Editors note: Moved past 2 days of events to a second page for brevity
00:44 – 11/30/2020 – Welcome, you made it out at 9lbs 9oz and 21.5″ long. You have blue eyes and dark curly hair.
A Couple of Photos
11/29/2020 – Show up?
08:50 – Your mom was up all night with contractions so we are going to go in right now. Hopefully everything is setup for you to show up this time. Bags are packed car is started just waiting for your mom to say goodbye to your sleeping brother and your brother on his iPad.
09:35 – At the hospital. They are sending us through OB triage. Your mom is having contractions and doesn’t look to be having the best time. I have the same gear as always. Hopefully we don’t have to #occupy the labor and delivery department until you show up but I’m willing to do that if it’s what it takes with or without the hospitals permission. (This is satire)
09:38 – Triage nurse says she had 1 boy 1 girl 3 boys then 1 girl. Your mom was joking on the way here that you are the last one after she was in 2 nights of pain trying this “natural birth thing”.
09:43 – Your mom is changed into a gown and went to the bathroom and is back in the triage area. It’s a good thing that the hospital isn’t closed on Sunday
09:46 – add1son more like we better be adding 1 son TODAY! (~laugh track plays~)
09:50 – I’m wearing the same shirt that i was wearing when your two brothers were born.” I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious”
09:51 – Check time. Let’s see how open the door is to your arrival. 4cm was the last check. This time? Let’s see
09:53 – 6cm, we are going to a bed. Will you show up today or will you show up tomorrow? I think if history indicates correctly your brothers took less than 12 hours so at the current rate that would put you here by the end of the day. Your mom was on this medicine that made her contract last time so as long as they get her on the same stuff i don’t imagine you wouldn’t be here today(ish)
10:04 – Doctor came in and said hello. Still waiting on migration to the room so i can type on my laptop and not this cell phone. I’m telling your mom’s mom about the “virus” protocol which indicates she may be able to come and see you show up. Going to check with our new nurse once we get to the room.
10:15 – Same hospital, same shirt, same me, same your mom, same post. Some things in life are patterns. Patterns can tell a different story. Patterns have power.
10:19 – Went to CheckIday to see what holidays are today, looks like today is advent Sunday. That’s pretty neat. It’s also the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”
10:26 – It’s IV time, let’s see if they get it quicker than last time
10:28 – Jennifer P. nailed it with the IV access. Established in a JIFFY. Blood drawn and fluid is running.
10:48 – We have located our room and are getting situated now. The room next to us is where we had your brother but this room is new and for you.
10:52 – Nurse is telling us that we have a TV and that it is Sunday (the game is on). I think I will let your mom have control over the remote (this time).
11:01 – Triage nurse wished us good luck and told us that your mom will be able to get an epidural once all of her blood work comes back. I know that your mom is pretty excited for that
11:14 – Your mom just got done filling out a 100 questions for the epidural which she was able to fill out despite conflicting reports on what information is needed. Our nurse got switched out to a younger model who seems happier which is a cool and welcomed change.
11:17 – Anesthesiologist is here to help get your mom sorted with some relief after she has been such a good sport for the past 2 days.
11:25 – It is such an interesting idea that the solution to pain during child birth is sticking an abnormally large needle in the spine of the woman, and slow releasing medicine through that over the course of giving birth. I wonder what the history of the use of an epidural looks like. 1885, that was the first one. Also Epidural is “(from Ancient Greek ἐπί, “on, upon” + dura mater)”, dura matter is “a thick membrane made of dense irregular connective tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.” In a different life I would have likely done something within medicine, heck maybe you will. Source on the above
11:32 – Everything has been completed by the anesthesiologist and another nurse is making a “table” for you once you arrive. Your mom now has the power of a handheld button to administer her medicine.
