pomegranatesandpaper

How to Relax on Vaca

I've spent a lot of time since July 11th with a newborn on my shoulder.  Instead of that big glass of wine after work to relax, I go to my daughter's and hold the baby so she and her husband can eat dinner and maybe get a pre-sleep nap. I sit quietly on the living room couch with the news on in the background and the baby in my arms. 

I've forgotten what it is like to hold a newborn on my chest. I'd forgotten the weight of the warmth of a newborn balanced just so against your collar bone, one arm supporting the tush and the other the head. He radiates peace, calmness, and contentment.

At the youngest's college during finals, the school brought puppies to the campus for the kids to play with as a stress reliever. They should have brought babies who had just been nursed and were in milk comas. 

I have an aunt who had to wait to have children. When her children had children, she would spend every holiday or gathering with a baby in her arms. Everyone would offer to take the baby so she could eat, or get up, or even perhaps talk to someone besides the baby. She would refuse and remain in her chair throughout the party until the parents were ready to go home. 

We taked about that with her recently. She said she remembered everyone telling her that she could put the baby down in the crib. She'd tell them that they could put the baby down in the crib after she left. I thought it was rather extreme at the time. I understand it perfectly now. 

Squishy is with us for the second week of vacation. I have lots to do: I am working on completing two watercolor journals; need to prepare some sketchbooks for the demos I'm doing in Vermont; and I have an illustrated quote due. I brought it all wtih me to accomplish this week.

Ha! 

You'll find me sitting in the shade in the backyard, babe on chest, book in the other hand. I'm pretty adept at juggling baby and other demands. I just typed this whole post as he sleeps on me in the bed. 

 

I'll put him down when they leave. 

 

Beginning and Ending Part Deux

 

 

 

I

It was a tumultous night. 

When my daughter told me a few months ago that she wanted me present at the birth, I had mixed feelings. I was apprehensive about being with her during the labor. Despite having given birth to 3 children, I barely had a labor pain and ended with 3 C-sections due to complications. I was afraid not of what I might see but what I might feel. I did not know if I could control my emotions if my daughter was in a great deal of pain. I was not sure I would not break down or go all Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment. 

Once she was admitted that night, nothing could have pried me out of that room.

It seems strange to even me now, but  I could not bear to think of the two of them alone all night as they went through this journey.  It felt to me that they needed a mother there, someone else to share the emotion, to keep them steady, to hold them up when they were exhausted. It just seemed right when the moment came. 

As soon as the doctor told her she was not being sent home, the baby seemed to sense that it was time to ramp things up. Her labor became harder and she asked for an epidural in a few hours. I left the room for that event, remembering all too well how grueling that procedure can be. 

After that, she was able to rest more comfortably and we agreed to shoo everyone home and let her sleep. S. and I took turns sleeping in the recliner that pulled out into a bed. The room was large and quiet and there appeared to only be one other woman in labor on the floor. I watched the fetal monitor record the hills and waves of her contractions as they ebbed and flowed. 

Around 3:00 a.m. her water broke and the nurse came in to see to things and help her get more comfortable.  We sat up with her for awhile, made sure she was comfortable,  reassured her that things would speed up now but her epidural would keep it manageable.  She tried to sleep and I was dozing in and out S. shook me and I looked up to see the nurse putting an oxygen mask on my daughter's  face. 

 S whispered to me that they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. As I shook myself awake, the lights were flipped on and several nurses ran in and they began to twist and turn my daughter as if she was a rag doll.  The rupture of the membranes causes the baby to lose the bouyancy and cushioning of the amniotic fluid and it is not uncommon for the umbilical cord to become twisted or compressed by the baby's body.  The nurses quickly moved her into different positions with eyes on the fetal monitor to see if they had made the baby move off the cord. 

I am writing this with calm, steady words that give reason and sense to what was transpiring. At the time, I only knew that the baby was in trouble and controlled chaos erupted as every nurse on the floor was in the room punching keys on the computer, opening her IV drip up to full drip, turning her every which way possible. 

After  about 15 minutes of emergency measures, the OB gave the order to call a back up surgeon into the hospital and prep the OR for an emergency C-section. I left the room and paced the darkened hallway and tried to get my shaking hands to hit the right numbers on the keypad to call the rest of my family.  

In a few short hours,  we had gone from expecting perhaps as much as 24 hours until the baby was born, to an emergency situation of life and death.  I could not process any of it. I only knew that it could not  come to this end, not after all this time, not after all they went through to get here. My fears about the delivery, about my reaction to her pain, about whether my SIL wanted me there, all dissolved into the wild prayers you say when  life is on the line, prayers that are not pretty or formal or memorized. Prayers of desperation  to all the saints in heaven, including our parents and grandparents. 

And then just when they were about to wheel her into the OR, the doctor exclaimed "The heart rate's up!" and then just as quickly, "It's down!" And then, again, "It's up!" Every face in the room stared at the fetal monitor,  as if our gaze could  will it into keeping a steady flashing beep of life.  Finally, after what seemed like hours, the OB declared that the heart rate appeared to have stabilized, called off the C-section -for now - and we all waited.   

