Jesse’s due date (or I guess it was MY due date, when Jesse was supposed to be born), was June 3rd, 1991. He unfortunately didn’t make his arrival until June the 14th, a full 11 DAYS LATE!! In commemoration of this auspicious, occasion, I have decided to tell the story of Jesse’s birth. It can be the build-up to my “baby” turning 21.
First of all, can I just say, that for a pregnant woman, when her due date comes and goes with no baby being born, it is just not funny anymore. I remember that I spent the entire day of June 4th crying because Jesse was due on the 3rd and didn’t come. Secondly, I have to say that people can say some of the dumbest things to an overdue pregnant woman. I can’t remember how many times different ones threw “You haven’t had that baby yet?!” my way. It was quite obvious from looking at me that the answer to their question was NO!!!! It felt like they thought I was doing it on purpose or something!! I got to the point where I told people that it had all been a huge joke, that I had never really been pregnant, but had taken a job as a basketball smuggler! Or I would look really surprised and exclaim, “What baby?! It’s not nice to assume a woman is pregnant just because she has a big round belly!”
Anyway, since it didn’t look like Jesse had any intention of making an appearance on his own, the Dr. decided to admit me to the hospital and induce my labor. He told me to check in after 7:00 pm on the 12th and they would begin the induction the next morning. I worried a little about having a baby born on the 13th… didn’t want him to have birthdays on the dreaded Friday the 13th… but by that point, I was more than ready to finally hold that little bundle in my arms instead in my belly, so I was all for it.
Ken and I arrived at the hospital just past 7:00 on the 12th. They put me in one of the L&D rooms and there was a picture of a COW on the wall. I wondered what genius it was that thought it would be a good idea to put a cow picture in a room that would be occupied by hugely pregnant women trying to give birth. I’m sure it was a man.
Once I got changed and into the bed, the nurse came and hooked me up to all the equipment to monitor my contractions (once they started) and the baby’s heartbeat. Said she would come in a little later and put some kind of gel on my cervix to soften it up before they started the induction the next morning. Sounded like a GREAT idea to me. She came back just a little while later, looked at the monitors and said, “Did you know that you are having contractions right now?” Well, no, I didn’t know it, because I wasn’t feeling anything other than the same general discomfort I had been feeling for the past month or so. She said she was going to call my Dr. and let him know, because if they went ahead and put the gel on my cervix, it could stop the contractions.
About an hour or so later, the nurse came back in and said Dr. Brown had said not to do the gel. Then she cheerily said, “You can get dressed and go home now and we’ll see you back in the morning!” WHAT??!!! I finally make it to the hospital and they are going to send me back home?! I was incredulous. She must have seen it in my face, because she hurriedly said, “You can stay the night if you want to, but we won’t be doing anything for you until in the morning and if you stay it will cost you for another night.” I got out of the bed and started getting re-dressed, sobbing as I went. Ken told me we could stay if I wanted, but I didn’t see the point in having to pay for a useless night in the hospital, so we went home.
Around 4:00 or so the next morning, I woke up and discovered that I had lost the mucus plug. I will spare you a description of what it looked like. Just let me say that I was (and still am) amazed at the processes of the human body. Anyway, shortly after that momentous occasion, I started having contractions… REAL ones. I was SO excited! I was going to have my baby without having to be helped along by labor inducing drugs. Even though we didn’t have to be at the hospital until 7:00 or 8:00, I was much too excited to go back to bed. So I took a shower, checked my suitcase to make sure everything was packed (even though it had already been packed for three weeks now), frosted a cake I had baked because I knew my Mama and Daddy were coming later that day, and cooked Ken a very big breakfast. All the while, I was timing my contractions. They were getting stronger and closer together. By the time Ken and I left for the hospital, they were about five minutes apart. They continued at this rate all the way to Erlanger Hospital. But the very moment we pulled into the parking deck, they STOPPED! I mean it was like they had never even happened! I couldn’t believe it.
