Katharine's Grand Entrance

Katharine Elise Collings was born November 12, 2008 at 5.20 p.m. EST. She was 20.5 inches long and weighed 8 lbs. 13.5 oz. In all matters concerning her mortal entrance Katharine took her time. Her birth was finally induced at the conclusion of the forty-second week of Lia's pregnancy.

We arrived at the hospital at 6.30 this morning for a scheduled induction. After ninety minutes of fiddling around, the medical helpers started Lia on pitocin around 8 o'clock. At that point she was dilated to about 3 cm and about 50 percent effaced. She had occasional contractions over the next few hours, but nothing overpowering. Periodically, the doctors upped the dose of pitocin. We idled the time away through reading aloud high literature (Sense and Sensibility) and watching classic films on TV (Flubber).

Around 1 o'clock the contractions began in earnest. By 2 o'clock they came with force and fury and at intervals of awful rapidity. Lia called for an epidural as an angel of mercy.

But mercy was long in coming. They had Lia sit upright through a series of excruciating contractions while the anesthesiologist inserted the epidural. This took a long time--on the order of half an hour, during the whole of which the contracts increased in frequency and intensity. Lia was in agony, and I was forbidden from coming to her aid lest I defile the sacrosanct "clean zone" of the epidural. I sat helpless in a rocking chair, quietly cursing the anesthesiologist for what seemed his dawdling pace.

I cursed with greater eloquence and brighter fire when we learned that he had botched the first epidural--or rather that the epidural, in the exculpatory security of the passive voice, had gone "intravascular." So we started over. The contractions grew worse, and the workings of the anesthesiologist more painstaking. Finally, the ordeal ended. The anesthesia kicked in. Lia knew some rest. I read to her aloud from Sense and Sensibility once more (we finished twelve chapters in the course of the day).

By 4.30 or so, Lia started to feel the all-important "pressure" and said as much to the doctors and nurses. She was told to do her best to ignore it until she really started to feel pressure. This she did, at about five o'clock.

Now came the pushing. I thought this might proceed more expeditiously upon the introduction of a certain Prussian rigor, so I did the inevitable counting in German. Actually, the attending nurse did the counting--a gross usurpation of paternal prerogative for which she offered neither excuse nor apology--and I was left to call out helpful bits of encouragement, such as a spotter offers to an overwhelmed bench presser. "Great work!" "You can do it!" "Carthago delenda est!" More to the point, I placed my hand on Lia's head and gave her a silent blessing.

She did not push long. A final great heave sent forth a tiny head (though capacious for a newborn) covered in black hairs and surrounded by grey, gelatinous matter and blood. Then came the rest of Katharine, whom the doctor and nurse immediately plopped onto Lia's chest, mess and all, while they cleaned Katharine up and the babe demonstrated the power of her infant lungs. Lia smiled the smile of Mother's love, and seemed unaccountably weary.

After some further cleaning of the child and further testing of her lungs beneath the coziness of a heat lamp. Soon the nurses wrapped her tightly in a pair of blankets and breathlessly handed her off to me, half expecting some calamitous enactment of fatherly ineptitude. They even had me sit down before taking Katharine in my arms.

I immediately began the process of cultural enlightenment, declaiming the inaugural terzine from Dante's Commedia and softly chanting arias from Verdi and Puccini. Lia insists that I speak to Katharine in Italian, so I tried. It was a very happy moment: Katharine snug in my arms, basking in the warmth of so many blankets and the suppleness of Tuscan song; Lia lying, resting, carefully attended to while her weary, half-sleeping face beamed with all the radiance of the first woman of the world.

At length, I had sung every song I know outside of the LDS hymnal, and it became clear that Katharine wished me to apply Paul's admonition to supply milk before meat. But supply milk I could not, so I passed her gently to Lia and went home to fetch Julia and Eli so they could see their new sister before visitor hours ended on the maternity ward.

I record in gratitude and honor the names of Whitney and Brady Pope, Josh and Madison Hustedt, Lori Davis, and perhaps others, who took turns watching the girls today, as well as Joyce Thomas, who provided them (and me) with a supper of pizza and chicken. Josh and Mattie still had the girls when I came home, and we all went back to the hospital together. Lia, full as her heart was over the arrival of her third little angel, overflowed upon reunion with angels one and two. The girls were very cute and very excited to see Katharine.

Katharine appears to be a perfectly healthy baby. Lia seems to have borne the ordeal quite well indeed. She will probably be tired until the Millennium, but she is doing well and seems poised to heal wonderfully.

Of course, everyone reading this post is interested only in pictures. But the camera is at the hospital with Lia, and I am at home with the girls. This is not to say at all that if I had the camera I could navigate the process of getting the relevant pictures from said camera onto this blog. The camera's absence absolves me entirely.

We are all tired; we are all happy. Things have gone very well; and we have even more reason today than yesterday to praise God from whom all blessings flow.