Greetings all! Sorry that it's been so long since we last posted. Been a little busy but mostly have just neglected to write. So, as you probably already know, our new addition has arrived. Most of you more than likely have heard the birth story but I figured it would be good to document it, not only for those who have not heard it but also for us since at least one of us has a memory that fades immediately. So here it goes...
It was June 12th, and the day was starting as normal in Chateau Halsted, well, as normal as it goes with Karl being 9 months pregnant and miserable as all get out. Up to this point, I think we were being a little arrogant. We had been through birth before and it was crazy but "been there, done that". We knew what to expect. We had 2 weeks to go so it was time to start thinking about things but no rush. Keep in mind Pres was induced at 41 weeks, nature taking it's course was a foreign concept to us both. We had an idea of how we wanted things to go but had not ironed out any details. For example, we had an over night bag with most of the "needed" items but it was sitting in the dining room rather than in the car. That's the best place for it, right? We knew where we were going for the delivery, and by that I mean we knew where the hospital was, but we had not toured the joint nor did we know where labor and delivery were, other than the 10th floor. Can't be that hard to find, right? Anyway, as I was saying before, a typical pregnant Tuesday morning. Karley was feeling a bit anxious, a bit odd and was having some pains but chalked it up to Braxten Hicks. The fact that we were not taking preparations seriously started to weigh heavily on her and as 9 months pregnant women do, she started to get....emotional. Pres and I were gearing up to leave and I noticed that Karl was upset. So after she left for work, I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the bag into the car with what other items I could find that we "needed". If nothing else, at least Karl would not have to worry about it. So we hop in the car and head off to the typical day.
Meanwhile, in the Bat-truck, Karl is experiencing "contractions" (I'm gonna continue with the "" because in our minds this was not happening although I'm sure you all can see where this is going). She made it in to work but the pains were getting worse and she started to time them. The pain was getting pretty severe and it was beginning to effect her work. She began to reflect the pain she was feeling into the closest objects, which in this case were coworkers in production meetings. Her supervisor was even impressed with her new found "aggressiveness". Snapping, cutting people short, you want more assertive employees? Put em to work 9+ months preggers! She sent me a text saying she thought she was in labor, feeling contractions, lots of pain and what not. I would never visibly do this, and I was doing my absolute best not to sound like I was doing it, but my eyes were rolling as I was telling her to calm down. "Just try to breathe and relax." She is just riding her crazy pregnant hormone wave from that morning and all will be fine. Nothing else came and back to "normal" things went. Karl was still in pain but was keeping that to herself. Her Mom was due in that day a little after noon and Karl even was just complaining that he house was not ready (clean enough) for her Mom and we had not bought groceries yet. Hormones. Then around 10AM I get a call from Karl saying that she wanted to go to the hospital, that she was in a lot of pain that felt like contractions. At least she could be checked out and it would make her feel better so (again with a lot of internal eye rolling) I agreed to come get her. I even told my boss that, yes, I was taking my pregnant wife to the hospital due to labor pains but they were not THE labor pains and I would more than likely be back later. To be honest, I don't think I even logged off my computer. To be SUPER honest (and I only just told Karley this right as I'm writing this) I even stopped to fill up my car with gas first. Silly Karley and her hormon-ees. At least I get out of work, right? So I cruise up to Karl's building and see her waddling over to the car closely by a man carrying her stuff. "Who is this guy?" So Karl hops in and is still in a lot of pain. "Hey Babe, this is Lorenzo." Who is Karley's boss. "Hey Regan!" he says "Congratulations!! Good luck guys!!" Uhhhhhh, what? What the crap is this guy talking about? That is the moment I decided that maybe things were a tiny bit more serious than I had previously thought. Throughout her day, Karl had been timing her contractions and fighting through pain as if nothing was wrong! She was at 4 min and in the middle of a meeting. She left the meeting to call me and the doc, who told her to get to the hospital. She then went back to the meeting ready to take notes. Thankfully, her coworkers could see the writing on the wall and sent her to her desk to await my arrival. So here we are in the car, Karl in tears from the pain and I am now starting to panic. Luckily, the hospital was literally 2 blocks away from her work so it did not take long to get there.
