(More pictures coming soon)
The longest day of the year lived up to its namesake. On 06/21/11, Tara was awakened at 3:10 in the morning with a little leakage. Thinking it was a slow leak and not wholly significant she went back to sleep until 6 when more leaking occurred. Since it was still a trickle and there were no signs of contractions, we decided to wait until the doctor’s office opened before calling. At 9, the office instructed us to go to the hospital to be evaluated. Tara, Gloria, and I leisurely loaded up the car and headed to Lenox Hill Hospital at 10, thinking we would be back later that afternoon. After battling the ever-present traffic on the George Washington Bridge and waiting for the evaluation room, Tara was checked by a doctor at 11 and told at 11:30 that she was being admitted due to her water breaking, despite the lack of contractions. We valiantly, yet vainly, tried to persuade the doctors to at least let us go for lunch, as we knew no food was allowed once admitted. Tara had to settle for ice chips and ice pops from here on out.
A little after noon, the contractions, which Tara had been having consistently since being monitored, were noticeable, but still not painful. We settled into Labor and Delivery Room 6 expecting a very long haul. The first few hours were spent walking the halls, looking at the nursery, and smelling all of the food that the newly minted mothers were permitted to consume. Due to a busy birthing area, and our tendency to not be squeaky wheels, we were essentially left alone, with a nurse popping into the room every hour or so to look at the monitor. We were actually able to attach and detach these devices ourselves so that the nurses had their required 20 minutes of tickertape every hour waiting for them. We continued to walk around, eat ice pops, and bounce on the exercise ball that we requested. The contractions grew steadily stronger during the course of the afternoon…as did the pain in Tara’s forearm due to the IV.
Tara, as many of you know, has an extreme phobia of needles and of fluids entering her, unless through sanctioned and natural pathways. It is a testament to how much Tara wanted to be a mother that she submitted herself to two cycles of IVF shots in 2010, both of which failed, but in their own way led to this day. As most nurses do, the ones at Lenox Hill did not quite take this phobia seriously until it was time to put in the IV. I am pretty sure that the hysterics that ensued unnerved the nurse during the first attempt on Tara’s right forearm, causing it to not take. The nurse scrambled to Tara’s left forearm and repeated the procedure with more success. Fast forward to 4:00 when our first primary nurse, Nurse Stephanie had to withdraw an extra vial of blood because the IV nurse failed to properly initial one of the many vials taken out during the IV process. So there’s Tara, walking around for 5+ hours complaining about the IV and what do Gloria and I tell her, “Oh, it’s okay, you’ll stop noticing it soon.” At 5:30, we realized that the saline drip was not really dripping and told Stephanie. Of course the pain was due to the IV site being impacted and had to be redone. Thankfully, Stephanie is one of those nurses that is called in to all of the challenging cases and in between contractions she was able to affix a new IV to Tara’s right wrist.
From 6 – 8 pm, Tara spent her time on an exercise ball breathing and moving through contraction after ever-worsening contraction. After listening to how Tara was working through a strong contraction, our new nurse, Cheryl, asked when the last time a doctor had checked the progress. She was a little dismayed to learn that Tara had not been checked by a doctor since the first evaluation. Dr. Matthews came right in and discovered that in 8 hours Tara had gone from 1+ cm dilated to 6 cm dilated. She ordered an immediate epidural. Dr. Inge and Nurses Stephanie (back from dinner, but assigned to new patients) and Cynthia (our new, new nurse) talked Tara through the “difficult” (to quote the doctor) procedure. Gloria and I were not allowed in the room, but we stood right in the hallway and listened. The screams emanating from the room were such that a neighboring dad-to-be came out to see if everything was alright. We felt a small twinge of guilt when we realized that our laughter, directed solely at the futile attempts to calm Tara and not at the dire situation that she was experiencing, was being captured by the security cameras all over the floor. All went well though and by 9:30, Tara was feeling the drugs and napped a little. Gloria and I took turns to get a little dinner.
By 11 pm, Tara was at 9½ cm and Dr. Rafalin was called in to check things out. Tara’s OB/GYN, Dr. Mindy Kwan, who we both love, was off this night, as was our Lamaze Nurse Ellie who works at Lenox Hill and who we were hoping fervently to work with during labor. So it fell to Dr. Kwan’s partner, the affable Dr. Rafalin, to direct the pushing process. Tara did an incredible job once the room was set up properly. 40 minutes of concentrated pushing was all it took for August Gregory Wieners to emerge at 12:02 am on 06/22/11. Gus showed off his big lungs at first, but quickly settled in to life on the outside. We were able to hold and feed him for almost 2 hours before Nurse Cynthia rolled him off to the Nursery. By 3:30 am, Tara had recovered enough to move from the Labor and Delivery Room to Recovery Room 695. Gloria and I made it back to Englewood, NJ by 4:30 am for a solid 3 hours of sleep.
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It wasn't until Sunday night that Gus slept for 3 hour stretches. This occurred thanks to helpful advice from the Matyjasiks over Skype, plus a video from them showing off an excellent swaddling technique, guiding us to settle on a routine for bedtime. The plan is to feed Gus an extra ten minutes before bed while playing white noise, then swaddle him only at night. Three nights in and Gus is making it through the night in 3 to 4 hour chunks. 
