Our Hospital Stay, part 2

So we were finally admitted to the hospital.

Which, thank God happened, because half of our family had already shown up, waiting eagerly for the birth of our baby. Our family never does things small or somewhat. We do things in a big way, because our family is big, and we have big personalities.

Now while we were admitted, it still wasn’t so easy. After we left the hospital the previous night, we went back around noon the next day. I was able to be somewhat more articulate when checking us in the second time. While my wife was waiting up in the hospital room being monitored, I was given a brief respite and my father-in-law took me to the cafeteria for a much needed meal. Being so anxious and nervous, I hadn’t eaten very much the previous 24 hours. I was halfway through my sandwich when I received a text from my mother-in-law:

Well she is only at 3.5. Nurse is calling doctor but they are thinking of sending her home again.

He heart dropped. I wanted to leave the table and run up to my wife, but my father-in-law made me stay to finish my lunch. It was the smart thing; I wouldn’t have lasted without the second half of my sandwich.

But once the food was down I ran like a madman through the hospital. When I got to the room, the nurse told us the on-call doctor wanted to keep us for an extra hour for evaluation. We took an hour’s walk around the maternity ward, and then my wife a super hot shower. When she was done, the doctor came back in, and we were admitted.

I wasn’t told this, but there is a lot of down time waiting for the baby to come. We had a few tests, some blood work, a fentanol shot, the epidural, and turns pitocin drip, but other than that, there was a lot of reading, hand holding, and watching TV.

We actually made it through the entire World’s Strongest Man competition on ESPN, and Dumb and Dumber.

All the while, we received texts from our family asking for updates, like we would somehow forget to tell them the baby had been born. It was actually funny; my mom and mother-in-law were out in the waiting room, watching the 49ers/Ravens game to determine who would go to the Superbowl. They are both 49ers fans, and at one point were cheering so loud that one of the nurses had to go out and tell them to be quiet or else they’d wake all the babies!

But yea, a lot of downtime. My wife slept, and eventually the sun went down and I felt tired enough that I could go to sleep, and confident enough that if I did nothing would go wrong. I curled up in a very uncomfortable recliner, pulled my jacket over me and drifted off to sleep…

I was woken suddenly by the nurses kicking the door open. I jumped up out of the chair, sick to my stomach because I thought the baby was coming. “Oh God, oh God, this is it.” But when the nurse rushed in with an oxygen mask, I realized the baby wasn’t on the way just yet. I noticed the machines my wife was hooked up to were beeping incessantly. My knees began to shake and my nausea grew worse. My wife was in trouble, and I didn’t know how to help her. Talk about feeling completely powerless…

I rushed over to the bed, but the nurses pushed me back. After a minute of flipping my wife from one side to the other, her face buried in the oxygen mask, the machines stopped beeping. They layed my wife back down, smiled at me, and THEN LEFT THE DAMN ROOM!

I stood there for a minute looking at my wife, wondering what the hell just happened! I walked down the hall to the nurse’s station, and said, “Hi, I’m the father in room 410. What the hell just happened??”

Apparently, because of the pitocin, my wife displayed from 6cm to 8cm so suddenly, the baby dropped. The heart rate monitor stopped picking up the baby’s heart rate, and started reading my wife’s. So on their monitoring screen, the nurses saw the heart rate go from 150 BPM, and drop to 80 BPM.

Jesus, what a relief, but next time, please let the father know about that before you just walk out of the room!

As I said in the last post, I learned a lot about how hospitals work during my stay. Something I didn’t know what just how little we actually saw of the doctor. In the wee hours of the morning, the nurse came in to check on us, and told us it was time to start preparing for the delivery. The nurse coached my wife through the pushing, and after each push I kept telling myself, “Yea, so the doctor should be arriving any minute?”

After an hour of pushing, they brought in all the tools, and prepped the area. The doctor came in, and literally 2 minutes later…

I was holding my wife’s leg, and petting her head. I was telling her how well she was doing, how proud I was of her. Because I was, and I still am. She displayed a level of strength I didn’t know was possible, a level I could never imagine being able to accomplish myself. As I was doing my best to console her, I just felt a sudden urge to look down. Right at that moment, I watched my baby being born.

It actually happened really fast. She kinda shot out like a cork, and the doctor had to jump back a little to catch her.

I now say her, but in one of my previous posts I referred to my then-unborn baby as “he.” My wife and I waited to find out the sex until she was born. My wife said it is one of the few times in life you can truly be surprised.

No kidding. All the doctors and nurses told us to expect a boy, based on the heart rate, the position of the baby, how my wife was carrying, and all sorts of other metrics to conclude the sex of the baby without using an ultrasound. But when my beautiful baby came out, even the doctor said, “Woah…I guess it’s not a boy…”

There were two thoughts that ran through my head. The first was a joyous relief, “Thank God she was born healthy and that my wife had a good delivery.”

And then the second, “It’s a girl…I am so screwed…”

It didn’t even take my little girl 1 minute to have me completely wrapped around her little finger…

Our Hospital Stay, part 1

These next couple of posts are mainly to exercise some catharsis, to share some reflections on my family’s stay at the hospital leading up to the birth of my daughter.

To say that I was surprised when my wife woke me up late on January 11th to say that she was going into labor wouldn’t quite be correct. I wasn’t surprised, I mean I knew that eventually the baby would have to come out. So not surprised…

But panicked. I think that’s the best word to describe it.

