Being a dad is all it's cracked up to
be.
And when I say cracked, I mean just
that: cracked wide open and into little pieces, but I'll get back to
that in a bit. First, I should try to break it down by the
time-line, so, as my once-comrade used to say, from jump . . .
At 1730, we called Labor and Delivery,
as instructed, and were told “come on in”, after diffusing the
immediate confusion assuming they meant come in right away, they
confirmed our arrival time at 1930, and the wait was back on, crisis
number zero averted.
I had the car packed that morning, just
had to grab a pot of coffee and . . . I already forgot what else, and
we checked into L&D at 1910. It took less than an hour to get
settled into the room, which was surprisingly nice for an Army
facility, then another hour or so to get all the rest of the
equipment attached, because all the L&D staff saw was “
Complicated OB”, High Risk, Hypertension and other warnings, so
Rebecca got a heart monitor for the baby, a uterine monitor for
contractions, blood pressure cuff, lower leg cuffs (to simulate
walking and prevent clots) an IV drip and . . . actually, I think
that was it—until they added an extra pick for blood transfusion,
but I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly before 2100, they dosed her
with cervadil, which was supposed to dilate her cervix the rest of
the way (she was already at 1cm on her own) of 12 hours . . . it went
to 2 by 0900 Monday, when her Doctor from OB showed up to take over.
Dr C was very optimistic that baby
would arrive today, with just another dose of cervadil and pitocin
(another induction drug for the the drip), but first he got her some
hospital breakfast, which she ate about half of, the half she quit on
and told me to take care of wasn't that bad. Then they put her on
another dose of cervadil and settled in for the long wait . . .
sarcasm not withstanding. Because the nursing staff was busy with
other patients, I had to step up and help Rebecca out of bed (and the
myriad of hose and wire connections) so she could get up and walk off
some of the cramps every hour or so (her regular readers are probably
chuckling at my colorful manipulation of facts here . . .). She sent
me home three times during the course of the day to check on the cat,
his food, water, litter, etc. and grab up any remaining items.
The Doctor finally stopped the cervadil
after it's 12 hour limit, let her have a cold dinner (her first
turkey cold cut sandwich in Months, for which she was earnestly
grateful), then put her on a pitocin drip to further induce labor.
Well, it gave her frequent cramps, made her extremely uncomfortable,
whether lying on her side as they let her or her back as the first
put her in the bed. Around 0800, Dr C's shift was over and Drs W (a
midwife) and F (both Army Majors, so I was very confident) took over.
The nurse anesthetist, Dean, came in to discuss pain meds, including
various injectables and an epidural; Rebecca declined at the time,
and he left saying “It's never too late for an epidural,” . . .
I'll revisit that later.
I still don't remember whose idea it
was to Break Rebecca's water with one of those foot-long white
plastic hook probes, but that's exactly what they did, and less than
15 minutes later she was in full active labor. At one point she
asked for pain meds—and that should give some of you Pause: Rebecca
Asking for pain relief—and we were told they had to get the baby's
heart rate first, which was problematic because the baby's heart
monitor wasn't staying still. She actually asked if it was too late
for an epidural—or maybe I asked—and someone said, with a bit of
(what I hope was a nervous) laugh: “It's too late for an
Epidural.” The next half hour or so was—to borrow a colloquial
term—absolutely Epic.
Rebecca dilated to the full 10cm in the
first 15-20 minutes of contractions and pushing. At some point, she
asked “can somebody hold my legs,” so I grabbed her left and the
nurse monitoring the monitors grabbed her right. Then, my amazing
wife pushed almost straight through the next 15 minutes or so with
nothing but me and an overtaxed nurse holding her legs. I looked
down and saw the baby crowning at about 0910, stammered through my
job as a coach—fortunately the nurse on the other side of me, able
to spare only one hand for Rebecca's leg, had been a cheerleader and
did an excellent job coaching her through in my place. Dramatic
writing fails me utterly: shortly after the baby crowned, Rebecca
Screamed through another push, ignored the contraction—or absence
of—and at 0917, flying headfirst at a very calm but surprised Major
W., our Grace entered the world.
There's a pause here because I am
tearing up remembering it, just as I did the moment it happened, as
she was wrapped in a blanket and placed on Rebecca's chest,
whimpering and sighing, but not gasping or crying. In the afterglow
of pain I don't care to guess at, she managed one word, none of the
staff really heard or understood, so they all leaned in and asked her
what she said, but I knew, we'd been discussing that word for Days,
knew it inside and out, and now knew who it belonged to: Eilonwy.
Another pause as I tear up again, just
so you folks understand why this writing seems to bounce around so
much . . . For those of you not already googling Eilonwy, (we say it
eye-LAHN-we, but nobody pronounces anybody else's name quite right)
here are the facts: she is the Lost Disney princess, from the Movie
“The Black Cauldron,” based on the book, by Lloyd Alexander, of
the same name and its 1982 prequel, “The Book of Three.”
Together, they are books 1 and 2 of the 5 part “Prydain
Chronicles,” books I found by accident when I was in 5th
grade, borrowed from the town library and wanted for my own. It was
childhood dream granted by Rebecca years ago when she found the
“Chronicles of Prydain” boxed set, and from which I've been
reading to her belly for the last two or three weeks since we went
through the mother goose's rhymes book.
Back to the time-line, Dr W clamped the
cord and showed me where to cut it--there's a picture of that,
too--and I stood beside Rebecca, Eilonwy on her chest, as Dr. W
delivered the placenta and . . . finished up (I leave out all the
details, but I'm sure you regular readers or experienced moms know
what else that entailed). Because she was so small—visually, they
hadn't weighed her yet—and slightly under temp, one of the nurses
put Eilonwy under the baby warmer, where I was invited to help towel
off the vernix, and where I stayed while Rebecca finally relaxed and
got a little much-earned sleep.
Our Nurse showed me how to bathe, feed
and diaper the baby, while Rebecca continued to recover from her
delivery. Because she was so petite, Eilonwy's temperature remained
slightly below average, so she spent most of her time in the baby
warmer, under the heat lamp. It was still sometime before noon,
while I was reading to Eilonwy from “The Book of Three,” when
Rebecca said she wasn't feeling well, that she was blacking out, then
“get someone” and her arms and legs began to shake violently,
beyond the scope of the worst cold chills I'd ever seen. I hit the
nurse call button, decided it wasn't fast enough, went to the door
and called for help. It took less than 10 second for two nurses and
a doctor to show up, another minute for two more doctors and another
nurse to have Rebecca's bed flat, then inclined, a pressure bag,
oxygen, another IV, so many cc's of this, so many mils of that, all
the time rubbing her chest, calling her name, asking her where she
was . . . I spoke up from the other side of the baby warmer when they
asked details of medical history, MI, seizures, even helped them
untangle a cord from the monitor, read a display to the lead doctor
because it was facing the wrong way and a nurse was on the wrong side
before they got it turned.
After several long minutes, they
stabilized her blood pressure, which had dropped to less than half
her normally elevated levels, but remained wary of her bleeding, such
that she remained in the labor-delivery room well into the afternoon
and evening.
Pictures will follow soon...but we'll save that for another post.