11:46 – Your Boppa is on his way to our house to watch your two brothers so that your Meemaw (mom’s mom) will be able to be here for your arrival. They changed the rules 2 months ago so we are allowed to have 2 visitors during labor and delivery. Your Meemaw was there when your other 2 brothers showed up so it is cool that she isn’t going to miss this one due to a virus that has a 99.97% recovery rate.
11:55 – Nurse just gave us the lunch rundown and your mom is filling out her selection of what she wants to eat for dinner.
11:58 – Installed an extension for auto-refresh. Testing to see if this works now. I am getting reports that some users fingers are getting tired of hitting the F5 / Refresh button.
12:08 – Looking into facts regarding today’s date 11/29/2020, 29 is the 10th prime number as well as the sum of three consecutive squares 2² + 3² + 4².
12:13 – I really don’t like the fact that this post requires scrolling to get to today’s updates, maybe I will add this to the bottom. I have made this change and it should give us a better look / organization / editing experience.
12:21 – Yeah, I am happy with how it looks now. go to the second page if you want to see the false alarm from Nov 27 and Nov 28.
12:24 – Your mother and I are talking about your name. I think we are pretty much sold on your name.
12:33 – No changes noted right now, I am unsure what the “Contract-O-Meter” is saying due to my position relative to it.
12:35 – Your two brothers were both 7lbs 14oz. (7lb 7+7oz), I wonder what size you will be? Your due date was yesterday but we will see if that has any impact on your size. Your mom and I are talking about what you may look like. I wonder if you are going to look like your brothers. We are excited to meet you.
12:55 – Mom wants to take a nap because she didn’t get much sleep last night but now she is too excited. The contractions look to be around ~5 minutes apart.
13:06 – Meemaw is on the road headed towards us. Your mom got this big exercise ball looking thing to put her legs between to see if that can’t activate the birthing process.
13:18 – Mom is watching some entertaining videos instead of watching the TV. I am just staring at this page thinking of something funny to write here. Hopefully this post rivals the one that I did for your brother. Given that we haven’t had any medication acceleration added, water is still intact with the “Contract-O-Meter” ticking away. I understand why a hospital environment has to be sterile but I would be willing to bet that a correlation exists between people who believed they were abducted / probed by aliens and people born in hospitals with bright lights and people in masks / gowns.
13:30 – Meemaw has arrived, she knows what she is looking at better than me.
14:02 – No change noted, your mom is rolling over in her hospital bed.
14:43 – Went outside to get some fresh air, installed the car seat base into the car with the car seat. Nurse came in when I got back and said that she is going to check to see if we have had any progress in around an hour. I am guessing that if we haven’t had any progress they will toss on the medication acceleration to get you propelled on out.
15:20 – Nurse Sydney came in and checked mom and she is noted to be at around the same (8cm), she requested for permission (for the doctor) to break your moms water. Mom said that’s fine and if that happens we will likely get things going pretty quickly.
15:52 – No changes, just wanted to remind anyone reading to Stay Hydrated.
16:14 – Nurse Sydney had to come back in order to move the monitors on your moms belly. Everytime you move around in there the monitors have to be adjusted manually and it turns out that when you are at the hospital you love moving around.
16:26 – Your mom is taking/trying to take a small nap while we wait to see what will happen next.
17:14 – Meemaw and I just got some food delivered because the cafeteria is closed for dinner service. Mom is going to be able to eat after she helps assist you with your escape mission.
17:35 – Nurse Sydney is back to check your mom and decide the next steps be it acceleration or something else. This is good as we are all very much waiting for you. In the words of Andy Milonakis “Nah I ain’t late, I make them wait”
17:38 – You are still kind of high up with water intact so we are going to have to see if we can craft a custom escape routine. The nurse advises for your mom to move back and forth from side to side in an attempt to shimmy you closer to the outside world.
18:03 – Nurse Sydney says that the doctor is going to let this continue to ride out until the midwife comes in a 7pm who will likely manually break your moms water. Looks like we are just hanging out for another 55 minutes.
18:09 – Guess weights are in, I am saying 7lb 7oz, Mom says 7lb 2oz, and Meemaw says 8lbs. We are all saying 20.5″ tall / long.
