Sunday and I didn’t
have the opportunity to have one of those silly scenes so often depicted in
television shows or in movies, where the father runs around like he’s on drugs
while the mother, who is in labor, calmly walks to the car. We had an appointment to have our baby. We had scheduled him in, mainly because he
wasn’t going to come out.
So I sat there, in
the waiting room with Sunday next to me, about as alone as I could be. There was no running ahead, no outward
excitement. I knew any emotion that I
could show Sunday would be magnified in her soul. Sunday reflects anxiety and multiplies
fear. That’s just her personality. I knew I couldn’t freak out in the waiting
room like I wanted to freak out. So I
just had to do it: RELAX. “We” weren’t going to make it if I
didn’t. I had to relax. My hands.
My mouth. My eyes and legs and
torso and feet. Everything had to be
relaxed or she would know it.
Not to say that it
all depended on me, because it didn’t.
She was the one who had to do this, but I certainly could be the one
person in her life to make it exponentially more difficult. I could, if I didn’t relax myself, make her
feel much worse. If I shared my
nervousness with her, she would still make it, but it would hurt much more than
it needed to hurt. So I heard my
father’s voice as it compressed RELAX into a one-syllable word.
I didn’t know what
to expect. I didn’t know how long we
were going to be in the hospital. I just
didn’t know. Neither did anyone
else. The doctors, the nurses, no one. Sure,
babies are born every day, but not our baby. Not for us to keep or to see live in health
and happiness. Not our child.
Sunday and I were feeling
alone. So the only thing I could think
to do was relax. There I sat. In the waiting room, watching really bad
network television and wondering what I could do to relax. The following section describes my effort.
Birthing Experience
February 25,
2004—9:00pm: Sunday
and I entered the hospital where she began the pitocin drip to induce
labor. Although her comfort was the
primary cause of concern, my back in particular began to hurt and I was just
praying for an epidural after a night in the reclining chair they called a
cot. In fact, Sunday added to the pain
by subjecting me to the final episode of The
Bachelor that night, and I still walk with a slight whine in my step. The nerve.
February 26,
2004—6:00am: The
small, wide-eyed girl who was our nurse for the night was replaced by a small,
wide-eyed Romanian girl who was to be with us for the next thirteen hours. Why is it that they find the first person who
looks like a thirteen-year-old to give us comfort, encouragement, and to “check
on” my wife? (By the way, Sunday would
be “checked on” about ten times during the next twelve hours. In fact, one nurse came in and “checked on”
Sunday and then introduced herself. I
was just glad she took her gloves off before she shook my hand). At this time, Sunday had been on pitocin for
about nine hours and she had dilated for only three centimeters. Obviously, Jonah was not coming out without
some serious coaxing.
February 26,
2004—8:00am: The
doctor finally showed up to “check on” things a bit. This was the first time that Sunday has been “checked
on” by a person who had gone to school longer than I had. It was quite a relief that an expert in this
field had arrived, but he told us that she had not progressed much past three
centimeters. I was getting a little
antsy because I was wondering what I was going to watch now that “Good Morning
America” had finished. Sunday was
getting a little antsy for other reasons.
The doctor broke her water and discovered that Jonah had poopied in
utero. Not a good thing, and all of us
were relieved that labor had started and J-Dawg was going to be al fresco within the day.
To be continued….
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