What better reason to resurrect a blog than Phoebe Jean Hambleton? Folks have inquired about our baby's startling escape from my uterus, so here's the tale from the beginning:
Background - It was Saturday, June 28th at 10:00 PM. I was 30 weeks, 6 days pregnant (out of 40 weeks, if you need some context). I was wearing my gray-striped t-shirt.
And I was sitting in this exact seat - eastern-most at the dining room table, typing on the laptop, sitting on the red cushion - when I thought, "I sure do have to pee, as usual." This was no normal pee sesh, however. It was a li'l red.
I came out of the bathroom, saw Hamb, and said, "Don't panic, but I'm bleeding. I'm going to call the doctor and they'll tell me to come in, but it's probably nothing." He did panic a bit, especially when I started leaking like a failed water balloon. Drew tossed three baby books in a bag, escorted our dog to the Toyota Matrix, and we moseyed down to the Group Health Birthing Center on Capitol Hill. (Question for Hamb: Why did we take the Matrix? Why not our spanking new Subaru Outback?)
Sweet nurses and doctors started poking around and confirmed our concerns that yes, in fact, my water had broken. Dr. Something explained, "Our goal is to keep you pregnant as long as you can be up until 34 weeks, at which time we'll induce you to avoid the infection risks. Until then, you'll be on bed rest here." (It should be noted that at this point, I felt zero pain and zero contractions.) "However, if you end up going into labor some time this week, we'll transport you to UW or Overlake where their NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is better prepared for babies under 32 weeks," she elaborated.
At this point, Hamb drove home to transfer our dog to in-laws Ben and BSands and pick up 3-week bed-rest essentials like my body pillow, phone charger, and current book club book.
The body pillow was useless. My contractions started right as Hamb returned to the hospital.
The Group Health doctors injected me with a steroid to develop the baby's lungs and something else to temporarily slow my contractions. Then a few EMTs rolled me into an ambulance and swept me OVER the LAKE to Overlake Hospital while Hamb drove closely behind. It was a pleasant trip. No contractions, just stories of the drunks the EMTs had been dealing with.
---Note: I had to confer with Hamb about these next details. Apparently I fell asleep. Who knew?--- Once I arrived at the hospital, a nurse named Christina helped me get settled in and updated my stats on the white board in the room. My goal for the day: "Stay pregnant!"
I did not achieve that goal.
The contractions started returning around sunrise, so the doctors started pumping me with magnesium. Supposedly this has several benefits, one of which is that the magnesium replaces some of the calcium in your muscles so contractions can't be as forceful. (Weird. Science is weird.) Around this time, Nurse Christina (who was delightful during our few interactions) was replaced by Nurse Christine (the world's best nurse), a sassy version of Ann Perkins who at one point told my dad that though she couldn't examine his knee, she could examine his vagina. Haha! Hahaha!
Around 9:00, our families start showing up. Drew's parents came in and were lovely. My parents and Grandma DoDo came in and were lovely. The NICU doctor came in and explained what I can expect from a nine-week-early baby. The ultrasound technician came in and examined the unborn baby (whose heart was beating healthily and diaphragm was hiccuping enthusiastically). Christine taught me some coping strategies we would have learned if I could have gone to the last 6 classes of our 7-class birthing series.
All was well! We were happy! Even through the hot-flashy fuzz of the magnesium!
Then shit starts getting real. The contractions start being painful and frequent. We give up on the dream of giving baby another shot of lung-helping steroids. At 10:45ish I kick out my family. At 11:15ish I have a conversation with Christine about drugs. At 11:55ish I'm being wheelchaired to the delivery room (and told there is no time for drugs) as Christine wrangles the necessary doctors and nurses. At 12:07, I push out a baby. I see she's pink, I hear her cry, and someone said, "It's a girl! She's a girl!"
The rest runs together, but I know that Hamb followed our daughter to the NICU while I got cleaned up. Our parents came in to celebrate with us, and at some point Hamb came back to tell me that our girl was 3 pounds, 5 ounces of breathing, cone-headed Hambleton.
We told our parents to go to lunch and that when they returned, we'd have picked out a name. We knew the middle name Jean - we each have a grandmother named Jean - and it took us about eight seconds to agree that of the names on our short list, Phoebe was the best fit.
So that, interested parties, is how Phoebe Jean Hambleton was born. I'll post Phoebe updates here (along with other sentiments, probably about blueberries) to keep Phoebe phans happy.
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