We went up to the Labor and Delivery floor and I told the nurse at the desk (through gritted teeth), “I am here to have my baby.” She asked, “Are you in labor?” “NOOOO!!”, I said, still gritting my teeth. I was honestly so mad that my contractions had stopped that I could barely talk to her. Ken told her we had been there the night before but they had sent us home and they were supposed to do an induction that morning. She checked the orders and finally found my name. This time she took us to one of the new L & D suites and thankfully, not the room with the cow picture on the wall. She gave me a gown and told me to change and get in the bed. About the time I got settled, Dr. Brown came in and said, “I’m going to break your water and then they’ll start the Pitocin to get your contractions started.” Then he pulled out what looked like a giant crochet hook, pushed it up inside of me and started fishing around. I guess that is the closest I have ever come to hurting a member of the medical profession. I drew my foot back and told Dr. Brown that if he didn’t stop, I would kick him. He laughed and said, “No, you won’t.” He just didn’t know how serious I was. Anyway, he stopped and said he’d “try again later”. “Not so long as I’m conscious!”, was my reply.
Being that this was my first time giving birth, I had the crazy notion that I would “go natural”. Ha ha! Silly me! Once they started the Pitocin drip and the contractions started coming one on top of the other with no time to breathe in between, I quickly opted to have an epidural. (Yep! I am a BIG wimp!) The first anesthesiologist they sent was from India. His accent was so heavy that I could not understand a word he said. Each time he would speak to me, I had to ask him to repeat himself and he was getting mad at me because I couldn’t understand him! Call me crazy, but I do not think people who are in considerable pain should have to worry about having to find someone to translate what the doctor is saying to them. Finally, I grabbed the nurse’s arm and said, “Please go get me someone who speaks English!” She called for another anesthesiologist, who placed the epidural with no problems, and we settled in to wait.
We waited… and waited… and waited… and then we waited some more. The monitors showed I was having really good contractions, but evidently not good enough to convince our hard-headed little baby to go on and be born. This went on all day. Every half hour or so, someone would come in, introduce themselves and say, “I’m going to check you now.” Erlanger was a teaching hospital, so there were a lot of pre-med and nursing students, residents, etc., hanging around trying to learn something. But we waited so long and so many different people came in, at one point I told Ken, “I think someone is out in the hallway selling tickets!” Anyway, they all “checked me” and they all said the same thing… “Oh good! You are at 7 cm. Shouldn’t be too much longer now.” Then they would leave, before I could tell them that I had been at 7 cm ALL DAY!!
The waiting continued. Around mid-afternoon, one of the nurses came in and said that maintenance was going to be working on the AC that evening, so they would be turning off the system soon. REALLY?! It is the middle of June and you are going to turn off the air conditioner while I’m trying to have a baby?! Unbelievable!! They turned it off and it got HOT! Luckily, we had a very sweet nurse on that shift who went in search of a fan for the room and a recliner chair for my Daddy. Wish we could have kept that nurse, because after the shift change, our nurse was less than interested about me and my baby. She had a student nurse with her and they stood, one on each side of my bed, totally ignoring me and yammering on about how rotten their kids were. I interrupted their gab-fest to tell the nurse that my bag of epidural medicine was just about empty. “Hmm”, she said, and they left the room. I figured they would be back in soon with another bag of meds, but the sun went down, the bag emptied out, and they never came. I started to get very uncomfortable, so I pushed the call button. She stuck her head in the door and looked at me like I was interrupting something important. I said, “I can feel my contractions.” She stomped over to the monitor and said, “Well, it’s no wonder… you are really blowing them off the charts over here!” Then she turned to leave. “Wait!”, I yelled. “This thing in my back is so I WON’T feel my contractions, isn’t it?” She looked at the bag of meds (the same one I had told her earlier was almost empty) and said, “Well, that one’s run out. They’ll have to do another epidural on you. Do you want me to call the anesthesiologist again?” “Well, DUH!”, I thought. “Yes, please do”, I said.
