Noah's Nativity

Not much new to report from yesterday, so I thought I’d tell the story of Noah’s birthday for those who don’t know the details.

I can remember it pretty distinctly, as you would hope. It was a Thursday and I went out for lunch with a coworker. Amanda wasn’t due until mid to late July, so I didn’t think much of it when she called shortly after I got back to the office.

Amanda and Lily were visiting Amanda’s friend Jeanette and had just finished lunch. As Amanda loaded Lily into the car Lily announced that she really had to go potty. Amanda said that it seemed like Lily was very serious about it being urgent, so she was ready to have Lily go by some trees in their front yard. Lily wasn’t quite as adept with going potty in those days, so Amanda squatted down to help Lily with her panties.

It turns out that Lily didn’t have to go potty after all. In fact, it was Amanda who felt a trickle down her leg. Her water broke from squatting down to help Lily. She called me at work with the news, which took me by surprise. One of my coworkers (one without children) was kind of surprised that I was trying to restore a file for someone after I had heard this news. I tried to explain that I still had a lot of time before anything would happen.

We got to the hospital and Amanda fought getting the "pushing juice" as her doctor called it, but eventually we gave in to his Board-certified opinion. She fought having an epidural for a long time, but once she was confined to bed we realized it was the right thing to do. I learned that anesthesiologists have a pretty good gig when epidurals go well. The nurse had to do most of the prep and cleaning up work. The doctor spent maybe 10 minutes in the room. Then again, I suspect that he pays a pretty penny for malpractice insurance.

At that point things got pretty mellow. Eventually we got to the point where Amanda had to push. Noah was born healthy at 10:30 PM. The rest is history.