Alida's birth story - via her Daddy

One day I was working in the garden making ready for this year’s onion patch, the next here we are in the hospital with a sweet baby who is sleeping the morning away.

I must say, her timing is impeccable. Not only did she come on her due date, she also came after a full Saturday of homemaking activities had rendered our homestead in prime condition for leaving. I spent the working part of the day preparing a bed for the planting of onions, which I thought Kali and I might do on Monday. Over the past week or two, as we’ve been living with the knowledge that labor could start at any time, I’ve been constantly wondering: will this be the moment I remember all my life? Will this be the activity that was interrupted by a trip to the hospital to meet Alida? I secretly hoped it would be some sort of gardening activity that got the honor.

As it turns out, she didn’t even interrupt it! Janelle had been experiencing gradually intensifying, occasional contractions over the past few days. About the middle of the afternoon yesterday she decided it was time to begin keeping track of them. She is someone who likes to keep busy, though, so she and her Mom decided to keep on with their cherry canning project (long, unrelated story as to why they were canning cherries in March), and I am someone who likes to keep busy so I kept working on my onion bed, albeit with heightened awareness of all the signs of springtime life: budding twigs, sprouting seeds, birds claiming territories with song, etc. It seemed like a good day to have a baby, I must say. I was prepared to drop my tools and get in the car at any moment.

Much to my pleasure, we were spared that sort of rush. I was able to primp the soil to my absolute satisfaction and put my tools away, but then I ran out of concentration for ordinary things…this was no ordinary day, after all. I went inside where Janelle, Kali, and Mom and Dad Myers were, and we all agreed this was the real thing and we should make a plan. It was seeming to Janelle that we still had some time, so I got a shower, and then, since the canning project was completed (double bonus!), Janelle, Kali and I mixed up some cake batter for Alida’s 0th birthday cake. Then we sat down to a scrumptious and nutritious supper prepared by Mom and Janelle, topped off with fresh sour cherry pie and a little coffee for me, seeing as the chances were good that there was a long night ahead. By the end of supper it was clear that there was not going to be time to dawdle too much. Mom and Dad left for a concert with smiles on their faces, taking Kali with them to attend a concert and wait for any news we might generate in the evening. As Kali left she hugged Janelle’s midsection and said “goodbye, bump.”

Soon thereafter our friend M, who had agreed to accompany us in this third birth just as she had the other two, arrived to help us decide whether it was time to head to the hospital, which it was, and which we did. Advice for families to be: do a practice run (complete with labor simulation if you prefer) on getting to the hospital. We got there just fine, and with no wrong turns, but I admit that I felt frazzled enough that I was having a pretty amusingly hard time thinking about which was the best way to go. It would have been less amusing and significantly more muddling if Janelle had been in serious distress or if we had procrastinated any longer!

In any case, we got there in good time, while Janelle was still feeling pretty o.k. between contractions, though the intensity of the contractions had picked up significantly while in the car. What a pleasant and fun surprise to be greeted by a familiar and friendly face when we (in a calm and happy mood, I must say) strolled into the E.R. at RMH. Our next-door neighbor L happened to be the E.R. nurse on duty at the desk!

After the perfunctory registration questions (“Are you in labor?”) we made our way to the Family Birthplace and got settled in to a room. None too late, none too soon, though perhaps a tad closer to too late than too soon.

After a progressively intense hour of contractions and pushing, during which I rubbed Janelle’s back or we hung onto each other, riding out the waves, Alida breathed her first air. She did it very well, and gave it back with a shout. A short umbilical cord bumped the cord cutting ceremony up on the priority list a tad, and then Janelle could hold her. She was wet and a little bloody and looked exactly like herself! She needed ten minutes or so to get a hold of her emotions after the dramatic exit, so while she was crying already the nurses went ahead and did their evaluations. Soon she got calm and curious, and starting looking for something appropriate to suck on, which she found.

During the night she nursed often, and seemed to be starting to actually get something out of it. When she wasn’t feeding, she was sucking on her hand and looking placidly around, or occasionally napping! Now that we’re feeling wakeful, the hospital is hopping with interruptions, and it’s light out, she’s occupied with adjustment to the outside world, which takes the form of deep sleep.

And so, this event was the end of a beautiful time, a momentous beginning.