John's Birth
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posted 2007 August 4, cbd
written 2007 May 23, cbd

My sister asked me about the story of John's birth.  This was my reply.

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We have always thought that the girls looked like Duncans and John looked more like an Owens but there are some crossover features, of course.  Since we've always said this, we're not really fresh, unbiased, but knowledgeable viewers, like you are.

Yes, he is cuter and much more popular than I was at his age.  His life, home, and environment have been so different from mine that there is little to compare.

John was the only one of us (conceived and) born in California.  (The rest, Texas, of course, though only Viann and I remember Texas as home.)  The pregnancies and deliveries of the girls were very "easy," normal, and fast.  Viann was in labor with Viannah for five hours and with Katy for six.  The doctor didn't make it to the hospital for Katy, she was delivered by an Ob. nurse.

John was different.  His natural due date was Sept. 7 (1990) but in May at a regular Ob. doctor visit, they did a sonogram and discovered that he was "placenta previa."  Apparently the placenta can attach itself anyplace on the uterus and if it attaches partly covering the cervix (the opening), then you have a problem.  Viann was put on enforced bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy and a C-section delivery was tentatively scheduled for August 31, one week before the due date, so as to avoid labor.

Enforced bed rest meant not getting up for anything except going to the bathroom and going to the doctor.  (Lazy doctors!)

So we had a routine checkup on August 7.  Viann had already given two units of blood "autologously", that is, for herself, knowing that there would be blood loss in the surgery.  They did an ultra-sound that day and mashed her tummy around a lot, as usual.  Things looked OK.  Another appointment was made.

Bending the rules slightly, we went to lunch on the way back home.  Joselitos, a  Mexican place about a mile away.  At the end of lunch, while I was paying actually, Viann started gushing blood in the restroom.  She walked out to the car dripping all the way.  This was the symptom that the placenta, or part of it, had broken loose and it might be an emergency.  We drove straight back to the emergency room where I ran over and broke the headstone on the parking place.  She walked in on her own.  It was tense for a few minutes while they looked for the baby's heartbeat.  If they hadn't found it they would have operated immediately right there, but they finally did.  Things were stable, so they could call the regular doctor (who was at lunch himself, of course) and do the delivery in the normal way a couple of hours later.  The placenta was only partially detached.  The baby was still getting enough oxygen.

I arranged for the girls to go home with my boss's wife and went in with Viann, as I had for the other deliveries.  It was the usual thing.  "You can be there but you have to stay out of the way and if you faint we're just going to walk over you to take care of mother and child until we have time to deal with you."  They brought me a "dad pack," the stuff I was supposed to wear, use, etc.  Viannah, waiting to be picked up said, "What about 'kid packs?'"  She wanted to go in too!

Everything from there was "routine" for a C-Section.  Viann had an "epidural" which means being awake but not being able to feel anything below the waste.  They cut her open and pulled the baby out feet first.  This is the image we both remember, little feet sticking out of the incision.  He was "perfect," with Apgar 5-9, the first number being lower because he was born asleep.  Babies who are squeezed through the birth canal aren't born asleep and don't have round heads when they come out, but John did.  It was much later that day, or maybe the next, when we had the repose to talk about a name.  It was going to be either Peter Henry or John Courtney.  I looked at him and said, "He doesn't look like Peter to me," so he's John.

Viann lost seven units of blood, much of it in the car I think.  I went home that evening and ran the car seat covers through the washing machine several times, bright red water each time.  It was lumpy.  It was a huge mess.  Back at the hospital they gave her her two blood units and two other general blood bank units.  There were some issues with getting everything in her abdomen pushed back into the right place; she was in the hospital three days.

John was evaluated and found to be ready to be born, but just barely.  The lungs were fully formed and ready for breathing, but only right then.  This is about as premature as you can be without significant complications requiring extended hospitalization.  He was 6 lbs. even, half an once heavier than I was.  That's also the threshold for premies.

Interesting.  It never occurred to me to put something like this on my website.  I'll think about it.

It's also interesting, we were just reading over some of the medical charts from this the other day trying to fill out forms for an educational consultant we've hired to find out why he's not doing well in school and figure out how to improve things.  They want to know the entire history, back to birth.  Reading all this about blood and gore out loud, finally after eight or ten minutes, John says, "too much information!"