What's New?

What's new?

Thursday, May 25, 2000

Well, I suppose I should tell a brief story about Andy's birth. At around half past midnight on May 12 Ronda was having contractions about every five minutes apart although they were fairly short in duration. We called the doctor and she said that we could go ahead and stay at home if we were comfortable with that unless the contractions got worse.

The hospital didn't have any available beds that morning. So when we called the doctor at 8:00 am to tell her that the contractions were worse, she told us to go to her office so they could check things out. The office is essentially next door to the hospital but we knew it was a waste of time because it looked like the real thing to us. After we got to the doctor's office they hooked up a fetal monitor and checked out the heartbeat and left the room. I think they probably thought Ronda was a lot earlier along in the dilation process but she's pretty good at this since she was 7 cm dilated when we first got to the hospital for Rachel. So after some really powerful contractions I got a nurse in to check on Ronda and lo and behold, she was 8 to 9 cm dilated and the nurse could feel the baby's head.

At this point you've never seen people get into action any quicker. The main nurse had another nurse get a wheelchair, we both put Ronda's shoes on for her, and then I ran down to get the van while they wheeled Ronda to the front door and called the hospital. About two minutes later we all arrived at the hospital (thanks again, Ronda, for not having the baby in our van) and the nurse and Ronda went in while I quickly parked the van and ran on in. Since they still didn't have any beds yet, they went ahead and set up an operating room for the deliver. By the time the table was all set up right for the doctor it was time to push and the baby arrived within maybe thirty minutes. After maybe another ninety minutes or so they finally had a room ready for Ronda and Andy.

So it was a pretty exciting morning for us, obviously! Everyone seems to be doing fine at home now. Rachel likes to help out ("I want to hold him!") and can't hardly wait for him to be big enough to sit in the infant swing on our swingset. Chevy, our dog, likes the new late night schedule since that gives her more time with Ronda.

I took the first week off and did what I could do to help out. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Magnum, P.I. and Quantum Leap are on during the day. -- Gerry

What's New Archives

webmaster@hintermeister.com