We managed about six hours of sleep before the phone call; Steph was contracting about a minute apart for a minute each. Shannon and I were forty minutes away, so hurrying was something that could be done carefully. Michael called back a few minutes later to tell us that Steph had required they stop at Shari’s restaurant for breakfast.Okay. No hurrying needed.

Good thing, too. Today is game day in Corvallis, and all the alumni have come home to root. Traffic was backed up for about three miles over the bridge. It took 90 minutes to make the drive.

And here we are; Steph is contracting a minute or 90 seconds apart, is only communicating at need - her need -

Steph just announced that there would be no more smart-assed comments from the crowd. Michael clenched his jaw, squinched his eyes shut, and shook. I wrote:

“It’s okay to not be in here, if you are having a problem keeping serious. But DON’T jiggle Steph’s elbow while she’s working.”

He wrote back:

“I was so tempted to ask if dumbass comments were ok.”

Then he left. Good boy.

Steph has permitted in the room: me, Shannon, her aunt Theresa, Michael, Zelda, Desiree (Joey’s mom), and Joey. She also has a half-dozen friends that are allowed to poke their heads in and check, but can’t stay for more than a few mintues. It’s a goddamned circus.
Right now everyone but Shannon, Joey, Theresa and I have left to get smoothies. Steph is here, too. She’s waiting for the anasthesiologist to come and give her drugs, after which she plans to love everyone. Steph is dilated to 4, and is wearing the traditional backless hospital lingerie. Her focus (and natural immodesty) is such that she is entirely capable of standing, leaning forward over the bed, swinging her ass back and forth as she rides the next wave, and not be self-aware. She voiced her concerns for the sensibilities of the audience, thus: “If they have problems seeing my ass, they don’t belong in here, anyway.”

Fair enough.

They’ve been playing with a video camera they bought for the occasion. She taped Joey, Joey taped her, they talked about how the morning went and what has been leading up to this point. “And we woke up, but the contractions weren’t going fast enough so Daddy played with my nipples, then we went to breakfast at Shari’s. Everyone knew that I was having contractions. I think I freaked a few people out, but that’s okay. [I interjected, "Why should today be any different?"] When we left we got a round of applause from people in Shari’s, ’cause they knew it was time.”

Another sound bite: “Oh. Ooooooh. Ah-ooooh. Where the hell’s that stadol?” More contractions.

Drugs are here, now. She’s much calmer. The main difference seems to be that she has become less loud, less attentive to anything outside of her. Probably good. How would I know? I’ve never had a labor pain.

Drugs held her for 90 minutes, then she had an epidural. We were all kicked out for the catheterization and the annexing of her spinal cord.

She is now at 4 1/2, fully effaced, station -1…which basically means that she isn’t open enough to spit the kid out, but the kid isn’t fully seated with his head in the pelvic girdle, anyway. They’re going to wait for full seating at the cervix before they consider breaking her water.

Bummer. But with the drugs and the epideral, Steph doesn’t seem to mind as much.

Whoops. In the time it took to type this, her gyn came in and re-checked her - dilated to 7. Things seem to be moving right along. Joey wanted to go out for a walk. Steph told him that, if he was going, go quickly. He was NOT leaving later. He came back in plenty of time.

Epidurals are terrific. Steph is chatty, dilating, and channel surfing through the cable stations. She’s very chipper to have caught the last few scenes of Queen of the Damned, which I can only attribute to the drugs and exertion.

Contractions have tapered off, or aren’t as noticeable anymore. Michael and Shannon have gone on a yarn & sandwich run, leaving me to suffer throught he next movie, Jeepers Creeepers. This kid is going to be born with some very odd issues, just from the entertainment. Forty minutes into the movie, I think I might have some issues. Icky movie.

4:45 — Steph’s at 8, and they’re popping her water. Thar she blows, with a running commentary from Steph explaining how unpleasant it is having the water run down her butt. A sudden splashing noise as she decompresses, and now she’s covered back up.

Small talk, then, suddenly, “Oh, shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m having a baby.”

Joely strolls over to her, smiling, relaxed. “It’s all right. You can change your mind.”

6:25 Steph is pushing lightly, to finish dilating. The fun is nearly over. I’m glad. She seems to be, too.

7:00 …bored…bored…bored…all of us. Sponge-Bob Squarepants is our chief entertainment.

7:09 Sez the gyn: “Start pushin’!”

7:50 Baby is very close to crowning; Steph’s vagina “winks” on her third push out of sets of three.

7:57 Baby crowns.

8:08 Malachi James Swing is on his mother’s chest, at 8 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches. “Oh, God, I have a baby. What are we going to do with a baby?”

I cried more than he did.

