original little hellraisers

june 21.2006

(7pm) - admitted to the hospital.

(8pm) - we watched the aristocrats (very inappropriate, we know)

(8:15pm) - while john is getting food, they put an IV in ara (twice). kara has famously hard veins to find when drawing blood (or in this case, getting the IV in). they missed the first time, so they had to poke her twice.

(11:30pm) - our first nurse, collette, leaves her shift.

(11:31pm) - our second nurse, erica, starts her shift.

june 22.2006

(2am) - kara gets her first shot of pitocin - it’s a synthetic hormone that starts the contractions.

(5:14am) - kara requests her first set of painkillers. so, the nurse tells kara, “this is going to be like having a few cocktails…” she dumps this stuff into kara via IV and it immediately takes effect. kara debates with the nurse saying it was more like “5 or 6 cocktails.” john takes his wife’s side on this one.

(6:30am) - kara gets her second “set of cocktails.”

(7:00am) - the cocktails stop working, or the contractions get stronger. either way, the epidural is requested so that john does not have to watch his wife in unspeakable pain.

(7:03am) - the epidural is requested, with more fervor. (to be fair, they were on it, we just wanted to make sure they understood how much we wanted the epidural. we even played this song. loudly.

(7:30am) - with this song still playing, epidural god, dr. “gersh” shows up and jams a needle into kara’s spine, installs a quick port and then turns on the happy juice. kara feels instantly better. if there’s a take away for us — we think *everyone* should get the epidural. do you go to the dentist and have your teeth pulled without pain killers? didn’t think so. (of course, we’re only kidding, do whatever you want during this rad, magical time… but *consider* the pain killers… kara could actually sleep after she got the dose.)

(7:33am) - kara’s third nurse, kathleen shows up and will turn out to close the show with us. she was totally awesome.

(7:35am) - baby cannon is 3cm dilated.

(8:06am) - kara’s water broke to arcade fire’s “crown of love.” click here for a (sample). kara’s quote: “either my water broke or i just peed myself.” since you can’t feel your legs with the epidural, it was hard to tell which was which. thankfully, it was her water and her dignity has been spared. however! there was merconium in the amniotic fluid, which indicates the kid is a crapper! he sullied hsi amniotic fluid with some of his own waste. at this point, the nurse told us that when owen was born they’d have to have neonatal intensive care (nicu) on site to clear his nose and lungs. scary point #1.

(11:23am) - baby cannon is at 8cm dilated.

(1:30pm) - baby cannon is at 9cm (and change) (close enough) dilated.

(3:17pm) - the birthing process starts. kara works with the nurse on some “test pushes.” nurse kathleen then marvels at kara’s unspoken and incredible pushing talent.

(3:23pm) - the nurse notices that every time kara pushes, the little man’s heart rate drops quite a bit. ‘normal’ baby heart-rates are in the low to mid 100s (130-140 seemed to be owen’s average.) every time kara pushed his heart rate would drop to 80 or so. this became scary point #2 when the nurse started using medical speak on the phone. they rearrange kara on the birthing table to see if owen likes a different position. john gets sufficiently scared. documented as scary point #2.

(3:26pm) - the birthing doctor, dr. julie huh, shows up to bring owen into the world.

(3:35pm) - after a few contractions she tells kara that she might need to use the ‘vacuum’ to get owen out to protect against the heart-rate drops. unless we cen get him out quickly. this is kara’s greatest birthing fear, actually. she had read that the vacuum birth is pretty traumatic on the baby. kara steels herself and becomes hell-bent on getting owen out as quickly as possible. scary point #3.

(3:51pm) - owen michael chowanec makes his first appearance. however! he was a bit blue. and… that’s because he had his umbilical cord wrapped pretty tightly around his own neck. dr. huh, launches into action and earns her keep by jamming through the process of getting that cord cut and handing owen off to the nicu folks for the clearing of his lungs. bright eyes plays on the ipod. john concludes his son already has good taste in music. and, as if he hasn’t already proven that he is a crapper, owen decided to drop a bomb or two on the transfer across the room to the nicu folks, leaving a few deposits of dook. john takes credit, to spare his son the indignity.

(3:51pm) - nurses suzanne and tina show up to rock the proverbial casbah by being an extra set of hands for the other nurses. now there’s like 10 people in the room and the only person we really know is each other…

(4:00pm) - we tell the grandmothers. they sob uncontrollably.