Bethlehem

It was a little bit like Bethlehem over here on Saturday night.

I was having contractions all day and by 11PM I decided to call the hospital to tell them I'd be coming in in a few hours. Unfortunately, I was told my Doctor was out of town for the weekend (She's the only OBGYN there.) I asked who else to call and they gave me the name of another doctor but they didn't have any number.

We decided to send O. and his entourage over to that hospital to try to get me admitted and that doctor was also out of town.

Lesson to be learned: never go into labor on Saturdays or Sundays in India - well anywhere, this happened to me with E.'s birth too - in the US!

Eventually, O. and his guys went to about six different hospitals and we couldn't find a doctor to take us. He called me up and told me the situation and I said, go find a midwife I'll deliver at home with her and my two sister-in-laws. However, O. decided to call up one more nurse friend of ours and she sent them to another maternity hospital and the doctor agreed to see me.

I arrived a little before midnight and he checked me out and admitted me. Praise the Lord. But here's the thing, he had no rooms open in his hospital so he kindly had a cot put in an administrative office room and let me stay there. That was fine by me.

This doctor and his wife have a large practice and they have just built a million dollar hospital but they were shifting everything over to the new facility on Sunday - I reached when - Saturday night. The old hospital where I delivered was so nasty and run down - even by Indian standards - they had just let it go knowing they were building the new facility. At that point in my labor I didn't care, not even about delivering on an old metal table with other people's dried blood and gore dried on it - yeah - not an exaggeration.

Yet, God was good, I walked up and down the hallway, once the pain got real bad the pressure started almost immediately. They checked my dilation and I was only 4cm. I couldn't believe it. That's it! I got off the table and tried to walk some more, I got about 10 steps and grabbed the girl (who eventually did the delivery) and pulled her back into the room with me. I suffered thru another contraction, hoisted myself up on the bed and called for Rohini (the nurse friend who sent us to this hospital) - She said wait a minute she wanted to finish drinking her chai along with everyone in the waiting room.

Bam, that baby came fast. Later someone told me that from the moment they heard me shout the first time to the time they heard the baby cry was about 10 or 15 minutes max.

Eventually, the doctor came and did all the finishing things - which took about an hour - very unpleasant.