I thank God for such a handsome and healthly boy, Jacoby.
By John R. on Jul 23, 2003