Birth of a Child is Nothing Like They Show on TV or the Movies
We have all seen a child being born on TV or in a movie. They make it look so easy. You get to the hospital, the doctor is there or shows up shortly after, and then the doctor starts having you push. After a few hard pushes, the baby pops out gently into the doctor’s hands and they wrap the baby in a blanket to hand to the mother. The whole process seems to take minutes.
For us, this definitely was not the case. Our experience was pleasant and everything went well, but it just didn’t come close to what I had pictured in my head. We had a scheduled induction since our little one didn’t want to come out on time. We scheduled our induction for 7 am in the morning. We got to the hospital and the nurses helped get us set up in our room. They then started my wife on Pitocin. The doctor showed up shortly after and broke her water. He then left and said he would be back later for the actual delivery.
For the rest of the day, the nurses monitored the baby and my wife. They came in and checked how my wife was progressing. Each time letting us know what the dilation was up to. Before too long my wife asked for the epidural to help with the pain. The hours passed by while we waited to get to full dilation. Once my wife was at the full 10cm our nurses had my wife start to push. She pushed with each contraction for about 45 minutes. Our baby started to crown and still, it was just the nurses that were helping us with the process. They had my wife push till the baby was on the verge of being delivered and then paged the doctor to come to the hospital.
The nurse actually had to tell my wife to stop pushing to ensure that our baby would not be delivered until the doctor got there. We had a good laugh while we waited. Fortunately, it didn’t take the doctor long to get there and he started to prep the room for the delivery. He set up and then told my wife to push. After one push our little angel popped out and then there was a flurry of activity from nurses checking on the baby and getting all the measurements taken. I was pulled in multiple directions because I wanted to be supportive of my wife but also wanted to take pictures of our little family addition. Ultimately my wife told me to take pics of our baby. So I took pictures and then cut the umbilical cord.
It was such a wonderful experience. Experiencing your child’s birth is definitely a life-changing event. Even though it was different from what we had pictured, we didn’t mind because we had a wonderful happy healthy little girl.
