Shortly after our anniversary I left for a medical imaging conference in Hawaii. Clara wasn't due for five weeks, and all was going well, so we didn't think there would be any problems. Still, I was glad that my Dad randomly happened to be in the area for the duration of the time I was gone.On November first I woke up at 5am - in my jetlagged stupor I thought it was six and decided to go down to the beach and give Tanja a call. I realized my mistake fairly quickly, but I didn't want
to further wake the colleague I was sharing a room with. I waded up to my knees in the very light Waikiki surf and talked to Tanja. She let me know that things were going well in Philly, and I described the small amount I had seen of Honolulu and told her about the how the conference was going.Later that evening I was finishing up the talk I was to give on the last day of the conference when my phone rang. I figured it was my boss, calling to talk more about one of the slides, but to my surprise it was Tanja! She told me she was having contractions, and just wanted to talk. It was very obvious that she didn't want this to be the real thing, but in the 20-30 minutes that we talked she had four or more contractions! In our birth classes we had learned that you're supposed to stay home until you reach "411", four contractions one minute apart for over one hour. Given that Tanja's contractions were already almost four minutes apart (and that Tanja's Mom had a very quick labor), I was pretty nervous.
I convinced Tanja to call the hospital for advice while I called my boss to let him know he might not see me in the morning... Soon Tanja called back and told me that the hospital wanted her to come in. I called our good friends Olivia and Yehuda, and they agreed to get up at 4am or so to take Tanja to the hospital. After they reached the hospital Tanja was put on an IV, and was supposed to wait and see if the contractions would slow down. At this point I managed to get two hours of sleep, as I knew there wasn't anything I could do and there wouldn't be any news for a while.
When my phone woke me up it was to news that Tanja was definitely in labor, and was being admitted. That was it for sleep.
I spent the rest of the night trying not to imagine all of the horrible things that I associate with hospital births. I knew from "The Philadelphia Guide to a Healthy Birth" that the Cesarean rate at the hospital that Tanja was admitted to had risen from 20% of all births in 2000 to 27% in 2005, and was likely nearing 1/3 of all births. The intervention rates at hospitals in our area are extremely large (the epidural rate is something like 95%, and if the birth isn't going fast enough for the doctor he or she will likely pressure the mom to have an unnecessary induction). Also, many hospitals make the birth experience far more painful than necessary by forcing women to labor lying in bed, rather than allowing gravity and movement help the baby get past the pelvis with a minimum of pain.
(Tanja has just warned me not to use Clara's blog for my political ramblings, so maybe I'll stop my rant here. But I'd love to talk to you about it, and I have lots more copies of "The Philadelphia Guide to a Healthy Birth" for anyone who wants it!)
So to summarize those five or six hours, I lay awake for most of the night trying not to imagine all the perverse ways the North American medical system was trying to prevent my wife and our baby from getting the natural oxytocin surge that evolved to accompany mammalian birth. Finally, at about 6:40am Tanja called me, and brought an end to all my fears by happily greeting me with a sparkling "Hi Daddy!".
I had changed my flight to the earliest available, and about seven hours after Clara was born I started the long trip back to Philadelphia. I really wish I could have been there for the birth, but Tanja did so well without me that I couldn't possibly be more impressed!I took the red-eye from LA to Philly, and arrived at about six AM. My Dad picked me up at the airport, and took me to the hospital to see Tanja and meet Clara for the first time. The next few days of adjusting to life as a parent were exhilarating and exhausting. Our wonderful friends in Philly were unbelievably helpful, and we went from (almost) totally unprepared to stocked full of clothes, diapers, and food in about a day!
It wouldn't be fair to post something that's only about me on "Clara's blog", so here are a few photos of the little one!
