Matt W Cook

Extra, extra, read all about it!
It’s time for a full update. Here’s the story from start to finish (with pictures!)

For quite some time we’ve been anticipating the arrival of our baby. The due date was May 20, but Ruth and I are very impatient people. On Monday our dear friend, Mel Bee, came down to stay for a week or so. She was to be my co-coach for Ruthie. Over the past week Ruth and I tried a whole bunch of things to get this baby to come a little early. Spicy food, herbal tea, cake, etc., nothing seemed to do anything. On the evening of the 17th, Mel Ruth and I went for a walk / light jog to the mall and back. That night Ruth couldn’t sleep. She has cramps and in the morning she found out she was leaking a little. I called the hospital and they told us to come in.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:20 and kicked it up to the maternity wing where we hung out in an assessment room for a while.
Ruth got examined and we found out that she was in labor and already 2-3 centimeters dilated! Rock on, says Matt, this seems pretty easy so far.

We moved to a delivery room and Ruth got her water broke by our dear Dr. Shetty at 8:20. We were having a pretty good time by now. I called my parents to let them know what’s going down and to get them to bring coffee and muffins (8:30). Ten minutes later I called Ruth’s insurance company (because a delivery is far too expensive a thing to pay for on our own!).

At around 9:00 we went for a little walk around the floor. Not much going on, still feeling pretty good.

At 10:30 there was no change so Dr. Shetty hooked Ruthie up to Oxytocin, a neat-o drug that’s supposed to increase contractions and speed up the ‘dilation’ process. I then retrieved popsicles for the girls at 11:00 (Ruth had orange and Mel had chocolate). We then applied a butterfly tattoo to Ruth’s belly.

‘Twas pretty.

At 12:15 Dr. Shetty checked Ruth again and found that no progress had been made. She was still only 2-3 cm. He upped the Oxytocin drippy-do. On a scale of 1 to 10 Ruth rated her pain at 4.

12:20 – Ruth is very tired. The contractions hurt quick a bit now. Not much fun, though still in good spirits

1:30 – Getting worse. She’s breathing well but expresses a desire for this all to be over (duh). She is getting a lot of joy out of a lullaby CD that Mel got her. Ruth rates the pain as a 7-8 now. She rocks my face off. I called Dave to give him the head’s up again. He’ll be here soon with lunch!

2:30 – believe it or not, there is no change. She is still only at 2-4 cm. Baby has moved down a bit, but not enough. Nurse gives an e.t.a. at 6-12 hours, with an emphasis on the 12. Looks like we’re in this for the long haul.

3:30 – Incredible amount of pain. She makes the choice to go for the epidural (she’s such a trooper, I love her).

4:00 – Dr. comes in to do the epidural. He struck me as a little clumsy *shudder*. It actually took him two tries to do it right…and he talked too much. But I’m not annoyed… Anyway, once she gets the epidural she immediately goes to 6 cm. Ruth still has pain, but it’s not from the contractions anymore, it’s from the pressure of the baby coming down now.

4:30 – Fully dilated!

4:45 – I can see the baby’s head!

PUSH

5:05 – Joseph William Cook arrives on the scene (I cut the cord)!

Apparently I was grinning like a fool. I watched intently as they washed him up and checked him out. I counted fingers and toes, just to make sure. Rock on!

epilogue.
Joe loves to breastfeed, there was no learning curve for him, he latched on right away and sucked his brain out. Hungry dude.

One thing that I beg you to pray for. When Ruth had the epidural the Doc poked a little too far and ‘tapped’ her. She’s having ‘spinal headaches’ right now. It’s painful to stand up. Please pray. That being said, neither of us regret any choices we made during the labor process, we consider it all a grinning success.

Feel free to drop by for a visit. I pray that Ruth will be out of the hospital tomorrow. Pray with us!

I’m a daddy.

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