Home > Baby Waibel > Birth
Birth
Welcome Lucas!
19-May-2005: This morning Jen woke Dustin up at 9am screaming in pain. This after going to bed around 4am after seeing the 12:01am showing of Star Wars: Episode III. Jen had actually woke up with the first real contractions around 5:30, but had let Dustin sleep in a bit. The contractions were still about 10-15 minutes apart, but were so intense that Jen couldn't talk through them.
Dustin started writing down the contraction spacing and length in his Palm Pilot. By about 9:45 they were getting to 5-6 minutes apart and lasting 45-60 seconds. We called the Dr. Imig's office and the nurse said (in effect) 'yeah, you're in labor. Go to the hospital.' Dustin then called his mom at her work since she had a 2-1/2 hour drive ahead of her. He of course had to be a butthead; first he asked his mother how the weather was up there, then said he was just calling to tell her that Star Wars was a good movie.
After hanging up, we hit the showers and got all the last-minute things packed. A little after 10:30, right before we were about to leave, Jen had a contraction that lasted almost 5 minutes. Dustin started getting a little frantic; it is a short drive to the hospital but he was worried that he wouldn't even be able to get Jen in the car.
We got to the hospital a little after 11am. Jen had one contraction while we walked from the front of the hospital to the 'B' elevators in the back to get to Labor and Delivery on the 2nd floor. We got checked in and put into Room 3 (Dustin asked for Room 4 but there was still someone in there).
A nurse did an internal exam and announced that Jen was 5-6 cm dilated and her cervix was 100% effaced. Jen's contractions weren't getting any less intense; in fact, she threw up twice before we could get her any relief. Dustin was really trying to get her an epidural, but we hadn't even signed any of the paperwork yet, including the "Consent to Anesthesia." After pressing on the nurses, they decided to get the epidural done first and worry about the paperwork later. What actually happened was that we still had to wait because the anesthesiologist was doing one on a lady that was at 8 cm. So Dustin signed all the papers for Jen while we waited (Jen was in too much pain to do them).
Soon the anesthesiologist had Jen all hooked up to the epidural. Within about 30 minutes, Jen was very comfortable. We were happy because they had gotten the epidural dosage right where we had wanted it; the pain was removed but Jen could still feel the pressure of the contractions.
Things pretty much plugged along for the next few hours. Soon enough we had a few visitors. Jen and Dustin's parents both arrived (that's Jen's dad Earle in the pic at the right with Jen around noon), as well as Jen's sister Mindy and her husband Jerry, as well as Dustin's Aunt Claudia. They all waited patiently in the waiting room down the hall for any tidbits of news Dustin could throw their way. Dustin also called some other friends and family to let them know what was going on.
A nurse showed up around 3:30 to check Jen's progress. (An aside: the student nurse that was there at this point and at the birth was named Leilanie; Jen's mom's name is Leilani. Our first nurse of the day was named Diane, the same as Dustin's mom.) The nurse announced that Jen was almost 10 cm, except for a small bit at the top of her cervix. She said we'd wait another hour and that at that point she should be ready to push. Dustin went out to the waiting room and gave yet one more progress report. Around 4:00, Dr. Imig came in and told us that Jen was about ready to go. The doc ran off to do some last minute paperwork and Dustin ran out again.
The nurses came in a bit after 4:15 and started getting the room prepared. About 4:30 Jen announced that she needed to push. The student nurse Leilanie and Dustin each held up one of Jen's legs during each push and the other nurse gave Jen some really good coaching through the pushes... Dustin had forgotten half the advice. Dustin decided to set up the video camera a little before 5 even though he didn't know how long it would be because he thought he'd probably forget to do it later.
Dr. Imig returned a little after 5, and that's when we got down to real business. The nurses detached the end of the bed so that the Doc could get right in there, and she got all smocked up and prepared. The Doc swabbed Jen with a bunch of iodine. It was about then that Dustin could first see a little bit of the baby's head. Very weird.
Jen pushed like a champ. Not that we have a lot of experience with these things, but it seemed to Dustin that every push moved the baby much further down the "canal" than he was expecting. The Doc and the nurses seemed impressed as well, although you can never trust people who are trying to make you feel better.
The normal pushing pattern was three pushes per contraction. When the baby was "crowning," Dr. Imig, the nurses, and Dustin all encouraged Jen to push a couple extra to get him out. Adding those extra two pushes got him popped out, with the back of his head first. Dustin and Jen thought he seemed really long coming out, although he turned out to be pretty normal in that regard. He immediately started crying, seemingly even before his head was out.
The nurses cleaned him a bit and then handed him to Jen as Dr. Imig set Dustin up to cut the cord. That was pretty cool; not as tough as he thought it might be. After that the nurses took him and put him under the heat lamps and scrubbed him off (the first, second, and fourth pictures to the right are of him in that state). He was then weighed and measured. He was 8 pounds even and 20-and-a-half inches long. He was born at 5:15, which means Jen pushed for 45 minutes, very short for a first-time mom.
When it seemed like everything was a bit settled, Dustin asked Jen if it was okay for him to go out and tell everyone that he was born and his vitals (even though we hadn't discussed names yet). Jen said it was cool and the nurse commented that they were practically right outside the room anyway. Dustin opened the door and found that his mom, Jen's mom, and Aunt Claudia had "snuck" down the hall to within 5 feet of the delivery room. They said that they had heard baby cries and knew it was him. The other people waiting joined the group in the hall, and Dustin showed them some pics on the LCD screen of his camera. Dustin then went back in and took some video of the baby and Jen, and then brought that out to show everyone.
Dustin returned to the room, and the nurses cleared out, leaving us to enjoy some recovery time before we were moved to the Mother-Baby Unit. We decided it was time to settle on a name for out little boy. After tossing around a couple of the ideas we had been thinking about, we both agreed quickly on what we wanted:
Lucas Colin George Waibel
(Background on the name: George is a family name on both sides. In fact, after Dustin's Grandpa George died in February 1997, Dustin decided then that if he ever had a boy he wanted to have George as a middle name. 5 months later he met Jen and the rest as they say... Anyway, Lucas came from a baby book. Dustin photocopied a few pages of popular names from the last 100 years and had Jen sit down and highlight the names she liked and cross out the ones she hated. Dustin did the same, and on the short list of names they both really liked was Lucas. Jen was surprised Dustin liked the name, but he did. It was then brought up that his due date was the anniversary of the release date of the original Star Wars so Lucas would also be a cool homage to the man who started it all.
Colin also came from that short list. For a while Jen and Dustin were leaning towards Colin George as the name. When we decided we really like Lucas, we realized who couldn't do Lucas George as the name as that would be way too blatantly nerdy and not at all the intention. So we came up with Lucas Colin George as another possibility. Since he was born on the release date of the probably last Star Wars movie, Lucas it was.)
After making the decision, Dustin walked out again to the waiting room and announced it. Everybody seemed to love the name (which is a good thing since he's stuck with it for at least 15-20 years).
An hour or so later Jen was wheeled up to the Mother-Baby Unit with the baby in her arms and Dustin trailing behind. We got stuck in one of the few double rooms but luckily no one else was supposed to show up in the other bed that night. We were first in line for a solo room the next day. Soon after we got settled in the room a nurse came along to give him his first bath, which as you can see he thoroughly enjoyed.
We had everyone come into the room one last time to say good night, and after Dustin's parents ran and got him some Carl's Jr., we settled down for our first night as parents!