Also because I think “sheer terror” comes off a little too melodramatic.

When I drove my wife to the hospital, it was snowing and the freeway and roads had iced over. And the whole way I just thought, “Dear God, please give me the ability to weather this storm and drive carefully, because if we spin out and I have to deliver this baby in the car, I might just throw up everywhere and pass out.”

When we finally arrived at the hospital I took my wife’s hand and led her to the emergency entrance. I think the one thing that will stay with me most, apart from actually watching my child born, is just how unprepared I felt, and how obvious it was to everyone we interacted with.

I’ve always prided myself of being somewhat eloquent and articulate, but when I walked up to the desk to check us in, all I could choke out when the nurse raised her head was, “Uhhh…dude, I think my wife’s about to give birth…”

At least I can take solace that what I said was probably one of the more level-headed, and considerably less vulgar, ways to tell the nurse my wife was going into active labor.

The hospital we went to was incredibly nice. The staff was absolutely wonderful, and I am so grateful that they did their best to make my wife feel as comfortable as she could be made to feel.

I’ve only been inside a hospital a handful of times. I went in once for myself, and a few times for my brother, so I didn’t really know how hospitals worked, let alone how a labor and delivery stay goes. They asked a lot of questions. My favorite ones were, “Do you live in an abusive household?” To which my wife responded with, “Well, even if I did do you think I would tell you when the man abusing me is right here in the room with us?” and “Have you had any feelings of hurting yourself and anyone else during your pregnancy?” My wife said, “Are you kidding? Have you ever been pregnantv?? I feel like hurting someone everyday!”

This whole pregnancy and delivery was an entirely new learning experience for me. For instance, I always thought that once you checked in you were there until the baby was born. I had no idea all the questions and the monitoring they did to track my wife’s progress.

Or that they would kick us out when she didn’t progress enough.

Well, maybe that’s a little strong, but that’s how it felt. When after an hour my wife didn’t dialate past 3 cm, they told us to go home and come back. My wife cried. Shit, I cried. How could you not? The feeling of helplessness, like you’ve been abandoned. I’m supposed to be the strong one, now how do I console my wife when I not only feel vulnerable, but she can see it?

Driving us home, I couldn’t help but feel like I let my wife down. Was there anything I could have done or said differently to make the nurse keep us there? Did I act like a good husband to my wife letting them discharge us? In the back of my mind, I knew that what happened was something out of our control, but these thoughts nagged an ate away at me still.

Before we left, we were told to try to get some sleep. I asked the nurse, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Not to be rude, but I mean…how could you sleep knowing your baby was going to be born at any moment now?? When we got home, we didn’t sleep. We both layed there, pretending to sleep, praying that the morning would come, and with it another chance to be admitted to the hospital.

We went back the next day when my wife’s labor pains became too intense for her to stand. I swear, after watching everything she went through, I know now that if the fate of our species depended on the men to take the pain and bear the children, we would have died off long ago.

They began to monitor my wife again. After an hour, still no change. The nurse prepared the discharge papers, again, but thank God Almighty for the on call doctor. He told us to walk around the maternity ward, and take a hot shower.

After an hour, the doctor checked and told the nurse to admit us as patients.

Been a while…

It has been a while since I have updated this page…

You know that thing? That nagging little itch on your back that you can’t quite reach? That deep breath you really want to take, but can’t? That stretch you lean back in your chair to take, but someone comes over and pokes your stomach? What’s that thing called again?

Oh right, that thing is called life.

And Lord has life hit me these past months. Christmas and New Years came and went with laughter, mirth, and all the wonders the holidays bring. I feel relaxed, refreshed, and reinvigorated to take on the new year.

Then my wife wakes me up at 10:30 on January 11th and whispers, “It’s time…

“…the baby is coming…”

And before I know it I’m running out the door with suitcases and bags and a wife going into labor. I’m driving on the freeway in a snowstorm with the roads icing over, my wife breathing and panting, and all I want to do is go back to sleep and pretend like this was all a dream. I am now high strung, drained, and wanting to climb into a hole and hide because I am afraid. Life just hit, ground eff-ing zero, and I wasn’t ready.

Hell, I’d never held a baby before! And suddenly I’m expected to raise one to be a healthy, functioning member of society?? How does that work? How do I do that? I know how to interact and converse with others, but how do I teach it? How do I raise a logical, level headed human in an illogical, emotional world? How do I teach a child morals and values? What happens when they start to date? How do you change a diaper? How do you feed an infant? Will I make enough to provide an adequate lifestyle for my family? Dear God, now I have another mouth to feed! Who will watch my baby when I go to work? How do I ensure my child doesn’t grow up to become a Nazi bastard??

The anxiety and fear, the anxiety and unawareness of being a father, the anxiety and “Jesus, will I still be a good husband for my wife”…

And then I hold my daughter for the first time. Before anyone else, right after the doctor cleans her up and wipes her down. The nurse hands me a blanket and then a small, wiggle of pink skin. But then I see her eyes, and her nose, her ears and her little head of black hair. I count her fingers and her toes and I kiss her forehead for the first of many times. I take my wife’s hand, and I suddenly realize…

I’m not ready. I don’t know how you can be ready for something like your child being born.

But I’m not anxious. I’m not afraid. And I will still be a good husband. Because I love my wife, and I love my baby.

And I love my life.