Birth Story - Teach

Teach

I guess it’s time for another birth story. Imagine if you will that the year was 1991. School was out for the summer, but that didn’t make a difference to me and mine. I had three little ones and two of them attended a Montessori school that was year-round. My littlest one was in residential daycare near my work. I was fortunate to be able to leave work a couple of times every day to nurse her that is until I got pregnant with number four.

Usually nursing had kept my babies spaced about two years apart. Not that time. It was the first of June and the Drama Queen wouldn’t be 2 until mid-August. We had moved into our first home in February and we finally felt like a real family. Teach was due on June 1, but we had never had a baby arrive when it was supposed to, so we decided to attend the wedding one of my sweetie’s best high school buddies in Utah County. It was only an hour from the hospital and my doctor and I have never been known to have quick deliveries.



The wedding was at the Bride’s residence up in the foothills of Provo. I remember lots of bumps and quite a few hills and plenty of discomfort. I didn’t mention any of this to my sweetie since I knew he was anxious to reconnect with his friend. The reception was beautiful and any other time it would have been fun, but not in my current state.

slightly scandalous...

As we were walking back to the car, I casually mentioned to my sweetie that maybe we should just drive straight to the hospital. He looked alarmed and I reassured him that the pains were regular but still quite a ways apart. I was sure we had plenty of time.

We climbed in the car and made the trip back to the Salt Lake valley in record time. We got off the freeway on 8th South and headed east. That’s when I remembered that we didn’t have my bag with us. That meant no reading material or food. I don’t know if all hospitals are like this, but in Utah, it was strictly forbidden to feed a mom in labor. With my first I was SOOO hungry by the time she was born. I had fasted for almost 24 hours by then. After that I got smart, I tried to eat before I arrived at the hospital.

We pulled into a Smith’s parking lot and hurried inside. The pains were coming closer now and even though I was pretty sure I still had hours to go, I was becoming rather uncomfortable and the thoughts of walking the aisles of a grocery store were not making me happy. We quickly grabbed some snacks and my sweetie chose a random novel off the book-rack and we headed for the checkout. Five minutes later we were back in the car and on our way to the hospital.

This was the first time I was asked about students in my hospital room and being the kind and generous person I try to be, I decided that I could put up with one more person crashing our little party in the name of education. So our nurse was accompanied by a student nurse, but both of them proved to be rather incompetent.

I’ve always been a monitor-watcher and the peaks and valleys in my baby’s heartbeat were making me awfully nervous. They kept assuring me all was well, but they finally called the doctor. When he arrived he took one look and called for the tray to do a c-section. Boy did those nurses move then!


Fortunately, Teach chose just that moment to make her presence known and she forced her way into the world. And I do mean forced! She was my biggest baby at 10 pounds 1 ½ ounces. We totally missed the newborn stage. I had to put her in 3-month clothes from the very first day. She had beautiful silver hair and my doc called her a Silver Fox. That was the first and last time I allowed students in my delivery room. Oh, and Teach missed her due date by a few hours…she was born on June 2.