The Birth Story of Willa Louise
(rated G... I'm pretty sure)
This is where our second daughter made her grand entrance into this world. This is a picture of the Labor and Delivery floor of Baptist Hospital. Thousands of babies are born here every year, but I am not talking about the L&D floor in general. I am talking about this specific spot... outside the double doors... in the parking lot... in that silver car. Yes, we had a baby in a car. We are
those people.
Ok, the story...
My due date, November 24, came and went without any signs that our baby was coming until the late afternoon of the 27th. For the next thirty hours or so, I had mild contractions that kept stopping and starting sporadically. I considered this to be "pre-labor" or "false-labor" and was starting to get psyched out that the baby wasn't really coming. Finally, at about 1:00 a.m. on the 29th, they started up again and didn't stop when I changed positions, so I figured it was "real labor" this time. (Note: Jane's labor started at the same time and lasted until 7:00 p.m. the next evening, so I am not thinking things will pick up speed any time soon. After 12 hours of labor with Jane, I was only 3 cm dilated. Keep this in mind...)
Because my contractions were still mild at this point, I labored pretty peacefully alone, even sleeping a little, until waking Richard at 5 a.m. We both took showers and got ready for what I was sure was going to be a very long day (see Jane note above). We timed my contractions for a while and although they were only 2-4 minutes apart, some of them were only 15-20 seconds long, so again I considered them to be little false teaser contractions of some kind. (They say your contractions should be a minute long when it's time to go to the hospital.) At 5:45 my water broke, so we at least had confirmation that the baby was coming, but with Jane that happened 17 hours before she arrived so, again, no alarm bells are going off in my mind. At about 6:30, my contractions became intense, meaning I was really having to focus to get through each one, and by about 7:00 I was ready for a change of scenery and possibly some drugs, so we decided to head on to the hospital. We are still not thinking the baby is coming soon, so we leisurely packed up and got in the car around 7:20.
Unfortunately, our route to the hospital was the same one that half of Nashville was taking in to work that morning. Yes, we hit rush hour traffic, big time. I was pretty relaxed at first because my contractions had subsided, but just as we were merging into the sea of taillights, I started pushing involuntarily. I realized, with a bit of trepidation, that rather than my contractions subsiding, I had just gone through the "transformation" stage where your uterus switches from opening to pushing. Yikes!!!
When we reached the next exit on the interstate I told Richard to get off because the baby was coming. Thankfully, he decided that he did not want me to have a baby in a sketchy downtown alley (which is where this exit would have led us), so he steered into another sea of taillights.
At this point, I surrendered control of our route to Richard and just closed my eyes and tried to figure out how to have a baby in a car. Meanwhile, Richard switched into Nascar mode and stared honking his way down the shoulder of the interstate. When we finally reached the Broadway exit, he flew down the six blocks to the hospital using a few maneuvers that would surely warrant a few reckless driving tickets. When we got to the parking garage at Baptist, he nearly busted through the guard gate before the lady realized she'd better lift it in a hurry (see wife in passenger seat). He squealed up and around two floors, screeched to a stop in front of the L&D entrance (see photo above) and Indiana Jonesed it through the sliding glass doors. About ten seconds later, he returned, followed by about ten doctors and staff members who just happened to be having a meeting right inside the doors. Not only were there doctors immediately at our service, but one of them, Dr. Graves, is the
medical director of the perinatal program at Baptist, in other words, a very good OB. Another one of the "team," Dr. Krueger, is one of the neonatal doctors at Baptist.
I will spare you the details about my situation over the last few minutes, since this is G rated, but just as I looked out the window to see all these giddy faces surrounding the car (yes, they were quite jazzed about this exciting interruption to their meeting), our little baby made her way into the world. Dr. Graves flung open my door and essentially caught her. Dr. Krueger took off her cashmere sweater and immediately wrapped the baby up. I didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl, but I didn't care as long as he/she was OK. They had some sort of emergency kit right inside the front doors that contained a cord clip, so as soon as they cut the cord, Dr. Krueger whisked the baby away to the NICU to make sure she was OK. She told Richard to come with her and Dr. Graves assured me that everything was fine. Then they brought a stretcher for me and the rest of the delivery process finished up as if I had been at the hospital all along, except that no one knew my name. Who is this crazy lady??
About fifteen minutes later, Richard was able to come check on me. (Our doula, Gaylea, arrived just after I got into the hospital room, so she was able to be with me while Richard was with the baby. I am so thankful for her!) Richard reported that we had a very healthy baby GIRL! I was so surprised because I was convinced that she was a boy, but we were so thrilled.
We had decided to use Louise as a middle name ahead of time, but we chose Willa at that moment. Willa (or William, which we had been planning for a boy) means "resolute protection," and we defintely felt protected that morning. Louise means "warrior." I think this suggests wonderful qualities for a girl like strength, courage and passion, but I especially love the idea of God as our warrior from Zephaniah 3:17 - "The Lord your God is with you, he is
mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Welcome to the world, Willa Louise, our little protected warrior. We love you so much already!