We roll up to the valet parking but there several cars in front of us and we are left waiting. "Do you want to go to the ER, Karl?" "No, I'm good" she says while crying. A valet lady is trying to shuffle people around to help with traffic so I yell at her that my wife is actively in labor and we need to get inside. Thankfully she pulls us up and off we go into the hospital....which we have NO IDEA how to navigate. I have 3 bags of crap over my shoulders, sweating, and Karl is in active labor, has refused a wheelchair and we are wandering. We know it's on the 10th floor so we find some elevators and hop in. I look to hit the 10th floor but the numbers only go to 5. What the hell!?!? SO, now we are wandering again, looking for different elevators. Karley is trying to hide the fact that she sobbing, and thankfully not
too well because a hospital employee happens to notice her weeping and
asks if she is 'Ok'. Of course, she says she is fine and I explain to the lady that she is in labor. She says we need to go to different elevators and can show us where they are located. She asks Karl if she wants a wheelchair and of course she declines, again. We finally make it to the right elevators.....with 20 people milling about in front of them, waiting. Apparently, some of the elevators were down for repairs and the ones that were running were ridiculously slow. Again we are saved by another random observant hospital employee, who sees our panic. This time it's a doctor who takes us to the patient elevators that are only used to transport patients. Instead of asking, he grabs a wheelchair and positions it for Karley to sit down and again she resists. I tell her to sit, for God's sake, SIT. Of course it didn't come out that way. SO, we finally make it to Labor and Delivery and they are clueless that we were coming. Of course they are going through their routine to check Karl in but I am screaming in my head to "HURRY THE *%@##$ UP AND GET HER IN THE ROOM!!!"
They get Karl in bed and start checking her over. The nurse checks to see how far dilated she is and she is at 7cm. "SHUT
UP!!!" Karl yells at her. Now I knew this was happening, like right
away. She explains that she wants an epidural but they say she has to wait until an IV can be started and fluids pumped in. Karl is not projecting that she is in a lot of pain so no one is really taking her seriously.....I am familiar with this now. The IV "team" is busy and the nurses are having trouble getting a vein. It was funny, one nurse even asked if she wanted to try and go natural since Karl was doing so well. "Heck NO!" So the nurse starts to check her arm where they were making attempts to stick her and says "Oh for Pete's sake, her palms are sweating she is in so much pain! Give me the needle, we can't wait anymore!" God bless that woman. So, an IV is at last in place and fluids are going. The nurse asks Karl at what level of pain she is at right now, 1-10 with 10 being the worst. "7, I think" she says. "At what level do you think you want the epidural?" the nurse asks. "10, I guess?" Karl responds. All I can think is "REALLY Karl??? You want to wait until the most excruciating pain imaginable before they start giving you the juice?" Fortunately we are able to convince her that she needs it now.
I start to think....Karley's Mom is about to land at the airport, no one is there to meet her....I have another child running around at daycare, not only is no one there to pick him up but I have not arranged with the daycare to allow someone other than Karl or I to pick him up.....this kind of sucks. Luckily, (I am saying that a lot but really it's a miracle this all worked out OK) I have some flexible and heroic coworkers that were willing to go to the airport and to Preston's daycare and ferry everyone to the hospital AND that the daycare folks were willing to accept my over-the-phone authorization to allow someone to pick up Preston.
So, back to the action, Karl gets her epidural in but the anesthesiologist seems MUCH more interested in talking to me for some reason than making sure that everything is working properly. Weirdo. At last, Karl is feeling some comfort. Things seem to be miraculously falling together. My coworker calls and she is at the hospital with Karley's Mom. I tell Karl that I'll be right back, and run down to grab Carol and her bags. As we back to the room I notice the nurse is down "in position" and Karley is like "Oh hey! We are going to try and start pushing!" Wow, Ok. I guess they just want to see where Karley is at so I take my place and the nurse tells Karl at the next contraction, give a push. So, I'm thinking, now comes the fun part of hours of telling Karl to push. The nurse says "Ok Karley, 3, 2, 1, Puuuu...Ok, I'm getting the doctor." and she runs out the door. Alrighty then, I guess this is happening! In comes the doctor and the room makes a strange transformation. The ceiling opens up and these crazy lights come down. The bottom of Karl's bed drops away and there is suddenly a lot of tarps and crap slapped everywhere. The doctor is pulling on hip waders and a full on face shield. I suddenly feel VERY under-dressed. I don't remember Preston making an EXPLOSIVE entrance. SO, once all the "gear" is set up and everyone has donned their Haz-Mat gear (except Carol and I)(which takes all of 30 seconds BTW) they tell Karl to push again at the next contraction. "3, 2, 1, PUSH!!" Apparently, Karl remembered some stuff from last time. I take a peek and there is a head!! "PUSH!!" POP!! And that's all she wrote, there in the doctors arms sits our new baby girl!! Alexa Kelani Halsted. Perfect as can be. So, we show up at the hospital around 11:00, Carol arrived at the airport at 12:47, she got to the hospital by 2:00 and Alexa makes her appearance at 2:05. How perfect is that! Karley was amazing. 3 pushes. Why do more?
