It seems to me from all the questions and phone calls we’ve gotten, that people really want to know about how the water broke, how we ended up at the hospital and everything that happened from there.

So I figured I’d give a play-by-play of the good stuff and thus you can transport yourself from the seat you are plopped in right now back in time to a hospital called Mercy Gilbert where Lyla Grace was born.

This is a bit of a long post, but it was also a long day…

November 21st

7:00pm – We go on a walk around the block to try and get this thing going. Little did we know it seemed to actually work.

9:00pm – Jina goes to bed, I stay up to watch TV and catalog comic books. You know how they say the mom gets a flurry of energy before the baby comes? Seems like I had a bit of it myself. I’d been keeping the house clean, the dishes washed and seemed to be aware that this night could come at any time.

November 22nd

12:45am – I’m watching The West Wing, season 1, disc 2 when Jina comes walking out of the bedroom and says, “I think my water just broke.” She felt a few small gushes, obviously not something normal, so we reckon this is the time.

But with no contractions really going on, we decide to wait before going to the hospital and instead clean up the house a bit, pack up clothes for our stay and wait to see what happens.

2:45am – A contraction or two have happened, but nothing obvious, so we decide to crash a bit on the couch and get some sleep. I sleep for two hours, Jina’s mind is racing too much for her to do anything but doze.

5:45am – We wake up and the contractions are a bit more real. She leans over on the couch a few times in a smidge of pain and that’s when we know it’s time to go. We grabbed our stuff, told the dogs to expect company when we returned and we headed out.

7:00am – Arrived at the hospital and were taken to triage to determine whether or not the water broke. Our hearts dropped big time when nurse Joannie said they didn’t find any traces of amniotic fluid. But Jina was having contractions and she was 3-4cm dilated, so Joannie told us to go walk for an hour and see what happened.

8:00am – Jina was walking, and well, I was hungry for breakfast, so I grabbed some eggs, bacon and fried potatoes from the very good cafe downstairs and while I was scarfing down my last bite, Jina comes up to me and says, “okay, my water definitely just broke, I feel a gushing and it’s not stopping…”

8:30am to 1pm – So with the water breaking, we officially were admitted to the hospital and were transferred to the one of the delivery rooms, which was pretty much as nice as a friggin’ hotel without a great bed for the daddy to sleep in. There was a fold-out couch, but it appears to have been designed by a guy about 5′1”.

Joannie told us we’d definitely be having the baby before midnight. That was exciting news.

The other crazy bit of news was running into two good friends of ours that we don’t see much and discovering that they were there to induce labor and have their baby the same day! Kent and Blanca were a welcomed site and made the day a bit more special.

Jina’s contractions were getting better, but still irregular and relatively pain-free. So that evil word “pitocin” was uttered and they decided to use that to help speed things along. Immediately upon being subjected the drug, Jina started feeling the contractions more and more. Not very painful, but decent enough.

Around 12:30 I took my chance to go eat some lunch while things were relatively stable. That didn’t last too long.

1 – 4pm – The pitocin progressed things, but they still weren’t good enough, so our nurse Jo called in Joannie. They felt like something was amiss in “uterus land” and found out that the sack hadn’t broken all the way. So Joannie when in with some medieval took and finished breaking it open and that’s when things started getting interesting.

With nothing in the way now, Lyla dropped a bit lower and the real pain started in.

4pm – Now the breathing techniques came into play and Jina really started hurting. They told us to try the “labor waltz” where Jina stands with me and sways like we’re dancing. I tried to tell the nurse that Jina nearly killed me once when we were trying to learn how to swing dance, but she didn’t care.

At the time we started dancing, the pain was bad enough that Jina pressed the red call button and asked for that blessed drug all you mothers know as an “epidural.” The dude with the needle showed up about 15 minutes later and hooked us up.

Things immediately got better and Jina even dozed once or twice.

6pm – This is the point where I started having a serious father-to-be anxiety attack. I felt like I was going to throw up, I was nervous, excited and thought I couldn’t contain all of it. Just thinking of the baby appearing brought up visions of passing out right there on the floor.

I called my sister-in-law to talk about it and she innocently tells me “Chuck threw up before I had Jackson, sooo…” That didn’t help, but I appreciated the honesty *grin*

I prayed and prayed for a bit there that God would calm me down and help me realize that it was in his hands and that I needed to be strong. He slowly started working in me, and then I ran into Kent in the hallway and we talked for about 20 minutes and it really was a blessing. For a few minutes at least.

8:30pm – After waiting all day and thinking the moment would never come, the nurse finally said it was time to push. Little did we know how long this would take.

Another thing I wasn’t aware of was how involved I would be in this final stage of labor. When she said “okay Mike, you grab one leg, I’ll grab the other and we’ll help her push,” I was sort of like “whaaahuh?”

And Jina could tell that I was suddenly in weird place and even said she was worried about me. This tiny little comment changed the whole night for me because I realized that I was being a complete idiot for letting any of this bother me when what Jina was going through was so much more.

So I turned the corner and manned up. From there on out, the experience didn’t scare me anymore. At least, not like before. What did scare me was how tired Jina was getting from pushing so long.

11:00pm – Jina had been “effective pushing” for about 2 hours at this point and the baby’s head was still stubbornly not coming out all the way. The nurse could see a “plumb-sized” head when Jina pushed, but that was as far as it would go.

Finally the doctor came in and got the show on the road. We kept Jina’s legs propped up between pushes, they cleared her bladder to make even more room and Jina gave us the last bit of pushing she could possibly do.

Now let me be perfectly clear here: Jina was able to push for 2.5 hours and I still have no idea how she did it. I was exhausted along with her, and cried everytime she did from feeling at the end of her rope. Sometimes the nurse would leave and Jina would just let go and cry…and it broke my heart.

But somehow, she kept it going…so amazing.

11:27pm – I see the head poking out about 3 inches and my eyes well up with tears. I tell Jina that I can see the head but I’m not sure she can even hear me at this point. I thought what I was seeing was the top of the head and that the rest of the baby would be fairly small, but little did I know that this was just about 1/4 of the head…

11:29pm – One last big push and the doctor massages the head and pulls the rest of it out…and I start laughing to myself because it was so awesome and also funny that the head was so much bigger than I thought. And I’m laughing and crying, can barely see through the glassy eyes when they pulled the rest of her out and then suddenly she was plopped right on Jina’s chest.

11:30pm onwards – After that the night is a blur…taking pictures while she was cleaned, Jina getting stitches, passing out in the bathroom, going to sleep, Lyla falling asleep for the first time in my arms, me trying to remember the lyrics to ANY song so I could sing to her, decided to pray to her instead and then I laid her in the crib and fell asleep on the couch.

And the next morning our friends Kent and Blanca had their baby at 7am and one of the nurses named Meredith snuck over to tell us the news. There were some seriously awesome nurses at Mercy Gilbert.

Everything that happened almost seems like a distant memory now, already being practically a week later. I’m hoping in writing this little “recap” I can always come back to it and remember the little things I forgot.

Hope this wasn’t too long or boring, but that’s essentially how the whole thing went down. I’m sure I forgot a few tidbits here and there, but you got the gist of it.

Besides my wedding day, this was the most amazing moment of my life thus far.