“If you’re not too busy, could you come and examine me?”

This is how the night began. It was about 10pm on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2004.

Ang had been experiencing contractions every 5 to 20 minutes for the last two days. By this time I was skeptical whether we would even see the baby before the weekend. We’d spent the entire previous day, Tuesday, waiting and preparing for the baby to come. We thought he would be born any minute.

That day started at about 5am and I was sure that we would have a new kid before noon. Yanni, Xay, Mani, and Joy were away with Kevin and Christy. However, by 11pm on Tuesday, Ang was worn out from the contractions and I was basically sleepwalking. We gave up waiting. The next morning, Wednesday, we asked Kevin to bring the kids back and declared false labor as the culprit.

I went back to work in that large closet in our house we like to call “the fourth bedroom”. Ang spent the day moving slowly, and occasionally dozing. She was still pretty tired due to strong contractions. Even so, she still directed the kids to do chores, washed a couple of loads of clothes, and even planted some flowers.

I can never stop her from working before a baby, so I didn’t even try. My day was spent designing software and enjoying the periodic hugs, fashion shows, and status updates courtesy of Imani, the 4-year old; as of tomorrow, and Joy, the 2-year old. Kevin handled all of the management stuff for the day by keeping the other guys on task and taking care of the product development worries. I get the feeling he likes the idea of being a hero; he’s pretty good at it.

After dinner I went right back to work hoping to make up for lost time on Tuesday. Xay came in about 8:30p and kept me company until about 9:30. The babies, Imani and Joy, were asleep. Yanni came in to say goodnight around 9:30 and gave me the lowdown on the events of the day, from a 12-year old girl’s perspective. Her dramatic flair and perfect comedic timing is great.

Yanni went to bed, I started to put the software designs into the computer when Angela came in.

“If you’re not too busy, could you come and examine me?”
*Sigh* “OK, I’ll be a couple of minutes. Just want to finish up one thing.”

Five minutes later.

The examination revealed, same as yesterday, stage one labor. There may be other names for it, but “stage one labor” is essentially the time when the baby prepares to enter the birth canal. The head points down and the entire body rotates until the face is pointed at the mother’s back. It can take days in some women, hours in others. It really means that it could be days before the baby was born. Previously, it had taken about a day for Ang, but the contractions were never this intense.

I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong.

Stage one labor is also the time when the mother’s body prepares for delivery. There is a small gateway at the bottom of the uterus that seals off the outside world from the baby. It is called the cervix. The cervix opens the uterus to allow the baby out during stage one labor. After the cervix is opened all the way, stage two labor begins. Stage one labor was barely progressing in Ang, and her contractions were getting stronger. I didn’t know what this meant, but it just didn’t sound good. I started praying.

Ang got up to go to the bathroom for about the 50th time of the day. Walking during a big contraction is tough, but she had to go. I stayed at the bed and asked God to help me know when it is time to give up trying to have a baby at home and take her to the hospital. I was already prepared for something obvious like gushing blood, but not for something like this.

At this point I really wish I could say that Ang and I did something really spiritual, like, sing praise songs, or fell on our faces before God. But we didn’t. Ang came back from the bathroom and lay on the bed. I was at the side of the bed contemplating whether to admit defeat and take her to the hospital. We both acknowledged that, if we went to the hospital every nurse and doctor there would insist on giving Angela a C-section.

Ang said, “If I go there, they are going to cut me open.” I was waffling between doing something super spiritual like praying loudly on my face or resigning and taking up the battle against the hospital and keeping them from cutting on her.

We were both quiet when, “POP”, “GUSHHHHH!” It was the first time I had ever actually heard the water break in a pregnant woman. Mind you, I have already watched my other four children be born. However, in those cases, the attendant nurse would break the water with a pointy instrument and it would sort of trickle out over time.
It was 11pm, the water had broken and everything began to change.

We spent the next hour trying to find the most comfortable position for Ang to push. We settled on something and I walked around trying to look like I knew what I was doing: moving things around, washing my hands, holding her hand through heavy contractions, and giving wise council, like, “um, are you ok? OK, only push when you feel like it… but not too much.”

Anyone who tries to tell you that birth doesn’t hurt, is lying. God did a real special thing when He made women, His final creation. If I had to endure what Angela did that night, we would never ever have children.

At about 1am I saw the baby’s head. At 1:15am Ang made her second to last push and his head was out. Five minutes later, we had him.
I described the experience as being like realizing you’re a millionaire. You work, plan and prepare. You wonder what it will be like once you’ve accomplished it. It’s a pretty big deal, but many have done it before.

Like new millionaires, we have now joined a new crowd: the unassisted birth crowd.