18:25 – Some mail in ballots have arrived regarding the above. I believe that they are legitimate and untampered the results are below:
- Aunt Natasha: 7lb 12oz
- Aunt Felisha: 8lb 2oz
- Gma Collins: 8lbs 7lz 21″ – Closest weight guess
- Gpa Collins: 8lb 2oz 21″
- Aunt Trina: 7lbs15oz 21″
- Boppa: 8lbs 1oz
- G. Aunt Terri: 7lb 4oz 21″
- Gma Huffaker: 8lbs 4oz 22″
- Uncle Romeo: 7lbs 10oz, 23″, 23:12
- Uncle Josh: 8lb 2oz
18:45 – Your mom is going to try and see if she can grab a small bit of shut eye before 7pm, can’t say I blame here as this has been quite the marathon. Probably more than a marathon because a marathon responsibly usually lasts between 4-5 hours. This has been more like an ultra marathon which for some reason is anything over 26.2 miles. Origins of the marathon are interesting and if you need something to read before 7pm PST I highly recommend the wikipedia page for “Marathon”.
18:56 – I am guessing birth time of 20:17, I have nothing to back this up but it is a number I have come up with.
19:20 – Mom is back awake, I am trying to get her to harass the nursing staff to get us attention & accelerate the process here.
19:30 – The baby warmer is confirmed to be functional by an additional nurse. I think it would be more attractive to call such a device / machine a “baby cozifyer” or a “comfy containment center”. All they need now is for you to show up and get warm in it, if that is what you were waiting for, rest assured that this is now confirmed as being functional.
19:41 – Mom got more ice and water, this will help the fact that she hasn’t eaten since this morning. (Disclamer: I did offer to take her anywhere she wanted on the way here unlike when I did not do this with Silas. She declined due to having 2 contractions while I was in the grocery store grabbing toothpaste for our overnight stay).
19:53 – Your mom is feeling contractions, all we can do is hope this is propelling you towards the exit. Your brothers are currently hanging out with your Boppa and Aunt Natasha at our house. We got pictures of them eating, playing and having a good time. They even got to go help pick out a Christmas tree. At this point I am just fantasizing leaving this sterile purgatory with my youngest son in my arms. Your brother Silas really liked babies in July of 2018, hopefully he will pick back where he left off on holding babies and smiling / laughing with you.
20:13 – Still no visit from the midwife, I am going to insure that she is very dissatisfied with the tip I leave once we move rooms to postpartum! Just kidding maybe she is dealing with babies who are closer to birth than you. It isn’t about how fast you are born, it is about being born before the day changes for no reason other than the fact that I arbitrarily don’t want to have to type tomorrows date.
20:28 – A midwife showed up and has a thick British accent which is proper, I wish I was better at placing those kinds of accents but it is pretty incredible that such a small island can have so many different accents. Your mom and I are both from around there per our genetics. I am going to see if she is on Linkedin or something while she examines your mom to see if she is more of a Yorkshire accent or closer to another name of a place I will likely never go.
20:31 – During examination your moms water broke, she is at a 9+1.
20:34 – Cambridge I believe by the way, but that is just a school not indicative of where she was born / grew up.
20:40 – Midwife will come back in a couple hours to see where we are at. I need to go on a mission to get some hydration at some point given that the vending machine was a bust.
20:55 – Mom is going to try and take another nap, this technique worked well to bring your brother into the world and hopefully it works on you as well.
21:29 – Mom’s hydration bag needed to be replaced. Hydration is especially important if you are in the middle of getting birth. They don’t really even want you to drink anything so they just hook you up directly to a running water that goes in your veins or something. Don’t know how it works, seems fancy though.
21:53 – Nurse says you are coming down and is taking the monitors off / moving them around. I am not sure how close we are to formulating an exit but I am keeping close watch.
