Look At The Birdie

Today is Kristiana's birthday!  I have already been informed (by her) that it is not her "real" birthday yet because she was born at 10:31 P.M.  And since this is not the 'real' birthday I thought I would talk a little about what was really happening at this time 15 years ago...besides, Sylvia is yelling, "At this time I was in a lot of pain!"  Allow me to explain. 

Sylvia fought through both of her pregnancies.  She suffered what I called "all day sickness" because it wasn't only in the morning...and it didn't only last the first trimester.  (I studied 'pregnancy' at this time...don't be alarmed if I use some of the lingo...correctly)  We took every class that our hospital offered about pregnancy, birth, and raising a child.  One such class was lamaaze (sp?) lamaze (sp?) llamaz (sp?) you get the idea.  If you are a Slovenian farmer (I am totally going to start an international incident one of these days) you may not know that the Lamaze class is where they teach your wife to rhythmically breathe while still being able to curse your ancestry and grip your fingers tighter than an industrial vise...with love. 

Our Lamaze class was taught by a sweet, knowledgeable woman named Danette.  Danette showed us "squirmer" movies about birth.  She had us bring pillows to sit on the floor.  She invited us to write a birth plan for what we did and didn't want to happen when we were in the hospital.  She told us to pack a bag with everything we would need and put it right by the door.  It would be easy to grab when we realized halfway there that we had forgotten it because your wife could say, "it's right by the door!"  She talked to us about the realities of epidurals and what to expect if you couldn't make it without drugs. 

As an aside, our birth plan, where we asked to hold off on the drugs as long as possible, is sleeping with the fishes and someone has scribbled "YEAH RIGHT!!" all over it in Sharpie.  We also, when it came time for Jake to be born, inquired about a home epidural kit that I could administer before we got to the hospital...but I digress.

Back to the class.  We were taught how to breathe and not hyperventilate.  Ok, good to know.  Apparently if you just keep breathing quickly, the room starts to spin, the lights dim, and you start reciting lines from classic movies, "Auntie Em...Auntie Em..."   That would be bad.  So we had a plan!  Danette taught the poor dumb guys how to stand at the end of the bed and, when instructed by the doctor to do your Lamaze breathing, we got to be in charge.  You see, if Sylvia had just done the same number of breaths over and over she could have tried to speed things up by finishing her pattern earlier and earlier and then..."I've always relied on the kindness of..."  We, the clueless males, were told to tell her the number of quick breaths to take between the longer cleansing breath.  We were supposed to put both of our hands behind our backs to get our fingers ready (but also to keep our hands away from the superhuman gripping strength of our wives) and while Sylvia was doing her cleansing breath I was supposed to switch hands and show her a new number of fingers.  I had been to college!  I got this!  Then Danette warned us of two things, "Do not show your wife just one finger because one quick breath between cleansing breaths is not medically beneficial" and "Do not flip off your wife." 

We all laughed thanked her and went to our homes to wait for the blessed event...that people have alternately described with lemon and watermelon analogies or pulling your lip over your head.  The human race is so lucky that childbirth was handed to women! 

Man, "You want me to do that again?!  No way!!  You want how many kids?  EIGHT!!!  Are you insane!?  What the heck is a reality TV show anyways?!"  but I digress...again...

Back to Sylvia in the hospital (because it is not 10:31 P.M. and it isn't Kristiana's birthday yet...gotta love teenage girl logic) with me at the end of the bed.  Following a full thirty five hours of labor (have I mentioned before that Sylvia is my hero?) I was dutifully alternating hands to show her how many breaths to take.  hoo hoo hoo...breathe...hoo hoo hoo hoo...breathe...three...breathe...two...Breathe (with angry eyes from Sylvia...Two breaths are not enough breaths) I got flustered as I was trying to get my fingers to work...I don't do well with no sleep for a day and a half...and the next hand came out...ONE!  Yup, you guessed it.  Not only did I do the unthinkable and put out the medically inaccurate 'one.' I totally flipped off my wife!

Luckily for me (and for Jake because he would not have been born otherwise) Sylvia burst out laughing and I regained control of my body and settled into a more predictable and less dangerous, three, four, five pattern until the doctor had to resort to other means to convince Kristiana that the world was not such a bad place and she should come out to see for herself.  They wanted to wait to make her cry until they suctioned out her mouth and nose (I know the reason why but thought I would spare you the details).  At 10:31 P.M. Kristiana was born...and she screamed immediately...less three seconds old and already with the attitude?!  Uh oh!

Happy (almost) Birthday Kristiana!  I love you Sweetheart!