By this time, we were into the wee-hours of the 14th. Ken was curled up on the couch, Daddy was stretched out in the recliner, Mama was fanning me and bringing me cool cloths, and I was in tremendous pain, begging anyone who would listen to “please let me go home”. The anesthesiologist came in to do my second epidural. Unfortunately, though, I was in such pain that I had a hard time holding still, and he was never able to get it placed correctly. About this time, Dr. Brown came in. He said that I’m still at 7 cm (SURPRISE!) and that he will give me two more hours to have this baby before he does a C-section. “Or”, he said, “we can go ahead and do a C-section now”. I looked at Ken, he nodded, and we both said, “Now!” My immediate concern was whether or not Ken would still be able to go into the delivery room with me. Dr. Brown said only if they were able to get another epidural to take effect. If they had to put me to sleep, Ken couldn’t go. They called the anesthesia department and they sent the doctor to come and do another (my THIRD) epidural. Thankfully, this one took.
As they were wheeling me to the delivery suite, I suddenly realized that I could wiggle my toes. I remember that all of my friends said when I had an epidural, I wouldn’t be able to feel my feet. So I said to the anesthesiologist who was at the head of my gurney, “I can feel my toes.” He continued talking to whoever else it was at the head of the gurney. I said, a little louder this time, “I can feel my toes!”. Still no response. This time, I yelled, “I CAN FEEL MY TOES!!!!”. He stopped talking and smiled down at me and said, “Can you feel your contractions?” “No”, I replied, BUT I CAN FEEL MY TOES!!!”. He laughed and said, “Well, honey, we’re not going to be cutting your toes!”
When we got to the delivery suite, things sort of started going in fast motion. Ken came in all gowned up, I got onto the table, they put drapes up all around me and got down to the business of bringing our firstborn child into the world. Ken stood up once and peeked over the drape, but he sat back down quickly and was a little green around the gills.
At this point, we still did not know if our baby was a girl or a boy. Very uncooperative little critter whenever we had ultrasounds. I had the feeling for my whole pregnancy that it would be a girl… had only really considered that it might be a boy for the two weeks prior to the birth. I had a really good track-record for correctly guessing the sex of other women’s babies, so I think Ken and Mama and Daddy fully expected a girl. Ken and I hadn’t even been able to agree on a name for a boy baby until just before we went to the hospital when I gave him two choices and told him to pick one. We finally agreed on Jesse Kenneth, and it was a good thing, because after much tugging and pulling, Dr. Brown happily announced, “It’s a BOY!!” Then the nurses whisked him away and I didn’t get to see him until after Dr. Brown had stapled me shut and I was in the recovery room. I was getting concerned, but they brought him in shortly thereafter. It seems that there was meconium in his water and they didn’t want him to breathe it into his little lungs. The umbilical cord had also been wrapped around his neck – twice, so his little nailbeds were purple when they handed him to me. I shudder to think what could have happened if we had tried to push that sweet baby through the birth canal. Thank you, God, for not letting me push!
Jesse Kenneth Lunsford was born at 8:13 am on June 14, 1991. He weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz. and was 21 inches long. Due to the C-section, he had a perfectly round little head and when he scrunched up his forehead, he looked just like my Daddy. We promptly christened that expression “the Granddad face”. Now, I already loved this little scamp. I had ever since the moment I saw two lines on that pregnancy test. But when they put Jesse in my arms for the first time, the love I felt for him simply took my breath away. I call it the “earth-shaking, heart-breaking love”. I don’t think I ever fully realized how very much my parents loved me until that moment when I felt that kind of love for my own child. Ken and I knew that our lives would never be the same.
It was about then that the nurse brought Mama and Daddy back. They knew the baby had been born, but the nurse hadn’t told them if it was a boy or a girl. I said to them, “Come in and meet your new grandson.” I will never ever forget the way my Daddy’s face brightened up as he said, “Grandson?” Aww… it still makes me misty when I remember.
That was 21 years ago. Now my sweet little baby boy is a man. I thank God every day for this precious blessing that He gave us all those years ago. Happy Birthday, Jesse! Your Mama loves you!!! (And your Daddy did too, with his whole heart.)
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