PROLOGUE: I corrected a couple of spelling errors/omissions. You could certainly make sense of it, but I was running on very little sleep. For those who didn't know, Callie was due August 11th and was born July 24th instead. Anyhow...

-----

Hi all,

I'm momentarily stepping into the Diva circle as Public Relations for the Divas of the Greene residence.

Callie came to be with us around 1:50 AM Monday morning in our bedroom with the ambulance en route. Nothing bad, just urgent. Thankfully our doula, Gisele came to the house and ultimately delivered the baby. Anyway... from the beginning in my words...

I was changing the spark plugs on the boat when Cynthia called me to say she had a little cramp around 7PM Sunday evening. I finished up and came home to find Cynthia reading Paddy a bedtime story, though Paddy was maybe most glad to see me as he was concerned for Mom and had made it throughly clear he wanted no part of the birth and must be at Grammy's when it happened. Cynthia also had had a nosebleed and upon speaking to her mom, Myrna recalled she had had one too the night before Cynthia's brother Rob was born. I think there was a little denial at play, given the date and the possibility of false labour.

Anyhow, Paddy got to sleep just in time for things to get intense enough for me to start my stopwatch. 9PM. 4 minutes apart. 1 minute long.

Eventually we called Gisele who said for Cynthia to lie down for 1/2 an hour and then get up for half an hour and we should report contraction frequency and duration and intensity for those periods to rule out Braxton Hicks. Prior to this, there was some contained but somewhat frenzied "nesting" as we both packed backpacks, labour bag and sundry.

I recalled that the batteries were low in my camera, so I changed them out for the spares. As I would find out the next morning, my camera was in my closet where I had presumably left it while grabbing a couple shirts I could change into at the hospital in the morning if need be. I suppose a number of distractions that evening led me to leave it there.

We reported our findings to Gisele as I had collected all necessary data first on the back of a paystub and then in a well formatted spreadsheet I was able to create between back massages/contractions. I think Cynthia massaging my back helped keep her mind off the night to come. Just kidding. That was about the only useful thing I did. That and the Mr. Freezies kit in a glass complete with scissors for momentary rehydration. Come to think of it, I threw a couple of root beers in the freezer as our cheat sheet indicated they could be good massage rollers if need be. Oh yeah and the part where I got a garbage pail to "help deal with nausea" and the resultant washing of said pail. Fill in the blanks.

Anyway... Cynthia wanted to have a bath which is, as far as I can figure, when her water broke, because I guess that's the only opportunity we had where it might not be noticed, because it wasn't noticed, by any of us. That turned out to be a crucial datapoint.

Eventually, after further conversation with Gisele, she decided to come to the house so we could get moving to the hospital. Gisele reports she was on the phone with us while she was in Carp at about 1:05AM. That'd put her at our house around 1:25ish. Still consistent contractions... 4 minutes apart, 1 minute to 1:20 long. Textbook active labour phase. A prenatal info package that was loaned to some friends and happenchance returned to me on Friday before my friend left for vacation and even more unlikely I remembered to bring home from work contained an important table indicating this phase could be from 3-5 hours long. Stopwatch reads about 4 hours when Gisele shows up. Another curcial datapoint. We lost track of keeping contraction times earlier in the evening, and I reset the stopwatch. Active phase was probably actually nigh on 5 hours elapsed rather than the reported four. That said, data still indicated contraction freqency and duration consistent with active phase.

After Gisele showed up, I did verbally note frequency was dipping under 4 minutes and duration was sometimes up to 90 seconds. Gisele commented that she was hearing the kind of breathing she expected to hear and said we'd get Cynthia to go to the bathroom, get dressed and head for the hospital. I go to throw the backpacks in the car.

Rumour has it that Cynthia said something to Gisele while in the bathroom that prompted Gisele to go to the next level because as I come back in the house what seemed to be three minutes later, Gisele had called an ambulance. At that, the phone rings. I answer (sine the caller ID said "AMBULANCE" (which I just noticed on the call display said 1:51AM). They had apparently misunderstood and thought Gisele was a midwife and that this was an intentional event. I indicated it indeed was not and that they should come immediately. Gisele, although very qualified as an RN and certainly has had various degrees of involvement in hundreds of births, has never ever delivered a baby herself and not at home and not with nothing other than a stainless steel mixing bowl and an armful of towels.

I had just hung up when Gisele called out to me to call 911. In her words "The baby is coming now!!". I called 911 and there was a little commotion, so I had went to the front porch to understand what the 911 dispatcher was saying. I seem to recall something like "911 - what's your emergency?" I said we'd called an ambulance. They agreed. They asked was there a robbery and something or other and all I said was "BABY!". In hindsight they probably didn't think I meant we were having a baby. At that, I turn the corner and the baby is halfway out. I think I looked because I heard a baby crying. That was probably it. I don't remember when or how, but I think I hung up on the 911 operator which if I recall all of those Rescue 911 episodes with Captain Kirk, you're not supposed to do. Whatever. Baby is out, crying, lying in Mommy's arms... kisses, no ambulance, CAMERA!!!

Cynthia is smiling, obviously incredibly relieved, Myrna is crying (Pat and Myrna came out to get Paddy earlier in the evening and decided to stay the night just in case), I'm crying (while looking for my camera). The ambulance shows up. Things are apparently stable. Paramedics are there. Gisele is there. Myrna is there. Pat and Paddy are sleeping (where they should be... the baby crying did wake Pat up however... you'll have to forgive him, I think he's a little squeamish in matters female, so he stayed in bed but he sent congratulations from the spare bedroom :-) ).

With so much medical support at this point, I'm desperately looking for my camera... desperately. I eventually had to give up and we just went to the hospital. Speaking of which. I'm expected there in 25 minutes, so I'll cut it short and leave you with the attached (after I found my camera)...

Couldn't be happier.

Love,
Geoff, Cynthia, Paddy and Callie