Oliver's Birthday

We had been in this position before. Or so we thought. It is 8am on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 and Annie wakes me to say that contractions had started and they were pretty rough. She was going to take a hot shower and see how she felt afterward. We were both excited but hesitant since we had already gone through one false labor. A week and a half earlier, on January 22nd, contractions had sent us to our doctor's office to have a labor check. We were told that, although Annie was not due until February 9th, she was already 4cm dilated and we needed to go to the hospital. Yet after 5 hours of Annie being stuck with and IV drip, having blood drawn and doing hundreds of laps around the maternity ward, the contractions went away and we were sent home. There would be no baby that day.

So this time we wanted to be certain. As Annie took her shower, I double checked that everything we may need in the hospital was packed. At 8:30am Annie's contractions were coming faster and harder. We headed to our doctor's office yet again. This time Annie was 6cm dilated and almost completely effaced. This baby was coming, today. We got in our car and I drove as fast as I could to Seton Southwest hospital. The nurses rushed us to our room and immediately began an IV drip for Annie so that she could receive her epidural. Nearly an hour later, and Annie almost 9cm dilated, she received that glorious pain equalizer. Just in time too, the contractions were really hitting Annie hard. After a few moments the anesthesialogist asked how Annie was doing. "Great," she said, "on my left side. My right side is getting worse!" Typical Annie. Medicine works differently for her. Always has. So the doctor added a little kick to her drip and a few minutes later the right side pain vanished too.

At around 1:30pm, nearly 6 hours after Annie's first contraction, and just under 3 hours at the hospital, the nurse said it was time for Annie to begin small pushes. In the room with Annie were myself and her mother Sheila. We were her "helpers". When a contraction came we held her feet and I counted to ten so Annie knew how long to push. We did this off and on till about 3pm when our OB-GYN Doctor Landwermeyer entered the room. She said "how about we have a baby?" So we all got ready. Ok, it's not like we did anything different. We just now knew that there wasn't much more time before our little one arrived. And we were right. At 3:39pm on February 2nd, 2010, Oliver Eoin Painting was born. He weighed 8 pounds 3.9 ounces and was 21 inches long. That explained all those beatings Annie took while he was still in the womb.

Our doctor had noticed just before delivery that Oliver had passed his meconium (black, tar-like feces that is pretty creepy to see and every newborn has) while still in the womb. She said this happens from time to time and they simply have to make sure to do an extra thorough cleaning when he was actually born. A few extra hands were on deck from the nurses station to make sure everything was ok with baby Oliver. As he finally entered the world, Oliver's umbilical chord was slightly wrapped around his neck but it was also nothing that worried our doctor too much. The entire staff did an amazing job at checking Oliver and made sure that everything was just fine. I watched with dumbfounded awe as they cleaned this tiny baby. My son......MY son. I turned to Annie and kissed her forehead and told her that I loved her. She smiled and looked over at our child. My mother-in-law handed me a camera and I started to take as many pictures as I could. Shortly after, the room was cleared of everyone but one nurse, Annie, myself and Oliver. Soon after that the nurse left too and Annie and I were alone with our child for the first time. We didn't speak much during the next hour. The occasional "I love you" or whispered "wow" could be heard. We mostly just stared at Oliver. Smiling. Our lives were forever changed at 3:39pm on February 2nd. And we couldn't be happier.