Jake and Laura, however, were not able to join them or Celia and her band in the studio for the Friday session. They had an appointment to keep in San Luis Obispo.
Dr. Gloria Niven was in her early forties, a reasonably attractive brunette with a Minnesota accent. She was a graduate of the UC Davis School of Medicine with a residency in Obstetrics. She had a whiteboard in the reception area of her office that listed the number of babies she had delivered in her career and it was updated with each new delivery. As of this afternoon’s visit, that number was 1478 delivered, which was further categorized into natural births and caesarean section births. Those numbers stood at 1253 and 225 respectively. Jake and Laura were comforted by these numbers, but they were more comforted by Dr. Niven’s calm, cool, confident demeanor. They had complete confidence in her competency to see them through this pregnancy and birth process.
Laura was in one of the exam rooms now, undressed below the waist except for her socks and wearing a hospital gown over her maternity shirt. Her legs were up in stirrups and spread widely. Dr. Niven was standing between those legs, her gloved right hand up inside Laura’s vagina as far as it could go, only the thumb sticking out. Laura was wincing at the pressure.
Jake sat in a chair next to her, holding her hand, pondering the fact that when Celia put her hand up inside Laura’s body it was erotic, but when Dr. Niven did it, it was disturbing and stressful.
“Everything feels perfectly normal up there,” the doc said once her hand was removed. “The mucous plug is firm and fully intact, the cervix is tightly closed with zero percent effacement.”
“Good to know,” Laura said sourly as she removed her legs from the stirrups and let them close up again.
“Sorry,” Niven said with an understanding smile. “The pelvic exam is necessary, but uncomfortable. I’ve had two children myself, so I can relate.”
Laura nodded. “You have to do what you have to do,” she said. “We’re still on track then?”
“Everything looks good,” she said. “The baby is head down, just like she should be. She’ll start to drop down into your pelvis in the next few weeks. There is no glucose or ketones in your urine, so it looks like you won’t have to worry about gestational diabetes. If you were going to get it, you would have had it by this point.”
“That’s also good to know,” Laura said.
“I’d say that you can expect delivery on or about your due date,” Niven said. “Your pelvis seems big enough to accommodate the baby and her head is down and extremely unlikely to change orientation this late in the game. That means a vaginal delivery is extremely likely. Her heart rate is solid and she seems to be at the appropriate size for her gestational date. You may get that Thanksgiving baby after all, but it’s possible she may come a day or two after. It is a first pregnancy and first delivery, after all.”
Laura nodded. Jake nodded as well.
“Any questions?” Dr. Niven asked.
“Well ... yeah, a few,” Laura said. “We were wondering ... uh ... you know ... how long we could keep ... you know... doing it.”
“You mean sexual intercourse?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “And ... you know ... other things along that line.”
“Like oral sex?” she asked.
“Yes,” Laura said, blushing furiously. “Oral sex. We ... uh ... we like doing that.”
She nodded matter-of-factly, as if Laura had told her that she liked having a piece of toast in the morning. “Understandable,” she said. “I’m assuming you’re referring to Jake performing the act on you?”
“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “That’s right.” And someone else performing it on her as well, he did not add.
“Well, with vaginal intercourse,” Niven said, “you can keep that up all the way until pretty much the end. Once the mucous plug comes out a few days before delivery, however, you probably should not ejaculate inside of her any more. There is a risk of infection at that point.”
“Uh ... okay,” Jake said. “No more after the mucous plug comes out.”
“As for oral sex, you can do that right up to the end if you wish,” she added, “but sometimes it’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing for the giving partner. Once the mucous plug is discharged, there tends to be a fairly steady leakage of mucous and a little blood from the uterus.”
“I see,” Jake said.
“It’s harmless to the giver of oral sex,” she quickly put in, “but most people, as I said, find it aesthetically unpleasing.”
“Okay then,” Jake said. “So, we should plan to stop when the mucous plug comes out.”
“Most people stop long before that,” she said. “Usually, it’s because the mother is uncomfortable in the late stage of pregnancy, but the flow of secretions is also a factor as well. There is an interesting school of thought about the female orgasm and the onset of labor, however.”
“Oh yeah?” Laura asked.
“It is thought—though not actually clinically proven because it is hard to do a proper study on something like this—that the oxytocin release that occurs during orgasm may be a trigger to start the labor process in motion.”
“Really?” Jake asked, interested. Though he was not the most medically savvy person in the world, this did make sense to him. Oxytocin was released in large amounts when a woman had the Big O. It was also what they gave—in synthetic form—when they wanted to induce labor, as they had done for Pauline.
“There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the hypothesis,” she said. “So, once you’re at or about forty weeks gestation, there may be some benefit to having a good orgasm or two, whether it’s through traditional intercourse, oral sex, or manual stimulation of the clitoris.”
Jake thought it amazing that she could talk about getting it on in so clinical and boring a manner. It could be that she and Nerdly were actually soul mates whose paths had missed.
“There is one other thing we’d like to talk about,” Laura said.
“What’s that?” Niven asked.
“It has to do with how long labor is likely to last once it gets started.”
“Well,” Niven said, “unfortunately, as a primigravida woman with a small frame, it is likely to be considerable. Eight to ten hours minimum under ordinary circumstances, perhaps even as long as twelve to eighteen. If you were to go much more than eighteen, I would start to consider a C-section, particularly if there were any signs of fetal distress.”
Laura nodded, though she did not seem upset by this prediction. She seemed happy about it.
“Is that good news?” asked Niven.
“It is for us,” Laura said. “You see, we’re going to be up in Coos Bay, Oregon when my due date rolls around.”
Niven raised her eyebrows a bit. “I don’t really think it’s wise to go on vacation that close to your due date,” she suggested.
“It’s not vacation, doc,” Jake told her. “We’re working. Laura is the saxophonist for Celia Valdez’s new album and I’m the producer of it. The recording studio is in Coos Bay and we’ll be smack dab in the middle of our session time come late November.”
“I see,” Niven said slowly. “You do not plan to have me deliver the baby at SLO Baptist then? You’re going to deliver in Oregon?”
“No, not at all,” Laura said. “We are completely committed to having you deliver at Baptist. Our plan is to get our butts here from there as soon as labor begins.”
Niven was now looking at them as if they were insane. “Travel from Oregon to SLO at the onset of labor?” she asked. “That’s a terrible idea. I don’t recommend that at all.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Jake asked. “I’m a pilot, remember? I’m sure you’ve read all the articles in the paper about our noisy plane disturbing the peace all the time. That plane can make the flight from North Bend to SLO Regional in an hour and thirty-five minutes of flight time. It’s only another ten minutes from the airport to the hospital. If the minimum labor is eight hours, that will give us plenty of time.”