The Story of Belle's Birth

I couldn't say "thank you" because I was trying too hard to swallow my tears. It didn't matter. They kept coming. And slowly, softly, between small sobs, I pushed out the words several seconds apart "thank" ... "you." Thank you to everyone in the room who was excited for us. Thank you to Annabelle for being healthy. Thank you to my wife for her amazing display of strength and courage.

It took 13 hours to get to that "thank you." And here's how it all happened:

At 9:30 PM on Tuesday, Bridget started feeling something in her stomach as she bounced on our exercise ball. (The induction was scheduled for Friday and she was doing everything she could think of to go into labor.) "I don't know," she said. "It's like bad cramps." In classic, clueless fashion, I jumped off my chair, "Is this it? Is it go time?" "We'll see," she said.

In the next 30 minutes, the cramps quickly turned into contractions. Six minutes apart. Then five minutes. We found our trusty Full Term app on our iPhones so we could be track the contractions to the second. "What about Oscar?" I asked. "I ... don't ... know," Bridget said, in between deep, pained breaths. "We should call my sister."

At 10:30 PM, Bridget's sister, Alanna and her boyfriend, Blake, came by to get Oscar. Alanna is a nurse. Blake rents cars. You can imagine who struggled more with Bridget's state. "Um, shouldn't you guys be in the hospital? I'd be in the hospital," Blake said. "Seriously. Now." (In Blake's defense, if Bridget wasn't my wife and I was in my mid 20s, I would have been scared out of my mind, too.) We waved goodbye to Oscar and placed our first call to the hospital to let them know labor was starting.

We sat down on the bed and thought about sleeping, but Bridget couldn't lay down for more than 30 seconds at a time. The contractions hit the magical 4-1-1 number -- four minutes apart, one-minute long, for one hour. Just before midnight, we called the hospital again. "I think we need to come in," I said to the midwife. She agreed, but only because Bridget hadn't felt the baby move in a while. We drove through a quiet Harvard Square and made our way to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. As we walked up to the door -- the wrong door, more on that later -- I had three overpacked bags in tow. (Just then, I realized I was probably jumping the gun with the bags, but it was too late.) We went into the triage room and the midwife examined Bridget. She confirmed we were in early labor and the baby was fine. "You can stay here, but I recommend going home to try and get some rest," the midwife said.

At 1:30 AM, now on Wednesday, we were back home. And to paraphrase Ron Burgundy in Anchorman, "things escalated quickly." Bridget's pain went from unbearable to searing. (I never realized how hard it would be to watch someone you love in excruciating pain.) We had seen a seemingly realistic labor video in our birthing class with a man gently comforting a moaning woman. That wasn't us. Every few minutes, Bridget would try to hold a wall, bend over a couch, or lean on a chair. Nothing worked. Another phone call to the hospital (they asked us to try a bath before coming in) and an hour later, the pain hadn't subsided. Then Bridget threw up blood several times. "Yeah," I said, seconds later, during my 3 AM call to the hospital, "we're going to come in now."

Exhausted, we made our way back to the hospital at 3:30 AM. Deserted roads made the ride easy, but not knowing the location of the emergency entrance made things difficult. Bridget used all her strength to get the front door, which was locked. I hit the intercom. "Hey, can you let us in?" I asked in a panicked voice. The response: "Who's us?" Right. Of course. I'm an idiot. "Me and my laboring wife." They came right up and we hustled into the hospital. This time, upon examination, the midwife knew we were serious. Without getting into too much detail, Bridget went from two centimeters to nine centimeters in two hours. That's intense.

Bridget gritted her teeth for another hour before she decided an epidural was the way to go. (The baby wasn't in perfect position, so it was either an epidural or approximately three more hours of blinding pain.) Mercifully, we slept (or tried to) from 5:30 to 7:30 AM. After two more quick exams and two more hours, it was showtime. With a midwife, a nurse, and a paramedic student (he needed to see a birth to get his certification) surrounding her, Bridget pushed for the first time at 10 AM. Along with the team, I cheered, coached, and urged. (For the record, I kept my eyes on the top half of the bed.) Thirty minutes of pushing. Forty-five minutes. One hour. Then, at 11:01 AM, after one big push, we held our breath and waited to hear that important first cry. There was some meconium in the womb, which gave us a moment of panic. (Apparently, it can get in the baby's lungs and cause problems.) Then, all of a sudden, "Waaaaaaaaaaah!" We breathed a sigh of relief and the nurse put Annabelle Grace Briddon on Bridget's chest.

A beautiful new baby. An exhausted, tough-as-nails new mom. And one teary-eyed dad. "Thank you."