She told me later that she remembers vaguely getting tunnel vision and only concentrating on my voice, my voice telling her to breath, breath, breath, like so many times we had done it at home during previous attacks. Finally, the breathing returned to normal (as normal as it could be during contractions) and the man with the needle had arrived. 

Now almost two years later, hundreds of dirty diapers and countless temper tantrums and baby cuddles, I have finally given into Charlotte's barrage of request to finish and/or continue the "series" as it were. If you already read the first few posts all that time ago, please feel free to skip ahead or perhaps refresh your memories by skimming through them again...

After what seemed an eternity it was our turn and the nurse walked into our stall and started asking us questions. After the paperwork was filled out in little spurts in which Charlotte could speak, it was time to hook up the heart rate monitors and have her exam. The nurse got everything prepared, Charlotte rolled over and the nurse examined her looked up at me and said “looks like you guys aren’t going home anytime soon.”

Its interesting when you think about how our opinions always jump towards the “natal” side of the prenatal class. Little did I know the thing I needed to learn the most about was not how to take care of the baby at all, it was how to take care of the mother...

The day started out normal enough: I got up early, took the dog (Hank) out for a walk, and got ready for work. Pretty normal....Charlotte is sitting in bed, looking sad and somewhat nervous, maybe even a little bit guilty ... I was going to be a dad!

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