Somewhat unexpectedly, Bethany's arrival started pretty much the same way Jonathan's did -- with Jonathan waking up Deb. This time, however, Deb woke up to Jonathan crying, probably from a night terror, a little before 6:30 am. I went to fetch Jonathan and brought him back to our room to see if he would go back to sleep. As I finally calmed Jonathan down, Deb casually noted that she thought she was in labor! Her contractions were already seven minutes apart and around a minute in duration; by 7:30, her contractions were only four minutes apart. Knowing that second pregnancies tend to progress quickly, we gathered our bags and -- after a short return trip to grab our forgotten camera -- were headed to El Camino Hospital.
January 30 is apparently a popular day to be born. By the time we arrived shortly before 8:00, five babies had already been born that shift, and all the delivery rooms were full. Deb was six centimeters dilated (at 10 cm you start pushing) and just in time for an epidural. We were afraid that we would have to deliver in the C-section recovery area (where we had been parked). But providentially, a delivery room became available soon after Deb got the epidural, and we moved into a private delivery room around 9:30 -- a mere half hour before Deb went into transition.
Deb pushed for about 45 minutes with Jonathan, before circumstances culminated in an episiotomy followed by a flurry of activity. Pushing was, as much as it can be, much more calm and relaxed this time around. Blessedly, nothing unusual occurred, and -- after a herculean effort by Deb -- Bethany entered the world at 10:57 am. We had been hoping for an easier delivery this time around, and part of our hopes were anchored to our doctor's assessment that Bethany was smaller than Jonathan. Jonathan was fairly big at eight pounds, girls tend to be smaller than boys, and Deb weighed a few pounds less this time than she did last time. So the biggest surprise of the morning was the announcement that Bethany weighed in at eight pounds, 11 ounces! No wonder Deb had such a hard time pushing her out!
