birth of tay III

From Mom:

11am-3pm

August 7th, 1982

YIKES. then he called the doctor's office. naturally they said come in and let's just see.
my fear was that they would send me home and say ha ha you are not in labor.

something i absolutely did not want.

my due date was july 29, i was sufficiently dialated and i was NOT in labor.

we argued a bit and i agreed to go.

i took a shower, with dad calling me from the door the entire time.

blew my hair dry and applied my make up.

after my toilette we grabbed my bag

(packed of course)

and off we went in our mazda 626, gun metal gray.

upon arrival we are informed that all but one elevator was out of order

and we would need to wait.

having none of this we climbed the stairs to the maternity floor.

i could hear the reception person mutter,

"she's not in labor or she would not be taking the stairs."

HA!
sure enough i was having contractions.

according to the baby books

contractions allegedly feel like "strong hugs" pushing the baby out.
my hugs were uber strong and i was not happy about this.

dad called everyone in the world and notified them of my "condition".

on and on the pain and hugs continue all throughout the day.

aunt cindy was there at some point, can't remember the exact time she arrived

but it was early in the process.

my contractions were steady and strong

and the fetal monitor disconnnected several times.

in those days the monitor was a little screw like device connected to a wire.

the nurse screwed the sharp end into the baby's (your)

head and thus the fetal heartbeat was monitored.

we later discovered that it fell out so many times because of your hair.

you had hair and it prevented them from getting a solid connection.

the other delightful device was the monitor which detected

the strength and duration of my contractions or heartbeat or some pain indicator.

dad was watching this handy machine and mid contraction would announce,

"SANDY, THERE"S A BIG ONE COMING.

THIS ONE"S A BIG ONE."

reaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyy russ?

truth be told, even though the machine was tracking my progress,

i could feel these contractions as well

and was pretty good at indentifying the big ones.