Second Time Around

by Susan Urie

My first son made his entrance into the world 22 hours after the first twinge in my lower back woke me from my afternoon nap. Every hard contraction after that was followed by a wave of nausea that had me puking into any container—a garbage can, a cardboard container like the ones used at a fish and chips joint—thrust under my nose in the hospital lobby.

Twelve years later, following confirmation that I was really and truly pregnant again, memories of my first labour haunted me. I couldn’t go through it again, I thought to myself. I was older and not as strong as I was when I was 27. I wouldn’t be able to handle another long haul. What was I thinking?

My obstetrician didn’t make me feel any better. He suggested that I should prepare myself as though it was a first pregnancy—like I had over 12 years ago—and said that if my first was a long labour, the next one probably would be too.

On my due date I had an appointment to see my obstetrician. At his office, when I casually mentioned how extra tired I felt, chalking it up to a restless sleep the night before, my doctor’s head appeared over my belly from his stool at the end of the table.

“It’s no wonder,” he remarked. “You’re at three centimeters… if you haven’t gone into labour by tonight I want you in first thing in the morning.”

I watched him as he washed his hands.

“I can’t be three centimeters. I haven’t felt a thing!”

On the way home, my shocked husband and I stopped to pick up steaks for dinner—my brother-in-law was due in town later that evening and was coming to visit.

During the drive home, my husband eyed me suspiciously.

“You haven’t felt a thing?” he asked again.

“No I haven’t,” I answered. “I would have told you… don’t you think I would have told you?”

When we arrived home he set about marinating the steaks, preparing baked potatoes, corn and salad. To his disbelief, I was starving though wary of eating—especially expensive steaks that might just end up on his shoes if I really was in labour.

My bachelor brother-in-law arrived and after hearing what three centimeters dilated actually means, looked at me, eyes wide.

“Should you be standing up?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we be boiling water or something?”

My first contraction came just as I sliced into my perfectly prepared, medium-well steak. I placed my knife on the plate, rested my hand on my belly and looked at my husband whose eyes hadn’t left me since we left the doctor’s office.

Much to my husband’s and brother-in-law’s amazement, I finished my meal—cleaned my plate actually—pausing every 10 to 20 minutes or so to breathe through another contraction.

I began to walk, my husband right beside me, rubbing my back through each contraction, taking note of the time between.

Finally a contraction came like a tap on my shoulder from Mother Nature herself and, feeling a shift in my belly way down deep, I turned to my husband. “We have to go now.”

The hospital was 30 minutes away. Twenty minutes into the drive I felt as though our truck was going to go on record as our son’s place of birth. I was scared. It was happening too fast.

We got to the entrance of St. Joe’s Hospital in Comox in what my husband says was record time but what felt to me like forever. As a contraction subsided I hobbled from the curb to the glass doors, a mere 10 steps away. When I pushed on the metal bar it was clear we really should have made an effort all those weeks ago to be on time for the maternity tour. Apparently the first five minutes we missed covered which entrance to use at 11:00 at night—after hours. My husband was behind me with our bag while his brother parked the truck and as I collapsed onto my knees as another contraction hit. I put my hands on the pavement and began to cry.

“I can’t have my baby HERE!”

My husband pounded on the doors. Inside a nurse signaled for us to go around but I wasn’t quite ready to move as my husband tried to help me to my feet. Instead, I focused on the cigarette butt in the bark mulch ashtray I had found myself face to face with and breathed.

After the contraction passed, we made it around the corner of the building and inside. A nurse in a cozy grey cardigan and silent shoes met us with a wheelchair, which I collapsed into, out of my husband’s grip as another contraction hit hard.

It was a busy night for babies—only one birthing room was available. The nurse’s voice came to my ears like laughter as she examined me.

“You’re at eight centimeters,” she said. “It’s almost time to push.”

My doctor arrived with 10 minutes to spare.

“Guess I was wrong,” he said, smiling reassuringly as he took a seat front and centre.

Fifty minutes after we arrived at the hospital and 12 years after becoming a mother for the first time, my second son was born. Before I had time to think, before I had time to even know how I felt, before I had time to worry about where the nearest barf bucket was, there he was.

“You did great,” said our doctor as my husband cut the cord. “The next one will probably be even quicker!”

Susan Urie is a freelance writer and mother of two sons.