Journey Inside My Mind Blog: Out She Comes! Part 4

Saturday, July 19, 2003

Out She Comes! Part 4

At the Wendy's inside Miami Valley Hospital, I tried to relax and enjoy a meal, while Jennie was in the Berry Women's Pavillion getting ready to have our first child. I spotted a copy of the Dayton Daily News, and I remembered that they have a section where they describe "This Day In History." Since that day, July 17, 1997, was going to be Keisha's birthday, I found the section and cut it out to keep.

I looked around and wondered silently what the other people in the restaurant were doing at the hospital. How many, for example, were there because of a baby being born, too? After I finished my meal, I returned to Jennie's room:

Cindy had set up the video camera and was offering Jennie some ice chips. We heard two sets of beeps: one was Jennie's heartbeat, and the other was Keisha's! We saw some instrumentation that showed how intense the contractions were.

I set up the tape player to play the "Lullaby" tape I'd made for Keisha a month before. It consisted of lullabies from around the world. I was able to record the entire CD on both sides of the tape. We would play it for Keisha at home before going to the hospital, and we hoped it would be a kind of "welcoming sound" for Keisha as she was born.

Jennie was a trooper, and my respect for her was about to grow 1000%. We'd do the breathing exercises we'd learned at the Lamaze classes to help alleviate the pain, but after a few hours, Jennie wanted some relief. She asked for Nubain. The doctors increased the Pitocin to help the contractions along, and we waited for a little while longer, before the doctor came in at about 8:30 PM to say, "Let's have this baby!"

to be continued...

Entire series: