Some of you may be a little scared, okay terrified of giving birth.
Everyone loves to tell you about horrible births, so I thought it would be nice to share a birth story that is beyond awesome and that I know for a fact is true. Sure, it won’t happen this way for everyone, but you can always hope.
Enjoy.
I met my friend Moira when her son was around two-years-old.
She lived in the house across the street from the place I had just rented and she was pregnant with her second child.
We’d hang out on her porch and she would tell me where all the good restaurants in the neighborhood were and I would tell her about drunken evenings out with friends. I was impressed with her domestic prowess and she was impressed with my reckless, unscheduled life.
When she got to be around 37 weeks pregnant she asked me if I wouldn’t mind being on call to run over to the house and watch her son before her mother could get there if she went into labor. I was honored that she actually trusted me with her child and told her that it was doubtful that I would be needed in that much of a hurry. After all, women can be in labor for days.
“Uh, well not me” Moira said. So I asked how long it took for her son to get here. “44 minutes” she replied. “You mean 44 minutes after you started pushing?” I tried to correct her. “No, 44 minutes from the time I thought something may be happening until he was here.”
She proceeded to tell me that she got up in the middle of the night thinking she had to go to the bathroom. She wiped and saw blood so she got worried and got dressed to go to the hospital. Then she had one pain and thought, “Oh man, this is it.” She woke her husband up and got herself to the hospital. She had one more pain in the parking garage and felt like she needed to push but held off until she could get inside. The nurses heard her story and just rolled their eyes at the first-time-mother tale and admitted her. The moment she got in a bed she told the nurse she wanted to push so the nurse said, “go for it” and out came the baby. No pain. Just…here.
At this point, I decided Moira must be an idiot.
Surely you cannot be in labor for 44 minutes and just give birth like that. Surely she was one of those people that were in denial about the pain or just too dense to notice. I mean, the girl is about 5’3″ and 110 lbs soaking wet. It’s not like she has giant hips and some cavernous vagina that can just unhinge and fire a kid out. She must be wrong.
Just to humor her I said I would be poised by my phone in case she needed to run across the street to watch the munchkin. She thanked me and warned me that she went into “labor” at 38 weeks last time so it could be anytime. I nodded and promptly forgot about it.
The next week rolls around and I’m coming home from a hangover breakfast and Moira’s husband greets me on the street with a sunny, “Where the heck were you last night?”. I told him I was at a basketball game, “Why?”. “Because we have another little boy!” he happily told me. “Moira had him in 22 minutes. We just made it to the hospital.”
Holy shit. She’s not crazy. She’s a freak. A lucky, lucky freak.
This time, at 38 weeks, she thought she had to go to the bathroom. Wiped saw blood and knew to get the hell out of there. Called me to no avail so called the neighbor down the street who had to run in her pajamas to make it in time. Her husband floored it to the hospital, tossed her in a wheelchair and screamed, “My wife is giving birth. Now!”
Now, I’m sure L&D nurses hear this about 80 times a night so I can appreciate their failure to hustle.
One of the senior nurses came over and asked how many minutes apart her contractions were. As Moira climbed up on the bed she told her she hadn’t had any. Just as the nurse replied, “Then I doubt you’re in labor, let’s have a look.”, out popped the baby.
Out popped the fucking baby!
These aren’t peanut children either. Both boys weighed in between seven and eight pounds each.
Needless to say, the stunned hospital staff released Moira and her baby with a good story for the next shift.
Fast forward four years. Moira’s pregnant for the third time.
Wisely her husband read up on “How to Deliver a Baby at Home.” and didn’t call me as a babysitter seeing as my batting average was pretty sad.
At 38 weeks, Moira gets up to go to the bathroom, feels a little “different”. Screams to her husband, “It’s time”. He leaps out of bed, tosses Moira into the tub and ‘whoosh’ delivers his daughter into the world.
How amazing is that?
Like I said, she’s not a large girl by any stretch of the imagination. Her mother had average deliveries with all three of her children – not too great, not too horrible. So what makes Moira different? Hell if I can figure it out, and man, did I quiz her.
I suppose it’s just a luck of the draw like being athletic, musical, or naturally skinny with big tits. You’re just lucky.
So here’s to all first-time moms who are scared of giving birth. You never know, you may have the golden ticket, so cross your fingers.
And clean your tub.
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