Another coworker grabbed Preston from daycare and brought him to the hospital. He was so excited to meet his sister! Wanted to hold her from the get-go. We were moved over to a different room and settled in. This joint wanted us to stay for 2 days to make sure all was Ok. Painful as we wanted to get back to normal but glad they took care of us. It came time to get the visitors out of the hospital and back to the house. Since we were both at work, both cars were downtown and Karl's truck was still at her work in a garage that you can't stay overnight! So, rather than make Carol and Pres walk or have to drive, I walked back to her work in full uniform....in the early evening....in Hawaii....downtown.......hot. After I got the truck I took them home and came back downtown.
The next morning, I went back to get Pres to daycare and Carol came in to spend the day with us. I then went to the base to get Alexa all registered in the "system". I would rather light myself on fire. Something as simple as filling out some forms should not be that excruciating. What makes it even better is the portion of Hell I navigated to get her registered for insurance apparently didn't need to be done as early as they made it seem. Oh well. After cleaning my wounds from the self inflicted torture, I gathered up the boy and headed back to the hospital for a quick visit before I had to get the visitors back to the house. This time we decided we would get both cars home which sounds easy but ended up being.......fun. So, Karl had to stay another night at the hospital so she couldn't drive, that left Carol and me. Carol has no idea where to go. No problem, she can follow me. Well.....again, that sounds easy but there are a couple of big problems. #1, Honolulu is not fun to drive in during the early evening hours, especially during the work week. There is traffic. Well, more like a ridiculously enormous amount of traffic. Problem #2, Carol forgot her cell phone at the house. Ok, not the best situation but there are only a couple of turns to make until we are more or less home free. Just have to keep her behind me and we are good! No problem. So, we hop into the cars, Pres and I in one, Carol in the other. We drive down the hospital entrance and prepare to enter traffic. I make sure Carol is behind me and ready to go. Traffic is thick but they are EXTREMELY nice and will let you merge in no problem. I pull out, turn to make sure Carol is following and she is gone. Wait, what? You heard me, SHE IS GONE!! I panic. No idea what to do. I am in thick traffic, with a 4 year old asking me why I am crying, trying frantically to find my mother in law that I just lead to her doom. TOTALLY lost in downtown traffic where she has no idea where to go. I'm circling the blocks around the hospital hoping by some miracle she just stopped and pulled over. No such luck. I call Karl. "Uhhhh, I lost your Mom." Thank God Carol is a smart lady and did in fact pull over, used her gift of gab to borrow a cell phone from a nice passer by and called Karl's Dad, who Karl was already in contact with. After getting my number, we were able to hook up and get the rest of the way home without incident. We got enchiladas.
The rest of the story is pretty typical. Finally went home the next day after wasting money on "first portraits" with a scam artist lady. Alexa was perfect on her first ride home. I heard "don't drive like a crazy person" more than the standard 5 times but that was expected with the precious cargo. So there you have it, that is the birth story. All in all, it was a wild and crazy ride, I mean, more than I would expect from having a baby. Crazy how things fell into place. Even more crazy that we have a new beautiful baby girl adding to the chaos at the house. Would not want it any other way.
We enjoyed having Carol here a month, good help for us and lots of comfort for Karl. For the last ten days of her stay Bob & Christofer came over to meet Alexa and entertain the rest of us. Great to have them here. We were missing Chris and Tina but will take what we can get. Now we have an empty-ish house. The kids are keeping us busy. Alexa changes up routine everyday and Preston is gearing up to start Kindergarten! We have enough going on for now. Check back as we have other stories to share as our adventures continue. As always you are all welcome to come and visit paradise while getting to meet our new addition.
Bonus feature:
Our current favorite songs, enjoy!
