The Day of the Birth

I woke up totally unsuspecting in the morning of November 9, 2003. Lying in bed I was wondering what we'd do this Sunday. I'd probably finish up packing the bags and move them downstairs, closer to the door to the garage. Maybe we could pick up the place a little more in preparation of the baby and then go over to our friends to visit. At around 7:45 am when we got up and started taking showers Melissa was telling me that she was feeling cramps. She started timing them. At first the cramps where about 10 minutes apart then later, when the cramps increased in strength, the time reduced to 5 minutes.

That meant the bags, which I finished up packing, didn't just get carried downstairs but they also got loaded into the car. Melissa was sure of herself that she wanted to go to the hospital now which meant breakfast wasn't going to happen. Little did I know that I would miss lunch as well. To fill my stomach a little until I would get the opportunity for some food I grabbed the Pyrex dish with a few leftover peanut butter bars that I eat on the way to the hospital. I snitched a bite in the garage, at red traffic lights, and in the parking garage of the hospital.

Around 10 am we checked in at the hospital. Melissa got room 473 where she got hooked up to the heartbeat and contractions monitor. It seemed like the questions and admittance checkup of Melissa took forever. By the time we where checked in her contractions were quite intense and she was using her deep breathing from the hypno birthing class which worked quite well. Later on though the contractions got so intense and I had to encourage her to keep on doing the slow breathing. The recommended warm shower or whirlpool bath by the nurse wasn't helping her, instead Melissa preferred to be on the bed on all four. I wasn't able doing the reading of the hypno texts due to the closeness of contractions however with the hindsight I have now we where far enough into labor where these hypno relaxations probably don't apply at that stage and are replaced with the previously mentioned slow breathing.

Besides being at the side of Melissa, talking and lightly touching her back to calm her down there wasn't any time to do anything. During the whole labor, from the time we got to the hospital until the baby was born, I was standing on my feet besides here. Although it is not at all comparable to what Melissa had to go through it was still quite exhausting and tiring for me. The latter part of the labor the contractions where getting so painful that Melissa didn't belief that she could do without an epidural and was demanding for one. I tried to tell her that this was the hardest part and that she could do it. But of course she didn't believe me although later on it did turn out that I was right even though I was just mentioning it to calm her down, not because I knew it. When we first got to the hospital Melissa was 5/6 centimeter dilated and she didn't think she had progresses as fast and thought she'd be in labor for quite a while longer.

Fortunately, a nurse was encouraging her to wait another 20 minutes until our midwife would arrive at which time she could talk about her pain relive options and epidural. At that time the talk about an epidural wasn't an issue anymore since Carol, our midwife, informed Melissa that she was 9 centimeters dilated which is a sign that she is at the end phase of her labor. Knowing that she got enough strength to go on without any medication, it wasn't much longer until she felt the urge and started to push. Apparently, the pushing also helps to cope and reduce some of the labor pains. The amazing thing was to watch the head come out. At first I only saw his dark brown hair but after two more contractions the head came out. Oskar's face was totally purple and he had the angriest expression on his face he possibly could have had.

Oskar was placed right away through Melissa's legs so that she could see him while she still was on all fours and I cut the umbilical cord. Still I think more rewarding than cutting the umbilical cord is to watch the baby coming out, even if it means that you'll see all the gross and bloody stuff. 1:09 pm (CST) he was born with 7 lbs 14 oz (3.58 kg) with a height of 21 inches (53.3 cm). On the Name Oskar Konrad Niesen we didn't finalize until that evening.

That afternoon we called my mom and then my dad in Germany first to announce to them that they where Grandparents. Then we passed the news on to Melissa's parents and her brother who later sent us a beautiful flower bouquet. The news got spread to other relatives and everybody we've talked to was very excited.

-- Claus

Pictures
(Full sized pictures are about 1.1 MB each)

Videos

The videos are in the motion jpeg (mjpg) format. The Windows Media Player 9 and probably the latest Quicktime Player should be able to play these files.
Video of Oskar in the warmer (2.19 MB)
Video of Oskar in the warmer getting a shot (4.09 MB)
Another video of Oskar in the warmer (1.75 MB)
Oskar and Claus speaking German (3.18 MB)

Thanks to:

- Jason and Kelly for the flowers
- Grandpa & Grandma Pope for the flowers
- Claus' co-workers (Internal systems team at ATS of ISU) for the flowers
- All the nurses, midwifes, doctors, and janitors that assisted with the birth and the care afterwards.
- Jeff and Audra for letting us practice with their children, the balloon decorations, and your enormous amount of help. Without you we'd be way more crazy then we already are. ;)