Here is a little information on what transpired:

Kathy's labor began at 10pm on Friday night. After a solid hour of recording contractions we called our Lamaze teacher Wanda for a pep-talk. She said she thought this might be the real thing, and that we were taking all the right steps. During this past hour the contractions were about 5-9 minutes apart, which was a bit shorter than expected this early in labor. During the next 30-45 minutes this dropped down to every 2-5 minutes. This was quite out of the ordinary and so we called the doctor to have a chat. He suggested that we go into the hospital to get checked out. If everything was going ok, we could always come home and rest some more. So around midnight we packed up the car and headed off. We were already packed up into a neat pile, and we were out of the house in minutes. I've never been so happy about Kathy's preparations!

We got Kathy to the hospital and into her room, but before we could even get her out of the wheel chair she informed us she was feel nauseous. By the time we got her something to throw up in, she took advantage of it. For the next couple hours things were quite rough. The contractions were making Kathy nauseous, and at the end of each one she always felt like throwing up and did about half the time. On top of this, the night staff in delivery had put the two censors on Kathy. The first showed the babies heartbeat, and was very difficult to position. The second was supposed to show Kathy's contractions, but it never did. Later on, John, our fantastic murse, theorized that Kathy's uterus probably leaned towards her back, making it hard for the censor to detect anything. At any rate, all things combined, I was left with the impression that the night staff thought this was a false alarm, and that Kathy was mostly just scared sick.

A little past 2:30am, more than 2 hours at the hospital, our nurse gave Kathy an internal, and was astonished to find out that her water had broken. We don't really know when it happened, but we are guessing it was around 2am when Kathy had a particularly bad bout of vomiting, and had wet the bed. Conveniently, we'd visited the doctor at 9am Friday, and he said that Kathy was almost 2cm dilated, and mostly effaced, similar to what he had told us the week before. Now at 2:30am on Saturday, the nurse said she thought we were just over 2cm. But now that Kathy's water had broken the staff moved in and started taking things seriously. Kathy got an IV to replenish her loss of fluids. Kathy was still in pain and very uncomfortable, so the nurses talked to us about pain management. They had a groovy drug that would lesson the pain a bit, and give Kathy a pleasant drunk feeling. More importantly, it was also supposed to relieve nausea, which was a real no brainer for us. So starting at 4am Kathy was doped up. That made a big difference. It took the edge off her pain, and she stopped feeling nauseous and vomiting. This was really the beginning of the light for us. At this point, the nurses told us we should really try to rest, because things were going to take a while yet, and we would need our energy. Kathy was able to drift in and out of sleep through most of her contractions, and I zonked out on a fold-out chair, coming to consciousness only when the nurses came to check on us.

Around about 7am we started waking up. Kathy's drug was going to come to an end this hour. They would only give her 3 doses, each lasting not much more than an hour. Additionally, there was a shift change and we moved from the night staff to Natasha and John. John was a teacher for many years, and then a murse for many more, and was absolutely fantastic. Natasha was reasonably new on the job, and she was in training with John. John spent a lot of time over the next many hours just talking to us about various things that were happening to Kathy, and what our options were, and different things we could try, etc. He was very calming and very wonderful. Our first discussion centered around the Epidural. We really didn't want Kathy to go back to the pain and discomfort she was in before, so we agreed to the epidural without much deliberation.

Kathy and I actually missed our Lamaze class on drugs. It was supposed to take place on Tues, Feb 4th. *sigh*. So when the doctor showed up to give Kathy the epidural we had a few questions to ask. The doctor was wonderful, and very patient, and very careful. John later told us that we had really scored, both the Anesthesiologist and our doctor (David Francisco) were his two favorite doctors. A few moments after they gave Kathy the epidural, they hooked in a catheter. Since she couldn't feel anything down there they wanted to make sure she was still passing fluids. Moments later Kathy was in love with the epidural. All the pain was gone (the previous drug had just took the edge off), and felt totally relaxed and at ease.

We had been told in Lamaze class that we should avoid most of these wires and hoses and things, and keep Kathy mobile. Try to change positions, go for walks, etc. But quite frankly, Kathy had zero interest in moving. She curled up in bed with her epidural and was as happy as could be in the situation. She relaxed and conserved her strength. She only moved around when the nurses came in to roll her over, to ensure that she continued to have good circulation. Neither of us can imagine having gotten through this any other way.

Shortly after 9am they did another internal exam on Kathy and she was now 6cm dialed! By this time we felt it was getting easier!

Not much happened for the next couple hours. Kathy rested and conserved her strength. Tim dozed and read a book. Natasha and John checked on us regularly. As it got closer to lunch they checked on Kathy more and more often. By noon Kathy was completely dilated and her cervix had pulled back to leave room for the baby to exit. Wahoo! Almost done!

Yeah right. At 12:30pm Kathy started pushing. John and Natasha coached us through, showing us what to do. John worked with Kathy to talk about different ways to do the breathing and pushing, and how to hold her body. After an hour of pushing, everything seemed to be going really well. We could see the baby coming, and she had hair! Long dark hair! That alone motivated Kathy to push incredibly well! By the time Maija's head was almost poking out, Dr. Francisco arrived. John had raved about Dr. Francisco earlier and how he would massaging the delivery area constantly, to stretch it out to accommodate the baby. And sure enough, this is exactly when he did. There was no episiotomy, and no tearing. And throughout the entire delivery, Dr. Francisco was constantly massaging Kathy and helping to make room for Maija to emerge.

The actual delivery part was quite sudden when it finally happened. Maija seemed to be in perfect position, and there seemed to be lots of room for her to come out, but she stalled a bit. Neither the Dr. Francisco or John seemed particularly alarmed, but I had the feeling that this was taking a bit longer than it should. John and Natasha were certainly in a hurry, since their shift ended around 3pm, but both were staying to witness the birth they had prepared so diligently for. That made both Kathy and I feel quite special, and Kathy says she pushed even harder trying to hit that deadline for them.

Suddenly Maija crossed the threshold and popped out. We saw then that she had her right arm jammed up over her ear. This is what had slowed her down. We think she was trying to fix up her hair before mama saw her.

Kathy was delighted to see Maija and hold her for the first time. I was delighted that she wasn't covered with blood like I've seen in some of the delivery shows. Kathy was quite shocked by the umbilical cord. It was much thicker than she had expected, and bright blue and white. Uncommon colors to see come popping out of you, eh? For those that are interested, we did collect her cord blood and have it stored.

After the delivery Kathy was allowed to rest while I packed up the room, and took Maija to the nursery for her first complete physical. Since then we've been doing quite well. Kathy is breast-feeding Maija, and this is always a pain to get started. We are still teaching Maija how to latch on correctly. She has a fantastic suck reflex as long as we can keep her awake. Getting up in the middle of the night to feed her is difficult, and Kathy and I both get up, me mostly to sit on the floor and read and occasionally grab a blanket or get Kathy some water. Thankfully, Maija isn't insistent on her nightly feedings yet, so we skimp on them a bit to catch a little bit extra sleep. Some more good news is that Kathy and I are on very different cycles. She crashes in the late afternoon and evening, and I crash hard after about 3 or 4am, just as Kathy is beginning to wake up more.

All in all, things have turned out perfectly. We couldn't have asked for more. Maija is 3 weeks early, not quite a preemie. But with her good weight and Kathy's fantastic preparation, we have everything under control.

We would like to send out a special thanks to everyone who has called and/or/will brought stuff over for us. We very much appreciate all of your efforts and good wishes.