Lady in waiting no more: My baby is born.

As I neared my baby girl’s due date, it seemed like the world had gone mad, with the devastating earthquake and tsunamis in Japan and the frightening potential nuclear disaster from that, bombings and political upheaval in Libya and closer to home, a crazy governor in Wisconsin stripping away workers’ rights in actions that have drawn national attention. (Full disclosure: I am a former member of the Communications Workers of America, and one of my college roommates is a secondary ed teacher in Wisconsin who is a fantastic person and who works her tail off at her job, so I am very biased. Thinking of you, Carlene!)

On Wednesday, March 16, some more sad news emerged: the passing of Jim Tyree, a Chicago businessman who bought the Chicago Sun-Times and other area newspapers and web sites out of bankruptcy in 2009. I was the corporate spokeswoman for the parent company back then and until last fall, and was truly sad to read that. I was going into early labor that point and figuring I would be having a St. Patty’s Day baby – I did, more on that below. I just couldn’t believe he was gone. I didn’t know Jim really well – he was very friendly but stuck mostly with the corporate types running Sun-Times, corporate guys like to do that – but I always thought highly of him for saving the Sun-Times. His investor group was the only one to make a bid for us during the bankruptcy process – without him, the Sun-Times would have died, a very, very sad prospect. I started working there 10 years ago as a reporter, and like many newsroom colleagues, couldn’t bear that idea.

As Wednesday night progressed and I timed contractions, got my rowdy toddler to bed and started packing a hospital bag, I got a message on Facebook from a local reporter, wanting to talk about Tyree’s death and what it meant for the company. Now, I got laid off last fall and so it’s not like I’m exactly in the loop. It’s standard practice in journalism to talk to on-the-record and off-the-record folks to develop stories, so that wasn’t strange – think about how many times you’ve seen or heard a news story about, say, Pres. Obama and “White House sources.” It was just strange to be going into labor and digesting that Jim was gone, you know, and then get asked to sort of do my old job again. What on earth would I even say?  I demurred on that, reminding me that they tossed me out last fall, remember, and kept packing, waiting for my husband to get home from teaching his night course at a local university. We went to the hospital and were admitted around midnight. Hooray, I was indeed going to have a St. Pat’s birthday girl! My awesome friend Jenni (love her!!!) came over at 11 p.m., bless her heart, to stay with our toddler and between her and my teenage son get him up and out the door to daycare the next day. 

Throughout the night my contractions stayed pretty tame, so I could have slept but I was too keyed up about the excitement of finally having my baby and thinking about Jim. My husband snoozed, which I encouraged, since I was going to need his strength as the delivery got closer. I got pretty bored at points and started randomly posting on Facebook. Funny to see who is up at that time! By 4-5 a.m. I started getting posts back from my early morning running buddies. God, I’ve missed them and our early morning runs – can’t wait to get back out there someday. 

I got an epidural around 8 a.m. Thursday – my hospital gown was green, sweet -- as the contractions increased in punch, and my water was broken after that. I thought, great, now we are in business! I was all confident that I’d have a baby by lunchtime. I was starving already – you don’t get to eat during labor – so it was go-time as far as I was concerned.  Thing is, baby girl didn’t want to be rushed. Noon came and went, and I was still only dilated at 4 cm. Finally, nearer to 1, I made a bunch of progress and was dilated at 9 cm, which seemed to signal that I’d be able to start pushing soon. 

Nope, said baby girl, you are NOT rushing me. 

By mid-afternoon my husband and I were getting grouchy waiting, even though it was the first day of March Madness and we had basketball on TV. (I forgot to print out my pool sheet so I couldn’t remember which teams I’d picked, rats!)  And oh man, by then I wanted a gigantic ham sandwich and a diet coke in the worst way. I finally asked him to go get a Coke Zero from the vending machine so I could sneak a sip.

While he was gone I got a Facebook message from a former Sun-Times newsroom colleague informing me that they’d joined my ranks today. I’m like, um, I’m in labor, what are you talking about? Turns out, Sun-Times laid off some journalists that day – apparently the company didn’t want to postpone layoffs despite Jim’s death the previous day. I was stunned and started poking around to see who else lost their jobs. I felt awful for them – it’s so heart-breaking to be let go. I know how much I grieved when I was laid off. 

My husband came back into my room with the Coke Zero and I was practically drooling as he opened the lid to give me a sip when a resident and nurse came back into my room to see how I was doing, labor-wise. RATS. No Coke Zero for me. Turns out I was inching closer, but boy, she just was hanging in there. Wah! All afternoon my very attentive nurse kept checking on me, telling me to lay on one side, nope, lay on this side, OK, try sitting up, alright, I’m going to have you lay down now. MAN, was I getting impatient. I was tired of trying to move around – the epidural renders you somewhat immobile – it’s like your legs are encased in concrete, so moving around even with help was no fun.

Finally, after 5 p.m., it was time to push! My husband and I happily eyed each other – it was really going to happen now!! I used every ab muscle and breathing technique from yoga (yoga is just awesome for this stuff) and was able to deliver her by 5:29 p.m. At the risk of oversharing, I forget how fricking hard it is to push out a baby. It was short, maybe 15-20 minutes, but oh man, it took every ounce of strength to push her out into the world. 

And then she was here, weighing in at more than 8 pounds and a smidge over 20 inches along – my boys were each six pound babies, so I was stunned that I had just birthed a bigger baby.  My beautiful baby C was born in time for happy hour on St. Patrick’s Day! Gotta laugh at that. I couldn’t stop crying, I was so happy to see her. My own March madness was over for the short term. My husband and I fell in love with her on the spot and held her as much as we could, and began alerting family (and many Facebook friends, of course!) of our happy news.  My teenager came over later that night to meet his sister, 18 years younger than him, and it was just so sweet to see him look at my daughter. And, to once again contemplate that I would wind up a mom of three kids, two of them so much younger than my oldest. It’s just funny how life works – I doubt anyone would ever plan to space out their kids so much!

The next day Sun-Times would briefly intersect my life one more time. As I was holding baby C my BlackBerry rang. (Yes, I recognize that some folks are probably asking, why on earth don’t you turn that thing off?) Recognizing the number from my spokeswoman days, I let it go to voice mail, not wanting anything to disturb my soft, quiet morning holding the most beautiful baby girl I’ve ever seen.  Sure enough, it was another reporter – someone I’ve known for years and years – who was writing a story about the Sun-Times. She started off her voice mail very cheerful and asked if I’d had the baby – obviously, one of the few people on the planet who is not on Facebook – and then continued on that she wanted to ask me questions about the Sun-Times. Brother. Didn’t return that call – good lord, it was odd how Sun-Times kept creeping back into my birth experience! It’s funny, but it was annoying, too. 

I came home with baby C on Saturday. My poor toddler has another ear infection and so our weekend was chaotic and exhausting, so the break in the March madness was short-lived. He was super curious about her, though, peeking at her and wanting to touch her and saying “baby” over and over. It made my heart melt.

I’m happy to be home and recovering. As I write this, she is snoozing, swaddled in her little orange and white monkey blanket, occasionally emitting the cutest little baby squeaks. I know I still have a lot of stuff to do – I have to finish our taxes, finish the teenager’s college financial aid papers, and lord knows, I *still* have to work on finding a job. But today is the first day of spring, the sun is shining and I’m contemplating getting back into walking next week and attempting a post-partum run in a few weeks. I’m in a really great place and feeling hopeful that things are coming together. 

And if you actually read this whole thing, wow, I’m impressed. Thanks. XOXOXO.