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I knew something was off even before I opened my eyes. It was April 26, 1996—a Friday—around 4 in the morning, and my sheets were damp. It took me a moment to realize what had happened: My water had broken. Here, at last, was the day I’d been waiting for my whole life. I was going to become a mother.
“It’s happening,” I told Bill as I nudged him awake. Before calling the doctor, we shared a moment together, giggling at the bizarre and wonderful notion that, before the day was over, there would be three of us.
We got ourselves to the hospital pretty quickly. The baby, however, was in no such hurry. I had been warned that with a first pregnancy, labor can last an astonishingly long time, and, as it turned out, mine was no exception. My contractions still hadn’t really started yet—at least not that I could feel—and the doctor even debated sending us home to wait there instead. Ultimately, we settled on a compromise. I stayed at the hospital. Bill went to the office.
Before you roll your eyes, keep in mind that there really wasn’t anything for him to do yet. Plus I had a good book with me—The Custom of the Country (I was on an Edith Wharton kick at the time)—so I was happy to send him off with a promise to call as soon as there were any developments.
It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that I started active labor. Once it began, though, things got intense fast.
When Bill got back, he was fascinated by everything that was unfolding. His wide-eyed wonder made me feel proud of the amazing thing my body was doing—and less self-conscious about some of the mechanics. (I did ask him to take his sweater off, though, because it smelled like the hamburger he’d eaten on the way, and I was far too nauseated to deal with that.)
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After a long, slow ramp-up during the morning came hour after hour of really hard labor. The baby descended incrementally, only to retreat again. Toward the end, the…
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