Monaloca

Just eight days ago I was waddling around Berkeley, waiting for little Nalani’s arrival. How did it all happen?

On the evening of 4/13, Joey and I felt fairly safe making last-minute plans for our wedding anniversary the next day. We lined up my parents to pick up the kids from school and watch them while we had a final us-only night out before baby. “Too bad I can’t have sushi,” I’d said. “Kirala sounds yummy.”

Turns out my parents had to drive up a little sooner than they’d planned. At around 3am minor contractions woke me up. I’d been having Braxton Hicks for weeks, but these were different: They started then stopped, then started again. The real deal? By 5:30 I was convinced it was, and told Joey we should call my parents. We waited until a little after 6, so they could arrive in time to help get Melina to school. We stayed in bed timing the contractions, still 7-8 minutes apart, until Mina woke up and the regular morning routine began, my contractions increased in intensity, and everything started to feel a bit surreal.

My parents arrived at the same time Kai got to the bus stop on the corner (he was with Jen the night before), so he came in with them and gave me a kiss on the cheek just as I was trying to breath through a contraction and pack our toothbrushes in the hospital bag. I sat with my mom and Melina at the table as Mina ate her breakfast, and with my iPhone in front of me even took the time to update my Facebook status: “Looks like it’s baby time! And a happy anniversary to Joey and me.” The distractions lessened the intensity of the contractions, and of course no one was timing anything.

Joey mentioned something about taking Mina to school (Um, I think we should call my doc instead!?) but then agreed to let my parents, and we really should have left for the hospital then. But the on-call doc hadn’t returned our call, and, well, given Melina’s 27-hour marathon birth, we weren’t expecting Nalani to make her entrance until sometime that afternoon at the earliest. By the time my parents got back, Joey was talking about taking out the trash (Really? Please let my dad do it), I was laboring on the couch (Maybe we should just go to the hospital… ooooo another one….) then BAM, mid-HUGE-contraction, “Oh SHIT! My water broke!” And an incredible pushing sensation.

Mom helped me dry off and change my clothes, then Joey and I finally hopped in the car for the 10-minute ride to Alta Bates. That felt like forever. Half-way down Alcatraz I felt the most insane pain, an entire wave like my whole middle was turning upside down and trying to push out between my legs. Screaming, I had to brace my hand against the door to prop my butt into the air. It hurt too much to sit.

It lessened by the time we hit the hospital, and Joey offered to drop me at the entrance. “No, I can’t walk in by myself!” so he drove all the way to the top of the garage and found us a spot, just in time for another huge surge that left me screaming “I can’t move!!!!” right when he stopped the car.

We drove back down, where a woman cut in front of us right at the payment booth. “Hey!” Joey screamed, “My wife’s in LABOR here!” The lot attendant told us to drive 20 yards forward to valet parking, where we could get a wheel chair. I was screaming the whole time, still thinking I had hours of this ahead and could I really make it that much longer without any drugs? The valet attendant took one listen to my wails and told me “You need to breathe…. I have four sons…. relax….” Yeah, I think your WIFE went through this part of having those four sons.

The fight against the pushing sensation was so strong I couldn’t sit down on the chair as we rode up to the third floor. There, the nurses took one look and listen and asked “Second child?” Yup. “We’re going to skip triage and get you into a room.” Phew. At last.

In no time I was stripped down and hospital-gowned and put on a delivery bed. Someone called my doc. Joey saw the nurses switching on the baby warmer and decided he should call my parents and tell them to come quick. But we both still thought we had at least another hour until the nurse who checked me announced: “Fully dilated and zero station. It’s time to have a baby!”

Wow. Really? Then, “You can try to breath through the next few contractions so Dr. Huibonhoa has time to get here, or, we have a mid-wife right here, as a back-up.” Mid-wife, fine, I need to push NOW! And then, miraculously, just as Joey shouted “I see a head of hair!” my doc walked into the room and took charge. “Great job, Lynn. Push again.” Two, maybe three pushes. “Now I need one more to get the shoulders out.” One more? That’s it? This part took three hours with Melina. Here we go….

And then my baby girl was on my chest. Just like that. She didn’t cry, she’d made her entrance so quickly she probably didn’t even have time for air-shock.

By the time my parents arrived 15 minutes later, I’d already delivered the placenta and Nalani was checked, weighed, cleaned up, and back on my chest. We asked the birth time: 10:19 am. And what time did we arrive in labor and delivery? Someone checked the log. 10 am. 19 minutes to spare, wow. I think if we’d gotten to the hospital sooner she would have arrived around the time the valet parking attendant was telling me “Just breath…”

The rest of Nalani’s birthday was relaxed, even serene. We had the whole day ahead of us to recover from a very short labor, and to enjoy our time together as three. After school, my parents brought Melina and Kai to meet their new sister. The room suddenly burst with energy and excitement, our whole family together at last, the best anniversary present imaginable.

When they left Joey walked out with them, to pick up Kirala-To-Go sushi for my first post-pregnancy and our fourth anniversary dinner together. In the end, we got our peaceful sushi dinner together, with a panoramic view of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges, stretching from Oakland to SF, over the hospital parking lot. Only unlike our original plan, this one included our very special gift.

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