Columnist John Katsilometes: Childbirth: Easy as one, two — PUSH!

Tuesday, July 27, 1999 | 9:55 a.m.

John Katsilometes' column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach him at 259-2327 or kats@vegas.com.

Sam and Anne are transplanted San Franciscans and fairly new to town. He's a staff photographer at the Sun. When they arrived a few months ago she was carrying their second child and has spent much of the summer cursing desert heat and swollen feet.

Anne was due to give birth on July 23, or last Friday. They wanted a natural, in-home childbirth. They retained a midwife and didn't want to know of the baby's gender until the moment of birth.

A week before she was due Anne had a 2 p.m. appointment with her midwife. Everything seemed in order, just a routine examination a week before her due date.

"The only thing strange was there was a woman in the office, waiting, and she was telling me about how she had her baby at home before the midwife could get there," Anne said. "But her daughter was there to help. She was 45 or so and had six kids and had a lot of experience in childbirth."

Anne returned home while Sam was at work. She hopped on the Internet and was e-mailing friends and family when she felt a mild temblor in her tummy.

"I felt a sort of contraction, which you get throughout pregnancy, and I didn't think too much of it," she said. "I'd been getting them when I'd stand up or sit down or exert myself in any way. It was kind of weird, but it didn't hurt and I didn't think it meant anything."

But the contractions persisted. There was no pain, but it turned out something was definitely happening with the baby of Anne 'n' Sam.

"I had heard stories about people having babies in taxicabs, things like that," Anne said. "You think, 'How could they not make it to the hospital?' It's one of those things you don't think could possibly happen to you."

Ever the diligent father-to-be, Sam phoned Anne late that afternoon, just prior to the end of his shift, but couldn't get through because Anne was online and had the phone tied up. He decided to have a quick beer after work with a friend.

"I didn't think twice about it," Sam said. "We were going to a place that was about two minutes from our house. I had my pager on and she could get a hold of me at any time."

At 7:30 p.m. Anne received another jolt. Still online, she fired off an e-mail to Sam's pager saying, in effect, he might want to think about wrapping it up at the pub. Sam called back and Anne told him she was experiencing some mild discomfort and had been having contractions for a few hours.

"I just felt like I had to go to the bathroom and maybe I was starting labor," she said. "But the thing was, I was in labor for three days with our first daughter (17-month-old Hannah), and if you could gauge the pain based on that experience, Hannah was 100 and this was about a seven."

Anne walked into the bathroom and felt a single, attention-grabbing contraction.

This was it.

"I felt the baby's head moving through me," she said.

Then, another surge.

"I felt a big contraction, where you would want to push out a baby, and I felt the head coming out."

Then, a third and final grunt.

"The baby was born. I was scared and in disbelief, because I felt like I had at least 10 hours to go. It wasn't laborious at all."

Making sure the baby was breathing and in apparent good health, Anne rushed to the phone and paged Sam. He called back and she stated, "Sam, come home now."

It was 7:51 p.m.

Sam raced out of the pub and into his Ford Escort.

"I didn't know a Ford Escort could peel out," he said.

Breaking any number of traffic laws -- speeding and running a red light chief among them -- Sam squealed home and found his wife, his confused daughter Hannah, a new baby and a panicked, surreal post-birth scene.

"We were on the phone to Sam's mother, who was helping us through what to do," Anne said. "She talked him through clamping the umbilical cord."

About 10 minutes passed before it occurred to either parent to check and see the gender of this eager little child. It was a girl, six pounds, 11 ounces, with the name, Luna.

(Anne has rejected Sam's suggestion of the middle name, Tick, or any middle name beginning with the letter "C," or Luna-C.)

The Anne 'n' Sam clan is doing quite well. She's through with giving birth, however, saying, "I've had my allotted two. If we have another one, we'll adopt."

As for Sam, he's recovering quite nicely, too. He might have missed one of the two births in his family, but he came away wiser from the experience. He believes now, more than ever, that drinking during pregnancy is bad. Very, very bad.