A Husband's Point of View

By Jackson

On the morning of Thursday, 10 Nov 2005, I awoke to my alarm at 0730, ready to face another day down at Boise State University. As I got out of bed I heard my lovely wife Lisa talking on the phone in the bathroom with the door closed. Assuming that someone had called and she had gone into the bathroom (the room closet to the bedroom) so she could talk without waking me up, I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal. As I sat down to eat, I turned on the news and started thinking about the presentation I had that afternoon in my History of Anthropology class.

About the time I finished eating breakfast, Lisa came into the living room and wasn't quite looking like herself. In a half joking manner I looked at her and asked, "What? Are you in labor or something?" Her response was, "Yeah, I think I am."

I went in to my computer, shot off an e-mail to my professors to let them know I wasn't going to be on campus the next few days, and got Lisa down to the car for the trip to St. Alphonsus. From the car she called her mom (whom she had been on the phone with in the bathroom) to let her know we had left the house and I called my mom to let her know what was going on. While on the phone with my mom she asked how Lisa's contractions were. Just as she asked, Lisa had one and moaned in pain loud enough for mom to hear her through the phone. In an empathetic voice mom said something to the affect of, "Poor dear, that sounds like a big one."

Before I continue I would like to point out that while I woke up at 0730, Lisa had been in labor since 0600. Instead of waking me up, she called her mom. At this time I would like to apologize to Sheryl for the sleep I deprived her of and at the same time thank her for the addition hour and a half of sleep that she afforded to me!

We arrived at the hospital a little after 0800 and when the nurse checked Lisa out it was determined that she was already dilated to 6 cm. We were immediately given a room and when asked if she'd like anything for the pain, she said she'd like to do it naturally, at least at first. We were then left to play the waiting game for a while.

Lisa progressed quite nicely and before long she was at 10 cm and just about ready to go. The nurse told her that generally for a first child it took about an hour o initial pushing before the baby was ready to be delivered, but just in case she was going to take a peak and see how things were. After the inspection she came back up and the first words out of her mouth were, "Well, I think it's time to call the doctor." After a few pushes, a great effort by his mother, and her desire to get some pain killers now (but knowing she couldn't) Coryn James came into the world at 1105 weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. Three weeks later he is well over 8 lbs. and doing just great!