Oh look, a baby born in a hospital elevator. Not exactly ideal, but then again, the same thing happened to my husband's cousin. I worked with an ex-cop who had delivered two babies in his squad car. The week after our baby was born in the car, a relative of a family at our school caught her own baby while her husband called 911. Et cet.
People here wanted to know why we didn't get famous, especially when another couple with a carbaby showed up on one of the morning "news" shows shortly after our event. Locals were particularly disgusted since a bystander delivered that baby "and Pastor did it himself!" No doubt; what was that slacker dad doing? :D
Anyway, here's how it works: the ambulance shows up and takes you to the hospital, and the EMTs have no idea what to do with a just-delivered mom and baby, and the ER has no idea what to do with a just-delivered mom and baby, and you finally get to Maternity and everybody gets inspected and mopped up and reassembled and you wonder when the heck somebody is going to bring you a cheeseburger and then the head of OB comes in and says, "Wow, what a morning! Great job, Dad! Would you like us to call the paper?" And you say, "Um . . . no thanks." And your zany tale doesn't go out on the wire but remains a community and familial legend, and you go on with your life and don't have to worry about getting skinny in time for your big TV appearance.
However, you do worry about where the next baby, if there is one, is going to be born. :P
19 comments:
This makes having my last two children in my own bathtub a lot less crazy...of course the homebieth midwife did show up in time.
I still can't get over the fact that you had your baby in the car. My, am I glad our hospital is only five minutes from here.
(My husband was born in a primitive A-frame hut his dad built a couple hundred yards off a beach in Maui back in the "hippie" days. I guess that counts as pretty exciting too. I don't even know when he first saw a hospital.)
Given that 3/4 of mine were overnight inductions, and 2 of those inductions involved no anesthesia and no sleep for at least 24 hours, I'll take the car. I'm not complaining; there are women who've had it far worse than I. As terrifying as birth is (either in the car or the torture suite), I have emerged each time with a healthy baby in my arms.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Mrs. RD, the bathtub is my Plan A for if things go Plan B again. No upholstery, for one thing. Too bad there aren't any homebirth midwives within two hours of my house. :P
Leah, aren't hippies great? :D
Shrew, what do you know? Giving birth in a setting surrounded by people trained, experienced, and equipped for dealing with all the terrible things that can happen to a mother or a baby during childbirth sounds pretty good to me.
What do I know? For one thing, I know I'm a masochist. For another, I know... well, not much, actually. :)
Yeah, I didn't think about the upholstery. Definitely the tub.
Eh, you know. Turns out it was fine, so it was fine. But when it's happening and you don't know how it's going to turn out and there's not a soul in the world who knows what's happening to you, that's a bit horrible.
In the car? Oh wow- thank god your baby was healthy and in the right position!
we're going to have to make the 2 1/2 hr drive to the hospital next time seeing that the delivery in my bed nearly ended me in my coffin. Praying desperately that if the time comes I will avoid the car birth. Your husband is a hero...as are you.
I'm always planning in my head for unexpected birthing scenarios. Our hospital's only 10 minutes away, but if I need to push before we get there, I'll try as hard as I can to hold him/her in until we're in the parking lot. That's my plan anyway.
(Time in the hospital before delivery: #1: 12 hours #2: 4 hours #3: 1.5 hours #4: not aiming to break any records)
You're so cool Rebekah for having a carbaby.
While I think my husband is a hero already, I'm a little nervous too about a possible car birth in the future. Baby #1: 8hrs from induction to pop-out. Baby #2: not quite 2hrs from hard labor to pop-out. It's 50 miles to our hospital, so... God help us (in so many ways!) when He sees fit to bless us again. Because, of course, we'll take the risk of a car birth one thousand times over no more kids. Yay for you awesome car birth people! (All of you, knowns and semi-unknowns!)
i, for one would have loved to have seen you on good morning america. ratings gold.
i could have driven from st louis to my favorite hospital in seattle to deliver our baby, with hours to spare. i wouldn't mind whittling that down a bit.
When I expressed the desire for minimal interventions (ha!) my OB asked how far I was from the hospital (less than a mile) and told me to just stay home as long as possible. Then, he turned to my husband and asked if he was comfy with the thought of delivering his own child. My husband didn't bat an eye and responded that "it can't be much harder/grosser than being up to his shoulder in cow, helping to deliver a breech calf." Words of comfort, dear, words of comfort.
;)
Rebekah, you truly are a hero, not because you had a carbaby or declined all the publicity, but just because you're you.
etem, Oh, I SO hear you. Though my hospital choices are 30 and 60 minutes away, I'm VERY not worried about getting there in time. (with 40 hours my first go, I can't imagine the next time around will be so much shorter that I have to worry about making it in time.)
Say, does anyone know of anyone who actually had longer labors (especially progressively longer labors) with successive children? And I don't mean those who've had 5 children and the 6th was slightly longer than the 5th who came out in 4 hours... Just curious. :)
That "What do you" above to Shrew should read "whaddya," not "I'm a snotty jerk." I mean, I am a snotty jerk, but I didn't mean to be in that sentence.
Anon, YES. We still do.
Melrose, I didn't know that's your new setup. :( So uncool. I'm trying to figure out what would be best here if/when it comes up again: comparatively riskier induction in comparatively safer setting, or the other way around? :(
Katy, if you've got grass between the hospital and your house, I'd say go for that. And I have persuasive evidence that I am in no way cool. :D
Emommy, just make sure you travel with a big garbage bag and something to wrap the baby in. :P A bulb syringe is probably a good idea too. The funny thing is we even had a cord clamp in our glove compartment, given to me by my midwife for baby 3, who was worried about my precipitous past. We totally forgot it was there when it actually happened on baby 5.
etem, but then you wouldn't have been able to walk home.
MM, HA! And the publicity did not appeal to us in the least. :P
Elizabeth, check with Gauntlets!
Elizabeth,
Sometimes it depends how baby is in the womb. #1 was like 28 hours of PUSHING. #2 was about an hour after getting to the hospital. # 3 was 9 hours after the hospital. #4 was only maybe 2 1/2 hours after getting to the hospital (though I was worried about a carbirth at 1 min. apart, but the car sloooowed things down) The difference--both #1 and #3 were sunny-side uppers.
Yikes. Both of mine were sunny side uppers (and waving!). They were 8 hours and 4.5 hours. If the next one is facing down, it might be a really good thing to only be a mile from the hospital and have a DH that "ain't skirred"...
My son was born on 21 Feb. too! But was born 15 minutes after we go to the hospital.
Anon, congrats. :) It was my friend Gauntlets who had the Feb. 21 baby. I think it took her 15 hours after she got to the hospital.
My first birth was a planned hospital birth and next to last born at the hospital not planned..... 11 were born in planned home births....one of these was delivered by her father in the middle of the desert in Wyoming before the midwife arrived.
In each one of my birth's the Lord was present and in control He was in the midst of all of the circumstances leading and helping.
It is hard not to listen to those little worries whispered in our ears.
However do not worry your Father in heaven knows what you need.
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
I will take my homebirth's any day over the hospital births but each woman must give birth where she is comfortable.
We were never on Good Morning America either!
Oh well life goes on.
Just don't worry the Lord is in charge.
Debbie S.
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