Andria's Birth!

Photo Cred Kari Bedford!

My best friend Andria was due to have her first baby on May 12^th. I was planning on flying in on the 15^th to stay a week to be there for the baby’s birth and help out afterwards. I spent most of early May totally stressed out and worried I was going to miss it. Two weeks before I was due to fly in, I also had the urge to change my flight to come in on the 14^th, so I did. I just had to listen to my instincts. I am SO glad I did, because I got up at 9 am on the 15^th to find she had been having early labor contractions since 7:30 am. Holla!

Since I had come in so late the night before we still needed to go to the store to get me some food (crazy vegans…). We took our time getting ready, but since it was Sunday the health food store didn’t open til noon. We killed the time by going to Target to get giant panties that would hold postpartum pads and getting lunch at Noodles and Company. Andria’s contractions were short but about 5 minutes apart. She had a contraction at the Target checkout and scared the cashier. That was fun. Finally we did our grocery shopping and went back home to labor.

Andria wanted to keep it a secret that she was in labor, so we just hung around the house away from our computers. We watched some Dawson’s Creek. Not only is it the best show ever, we figured looking at Joshua Jackson might get her oxytocin flowing. It worked! Labor got really intense; so intense that we had to mute the show during contractions. Around 5pm, Andria was starting to feel like heading into the hospital to get checked. We held her off a little bit by calling Kari Bedford, our friend and her birth photographer. She took a bunch of pictures of Andria laboring and of me dancing to Justin Bieber songs. Jim and I made a lot of “That’s what she said” jokes. When the jokes stopped being funny and contractions were about 3 minutes apart, we figured it might be a good idea to go in just to get checked. Kari went home to wait for the call to come back.

The hospital was just a quick jaunt away. We got up to the maternity ward just before 7 pm. There, we were met by nurse mc meanie pants. She was soooo grumpy! It was pretty hilarious. She put us in a triage room with another girl, which was something new to me. I had never been in a big group triage room before. We tried to be quiet, but having a baby is fun and we were laughing a lot. Finally, Andria got checked and monitored. She was only 3-4 centimeters so we went home. She was so skeeved by being in the hospital; she lost her birth gusto and stopped contracting. Things picked up again as soon as she was out of there.

Per Helen’s (her midwife) request, we went home. Andria took a bath and had some sleepy time tea. Then Andria lay in bed sandwiched between Jim and I. She slept a bit between her contractions, but they were getting really intense. Just past 11pm, we decided to leave again. Since Andria’s labor was disturbed by the hospital the first time, she decided to keep her eyes closed this time until she got into her own room and got the lights dimmed. This proved to be pretty hilarious, because after 11pm everyone has to enter the Emergency entrance, sign some papers, and get rolled up in a wheelchair by some guy. Our guy’s name was Ed. Ed was very uncomfortable with this job. He wheeled her up to the maternity ward real

fast. Andria kept saying she felt like she was on a roller coaster. Right before we got there Andria asked him to stop for a really hard contraction. Jim stood in front of the wheelchair, and Ed was like, “Sir. I can’t move with you standing there”. Jim just said, “I know.” It was pretty awesome.

Eventually she got in her room. She got settled and checked. She was 5-6 centimeters now. We called her mom to tell her what was up. Her mom got there in about 6 minutes. We decided to have her labor in the tub for a bit. She sat frog-legged facing us with towels wrapped around her. Jim and I took turns pouring warm water on her. Kari got there sometime around then, and started taking her pictures again.

After the tub she went back and forth from the ball to the bed for a couple of hours. She really liked laboring side-lying. She was tired and was enjoying napping between her contractions. Between 4 am and 5 am she started to feel really pushy. She wasn’t quite dilated all the way though. She was almost 9 cm. I

told her to pant to keep from pushing. The best thing happened with next contraction. She was so out of it, she remembered that she was supposed to pant, but instead of actually panting she went, “pant pant pant…”. Jim and I almost lost it. It was so awesome.

She was having a really hard time not pushing with her contractions, so they checked her again. She was about 9.5 cm. Her bag was still intact and bulging through. Helen broke it and she was instantly 10. Yes!

So she was finally “allowed” to push, but she was so far into labor land she just didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to push and get the baby the heck out, but she didn’t really know what to do. She wasn’t feeling very instinctual about it. All of us were trying to tell her what to do, but she couldn’t “hear” us. Afterwards she said she, “kept hearing all these voices. All sorts of well-intentioned voices”. Ha! It was pretty funny because we kept asking her to hold her breath and direct it downward and she would

take a deep breath and immediately blow it out.

Finally I had to take charge. I don’t think she could have listened to anyone else. In fact, she kept telling everyone else to be quiet. I held her face and told her to listen to me. I told her I lied when I said she could push however she wanted to, because she wanted him out fast and what she was doing wasn’t doing that for her. I told her what she was going to do then walked through it with her for a few contractions. She started to get it, but he still wasn’t moving down so we switched to hands and knees. That did it! It was the last position she wanted to push in, but her push was so productive this way. Jim switched spots with me and took his turn guiding her.

I went over to the counter to get the crockpot of warm water for compresses. The nurse thought I was referring to her vagina as a crockpot for some reason, which was the second most hilarious thing that happened that day. I assumed my position at the tail end. Holding the compresses on her perineum and giving status updates. Now that she was in hands and knees, the baby was coming out pretty quick. We told Andria just a few more big pushes before hi head was out, and she popped up and got after it. Helen called Jim over, and the baby’s head came out. She told him to watch the baby rotate. She told him the

first thing he was going to see was his dad’s face. Oi! It was so darn sweet.

Once his head was out, the rest of him pretty much fell out. Jim got to catch him. I was right there and put my hand on him too. Jim carried him over to Andria, she flipped over, and Jim put Malcolm Jude Crawford Whitehead on her chest. It was 5:44 am May 16^th. He was 7 pounds 8.5 ounces.

I lost it. I have been to a lot of births, a lot of births of people that I really liked, but never to a birth of someone that I love. I was crying like a darn baby. I am so in love with my best friend and her baby. She was so amazing. She just surrendered to her labor and she did it. It was so beautiful. Congrats Andria and Jim! I love ya’ll madly!