21:54 – The nurses are moving stuff around the room. Hopefully this means they are preparing for you to show up. Good thing too because I was about to start having my mail forwarded here *ba dum tss*
21:59 – Nurse Sydney is going to go get the Midwife and said that we are poised to have you by the end of the day.
22:19 – We are watching your moms contractions get closer and closer with your heart beat chugging along.
22:25 – Your mom can’t sit still any longer and can’t seem to find a comfortable way to lay.
22:26 – A nurse has appeared in order to assess the situation here,
22:30 – More staff have arrived in order to assess the situation. The NP has ordered the use of the acceleration medicine. They are likely going to have it coming through at a higher rate of speed in order to make sure that the changes needed are happening to propel you out.
22:36 – Both feet have been applied to the gas pedal and we are going to see how long it takes until your mom feels some pressure and whether or not that will be on this calendar day or the calendar day following today. I don’t really mind either way but would prefer to have you out sooner.
22:49 – Your mom is in a pretty large amount of distress now that they have accelerated but that just means that you are being evicted and will be with us soon.
22:51 – The taunting nature of the title of this post as well as the last one from Nov 27 / Nov 28 has really come back to show me that I do not make the plan, I am just a pawn in the plans game. Thanks for sticking around all this time. I didn’t initially think that this was going to last this long but if you are still reading this thank you for keeping me company. TRUST THE PLAN.
23:02 – Mom is having a large amount of back pain / discomfort despite the medicine. Looks like contractions are between 2 minutes apart due to the medicine. Just need you to find the exit.
23:09 – Mom despite being in pain has fallen asleep likely because she hardly slept a wink last night. Let’s hope that when she wakes up she feels pressure again and its time to push. Salem was out in 15 minutes? Can you beat that? They say each birth takes less time but you are really giving them a run for their money.
23:18 – Nurse is back in the room to fix the fetal heart rate monitor that is pointed directly at you after your mom moved from one side to the other. Nurse Sydney is going to check you to see where we are at.
23:19 – You were kicking the nurse during the check and it sounds like she is calling for reinforcements.
23:34 – The NP is finishing up with someone else in the OR. Nurse Sydney is back at it again to adjust the monitors.
23:37 – You are very low and they are having trouble finding out where your mom ends and you begin for the monitors to gauge accurately
23:59 – Sorry for the delay, they had to toss a little tracer round onto your head so they could get your heard rate without the external sensor. It was funny because everything didn’t work so they had to replace a dongle, a cable and the actual sensor itself and then it worked fine. Classic, gotta love computers. All the while we are waiting / hoping to see your heart rate back on the screen.
11/30/2020 – Monday, Monday.
00:01 – Going to need to look to see what today is. Looks like your plan / His plan was for you to be born on the last day of November. I looked today is the 335th day. The day Winston Churchill and Mark Twain were born. Pretty neat but the coolest thing to ever happen today in my eyes is you being born.
00:15 – NP is back in the room to see if you are ready to push.
00:21 – Your mom is trying to push you out, looks like this could take a short while. Will update when I have one.
00:44 – Welcome, you made it out at 9lbs 9oz and 21.5″ long. You have blue eyes and dark curly hair.
01:00 – Will be collecting photographs and the like here but everyone is still very much moving around. Meemaw took most of the photos so I will be waiting for her to send them my way before getting a photo album put together.
01:07 – You have latched and are enjoying the company of your Mom. You are more perfect than we could have even imagined.
01:19 – Name? Oh yeah, I forgot. Your name is Shia Makai, Shia meaning “Praise God”. Other people may be named this but this is your name and it is perfect.
Shia, Salem and Silas – Our boys.
That pretty much concludes the initial coverage here at the hospital, Shia appreciates your reading and would love to hear about how excited you are to meet him or maybe just strike up a conversation?
I set him up an email that will most likely be integrated into his virtual baby book, shoot him a message if you please via email – shia@airmail.cc
Want to read another birth based live blog? Was 4200 words not enough? Check out Salem’s here