originally published June 25, 2012

One time several years ago, I was talking about the birth of our babies with a woman whose husband was a doctor. I told her about my recent birth, and when I asked about the birth of her baby, her reply was, it was uneventful.

 UNEVENTFUL.  Uneventful?  Uneventful.  The medical community describes birth that proceeds normally as uneventful.  That is so unbelievably unbelievable.  I can hardly believe it.  While birth might be without concern, without intervention, without mishap or without problems, it hardly constitutes being a non-event.

For those of you who have given birth, I'm sure you'll agree, that even the absolute smoothest birth on the planet is a pretty big event.  Not an unevent.

Being in a reminiscent sort of mood, I would like to share one of my more fun birth stories.  It would be Scout, of course, who rarely does anything without leaving a mark.  So, anyway, Sparky was having a little nap on the couch, and I was three days overdue, and announced to him that I was in labour.  It was very light and I would just get my stuff together and call my parents so we could bring Alice over to them while I had a baby.

So, it was late afternoon and we took Alice to my parents house, and went to the hospital.  Fortunately they were just serving dinner, so we got a roast beef dinner as soon as we walked in the door.  As labour was light, we just walked around and passed the time chatting, except when I stopped to blow through a contraction. 

So anyway.  At around 7:00 pm, the nurse on staff said well I guess I'll be seeing you in the morning...indicating that labour was light enough that I would be labouring all night.  A short time after she waltzed out the door, during a contraction my water broke.  It was lightly meconium stained, the night nurse noted it, but wasn't particularly alarmed.  Okay, you will probably find your contractions are going to heat up now that your water has broken, you could go in the shower and wash up (from the meconium), that'll probably feel good, too.

The shower sounded good, so I went next door to a shower room beside the birthing room.  I was in the shower for a few minutes, and then Sparky (who had clearly been attentive during prenatal classes) says, y'know, I think you are in transition.  Your arms and shaking.  And your legs are a bit shaky, too.  

Well I don't feel like I'm in transition.  This was my second delivery.  I was to eventually realize that I don't experience transition following a normal pattern. Like not at all.  Except the shaky arms, I guess.

So Sparky wraps me up in a towel and walks me to the next door over back to the birthing room.  As soon as I enter the door, I dropped to my hands and knees, and bellowed, RIGHT NOW.  Which was a bit cryptic, but Sparky got the picture.  He leaned out the door and shouted down the hall to the nursing station, RIGHT NOW.  

Reading between the lines, the nurses apparently got the picture too, and we heard them pelting down the hall.  Four seconds later, after the situation had been adequately assessed, on nurse ran back to the nursing station to call the Emergency doctor on that night, the pediatrician on that night and my own doctor who lived about five minutes from the hospital. 

The other nurse, with Sparky, one on either side of me, upended me to a sitting position on the birthing bed.  The British nurse assured my in gentle tones that she was fully trained as a midwife and had delivered many babies.  All I was thinking was, catch my baby!  I don't care who you are or where you've been!  You are in the right place, so catch it!  Your credentials are utterly meaningless at this moment.  Grab the baby!!

Of course I didn't express any of this verbally, I believe I said something to the effect of, "eeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhmmmmmmoooooooo"...think rhinoceros noises.  And there she was.  8:50 pm. One good bellow.  8 pounds, one ounce.  Sparky was looking around for something more to be happening, being a little surprised that a baby was there already.  The doctors starting arriving.  First one, then another, then the third.  Oops.  They all said. 

"Can we call her Scout?"  I pleaded.  Sparky conceded.