Labor continues. We were half an hour from bed and got a phone call on the road; Steph is in the hospital. The baby is having low heartbeats, then high heartbeats (95 to 160). Nothing serious, but something to watch.

So we go to the hospital, ’cause it’s whatcha do. Zelda is here, which caused me some stress on the way up, wondering how she’d behave and how I’d react. She tried to touch me and shied back as if she had a booger on her finger. So far she hasn’t tried again.

To her credit, Zelda is being more a nurse than a head-case. Of course, the weekend is just beginning.

Steph looks good. Joey looks good. Nobody seems panicky or worried. Michael nearly got kicked out for being cute at Steph; women in active labor have little or no interest in joking and obnoxious little brothers — except to have them removed. Or disemboweled. Whatever shuts them up quickest.

And we’re waiting. Neo is an excellent shield against unwanted conversation with exes. Another fine reason to have a Neo.

Belaboring, again

Stephanie called early today and announced that she was having labor pains 7-8 minutes apart. So, off to Corvallis go we.

By 4:00 her contractions had tapered off to every 15 minutes, but we’re going anyway, sort of on spec. It’s probably the best plan, although it feels doomed to futility. My expectation is that this onset was sort of a warm up run, and her actual labor won’t take place for another week. I have, on extaordinarily rare occasions, been mistaken, so we’ll go just in case.

This, as a side note, is the test run of Neo in the car. I find it much easier to type this than handwrite it in a moving vehicle. Very nice, fully as fast as I would be sitting in a coffee shop, a very satisfying type. I expect that, if there is to be much hospital sitting, I’ll get to test drive it there, as well.

I won’t, though. We won’t see the hospital this weekend. But we will see Ma, which is a very good and moderately overdue sort of thing, and possibly Ed, possibly September & Rob. In addition, we will be close at hand, just in case, demonstrating our enthusiasm and readiness. All in all, this is a good idea.

is in labor with my first grandchild. Her contractions are at 7-8 minutes.

My Neo is now possessed of the distilled essence of three computer files, two notebooks, a sheet from a legal pad, and four sheets of plain white paper, neatly shuffled into sequential position and divided into six chapters.

Six. Egad. All of this, and I’ve got six chapters? [regards the 30,000 words that were cut]

Okay.

My goal is to have chapter 7 done by Monday. I’ll give me high points if I’ve gotten anywhere at all on it.

Nicodemous has been cold and alone, has starved, has fought with cats four times his size and faced down Labrador retrievers. There is, however, a threat so enormous that Kittens That Are Jagulars cannot face calmly.

The cat door.

During the summer, the doors to the house remain open. We aren’t air conditioned, and Medford gets a bit warm in the summer. Cats can stroll aimlessly in and out through three different passages, and the world is theirs. As the nights cool, though, the doors shut, and Nicky has to come and go as other cats do.

Through the swinging portal of doom.

I didn’t realize some fairly important things about the cat door, but Nicky has explained them to me through body language, meaningful eye contact, and semaphor. To wit:

1. The cat door is going to eat him
2. It is scary and dark, inset into the wall as it is
3. The cat door is going to eat him
4. It makes scary noises
5. It is going to eat him
6. It moves suddenly, and in a predatory fashion
7. You know this thing will eat cats, right?

I may have contributed to his issues by trying to show him how the door works. With the other cats in the house, all one had to do was pick ‘em up, head ‘em into the cat door, give them a moment to look things over, and then pat ‘em on the tail so they bumped the door open. Enlightenment and egress followed.

Nicky, I picked up, placed headfirst into the [dark forbidding evil cat-eating] cat door, gave him a moment, and, as he was deciding that the proper course of action was to back away from this horrible threat, patted him on the butt.

His view: Daddy stuffed my head in a hole where a jagular-eating monster lives, and just as it opened it’s horrible maw to eat me, Daddy shoved, trying to kill me.

He’s slowly getting over it, with some help. If a human will hold the cat door open, he will come down, peek through it - from a respectable distance - roll around a bit, rub against the human, lick himself, and then gear up for the passage. Purpose fills his eyes. You can see that he is about to endure a Rite Of Passage. His tail starts to flick, his shoulders bunch as his head lowers. No movement of the cat door escapes his notice. His hind legs shuffle to gain the best purchase as he judges his moment, considers his chances. There is no fear, no hesitation, nothing that will distract him from this, the ultimate moment in the ultimate contest, cat versus cat door, no quarter asked or given –

–until he explodes forward, the world rocking back as he streaks through the door, victorious again. Fifty feet and quarter of a second later, he stops and washes his face, all arrogance and power.

If you’re a cat door, you don’t want to mess with Jagulars.

This entry brought to you by the helpful clever people of AlphaSmart. AlphaSmart Neo - It’s a Smart Thing.