I had my third and last (barring heavenly intervention) child
a little over 16 years ago at Hawaii's baby factory, aka
Kapiolani Hospital. My best friend had given me a really good
J at Christmastime and I had saved it for this occasion. I had
done the Lamaze thing all three times, so I was comfortable
with the techniques and I had a picture of Dr. Ignac
Semmelweis for my focal point --plus I had availed myself of
all of my 'alternative medicine'.
Because my water had broken before I had any contractions, the
hospital nursing staff and house doctor really weren't
expecting for me to have a baby. They thought I was going to
lala around, take up space and probably need a Pit drip the
next day. They asked me if I had taken any medications and I
said 'Yeah, I smoked a really good joint' and they all looked
properly shocked and tsk-tsked me. And I focused on good Dr.
Semmelweis and started working on having a baby. Now, I'd had
my other two nearly naturally (hash, in their cases) so after
about 3 hours of non-intrusive, for the staff, anyhow, labor I
was kind of disappointed when I just couldn't take it anymore
and asked for some pain medicine. The nurse who was now my
nurse, was kind of like 'most women do', but she checked me
first and looked at me suprised and said 'Well, no wonder
--you're 'there'.' So I went to the delivery room and had a
quick 3-push delivery (uneventful except for the cord around
my son's neck--and thank goodness for nurses--the doctor
fiddlediddled with the scissors for a few seconds before the
nurse grabbed them, cut that cord, and started pinking up my
poor little blue boy, who was fine in a few minutes).
I went off to the recovery room and a little while later my
nurse came in and said 'I just have to tell you-- that was the
smoothest labor and delivery I've ever assisted and I've done
thousands.' Then she said, really softly 'One joint, huh?'
and I said 'One really good joint'...