Susan is awesome. Her strength, perseverance, and motherhood skills were all on full display for the 12 hours between first contraction and when her daughter was placed in her arms. Here is her story of amazingness.
As prepared as I was to miss class the first two weeks of school, there was one window of 2 ½ hours that would send me into a scramble trying to find a sub. Susan went into labor an hour in to this window. Hey who needs more for a 3 hour class than a sign-in sheet and a stack of syllabi with a sign saying “take one.” I had to head home!
Good thing I did. Contractions were getting stronger and closer at a pretty fast pace. By 7:30 they were consistently 5 minutes apart and Susan was unable to speak through them. As directed this was the time to call the hospital. To our disappointment the doctor told us to hang out until the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. Here we go for more fun at home. Two hours later the contractions were about 3:15 apart and we were convinced that was ENOUGH. Susan was dealing with the contractions like a champ, but as many first mom’s can attest “I didn’t know it would hurt this bad. I didn’t know it would be like this.”
This was a tough time, but Susan worked through it while I did everything I could to relieve pain when possible, stay calm for her, remind her of different techniques we learned, and stuck to my promise of NO JOKES! Although it wasn’t appreciated until later, a highlight of this time occurred while Susan was on her knees, grasping the couch, shouting in pain, and Bailey brought her a toy for a game of fetch. What can he say, she was on the floor which means play time!
After the longest 11 mile drive of my life at about 9:30PM Susan was checked over and to her dismay only 2 centimeters (we both thought she was at 9-10 by now). The nurse gave us two options: 1) go home, take a sleeping pill and come back tomorrow. 2) Walk the halls of the labor ward for an hour and get rechecked. If we made it to 3 centimeters (she was cutting us a break) we would be admitted. Otherwise, home we go! Susan decided on the latter and our walk began. This sucked.
Unlike sitcoms would like us to believe Susan never said “I hate you, you did this to me.” She never used profanity (directed at me anyway), she never demanded my exit of the premises. She did however declare that Reagan would be an only child. Her attitude has since changed.
During the hall walk, once again Susan was amazing. It was definitely the hardest part for her but she rocked it. She was hurting, she was scared, she was looking for ways to make it stop, but she took contraction after contraction in impressive style. As I helplessly and painfully watched my wife suffer, I also felt my love for her grow exponentially. She was doing all this for us. She dealt with each and every contraction and the nine months of discomfort for our family. I knew I would be forever grateful.
Hour up = 4 centimeters. Whew. Admitted by midnight, epidural shortly after, smiles followed immediately. We were instructed that this would be our only time to rest. Although we attempted, we never got that chance. After about 90 minutes the epidural started to wear off on one side. The labor process progressed faster than expected. And most distracting, the baby’s heart rate was dropping at every contraction. The doctor was “concerned.”
Like I said, we were lucky at the speed of Susan’s progression because Reagan wanted out of there and was willing to stop her heart in order to get her way. To add to the difficulty, baby was coming out “sunny side up” rather than face down. No problem for my wife though, she was too amazing. Almost to the surprise of Susan and I, she was suddenly pushing. This is where Susan really shined. Like a machine she pushed hard when instructed and rested with extreme focus and determination when allowed. She was so strong I didn’t think she was in any pain or discomfort. Just business. In less than 15 minutes of pushing with a tiny bit of help from a vacuum, Reagan was born.
Susan and I exploded with excitement. Reagan Harper Snodgrass entered the world healthy, happy, and alert. We have enjoyed every moment since.