I left the room to update the family, not sure what any of this meant.  Would she still need a C-section? Will the baby need to be rushed into NICU?  I composed myself so I could return and be of support to my daughter and son in law.  I walked back into the room just as the OB announced that  Jessica that was at a 10 and they would begin delivery.  We all stared at each other in amazement, dumbfounded by the miraculous transition from disaster to birth.  The nurses all cheered, comforting each other and us, giving us smiles as they cleared the room. Her nurse and the OB advised us what we had already gleaned and apologized for not telling us what was going on while it was happening.  I just shook my head and said we just stayed out of the way so they could do what they needed to do.  I was touched at how many of the nurses returned to the room to ask our nurse if she was okay, if she needed a break, if she needed a hand. 

On the turn of a dime,  the room changed from a scene of emergent care to orderly preparation for delivery. A table was uncovered and equipment unwrapped. A huge  huge ceiling tile was  lowered and turned around into a bright light, the foot of her bed was removed and draped, and the doctor placed an old fashioned, sturdy metal stool up against it. 

 They gave us some time alone and I promised my exhausted daughter that nature would take its course and the doctor and nurse would coach her through every second of it.  Within minutes, the doctor told her it was time to push and like a cheerleading squad,  we coaxed and cajoled and cheered and wept through it with her. She rode the wave of each contraction with at least 3 gigantic pushes each and within 30 minutes, William Gehrig was born as dawn filled the room with light. 

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter and son in law had the most wonderful, charming, and beautiful baby boy on July 11, 2014,  at 5:30 in the morning just as the sun was awakening the world to the glorious news of his birth.

 

 

 

  

 

 

After all the drama of the delivery and the birth, the plain fact remains that he was born with slate blue eyes wide open, landing in the doctor's hands with nary a sound, staring up at the world, gave a few little bleats, and was handed over to his mother, where he nestled against her neck as if he had been waiting his whole life to do so. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I guess he was. 

 

 

 

 

6.3 pounds, 18 inches long, he is known as William, Wills, Billy G, and Squishy, my favorite.  My oldest daughter is now a mother at 29 years of age, just as I had her at 29 years of age, and just as my mother had me at 29 years of age.  They have become parents just like that. We have become grandparents just like that.  They are exhausted. We are thrilled. They are adapting to having a newborn; we are fighting over whose turn it is to hold the baby. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are all punch drunk with baby love. 

 

Beginnings and Endings

 

I was on the telphone in my office representing my employer in an arbitration hearing when my cell phone, my office cell, and my other office lines began ringing off the hook. I knew what it was before I even looked at the number: my daughter was in labor. 

She had already been to the hospital the day before and had been sent home. I had spoken to hear earlier that morning and she reported that her labor had continued erratically all night but was growing more rhythmic. I had already advised my manager that I may have to leave early, but had not anticipated her calling me so soon.

As the arbitrator was summing up the opposing sides of the arguments, I was frantically trying to figure out how to text her while she was calling me. My door was shut and I strained to open it while remaining in contact with the phone, in the hopes that I could attract the attention of someone in the unit to  tell her I'd call her in five minutes. 

Since I really wasn't hearing a word he said,  I just interrupted the arbitrator (who is a very courteous and compassionate person) and told him the truth: the ringing phones in the background were my daughter calling to tell me that she was in labor with our first grandchild. He and my adversary immediately wound up the hearing. (It was based upon a loss of earnings calculation for a claimant - can you imagine trying to do mathematical computations while this was going on?)  We adjourned the other hearings for the day and they all wished me luck and I ran down to my manager  with my laptop and briefcase to tell her I was leaving. 

And then  my para  found me in my manager's office, who just needed to discuss a few quick things before I left, and said  the arbitrator wants to know if you can just quickly do  the next arb  as my adversary was already sitting in the arbitrator's office.  So I called him back, my adversary and I agreed to disagree, the arbitrator took note of our positions, and we wound it up with more good tidings. And then my manager buzzed me one more time, we had another quick pow wow, and I broke the speed limit all the way to my daughter's home.

She'd just gotten up from a short nap and was a little grumpy. She  reported that as soon as she called me, her labor had stopped. Just like yesterday. Done. Early labor, the OB informed her. 

So we sat in the sun on her deck and ate some cherries and talked about other things, but she suddenly began complaining about her back and said she couldn't move. No, it's not labor, I moved the wrong way in the chair and gave myself a spasm, she said.  She asked me to rub her lower back with my fist really hard, then harder. She could barely get up to walk back in the house. I massaged her lower back until she could get up without pain and sent her upstairs to her husband to lie on her bed and rest. 

I ran into the powder room for a minute and was contemplating making a peanut butter sandwich and going online to do some work.  I took the laptop out of the case, called my husband to tell him false alarm, texted my son and daughter the same and then heard her calling me. 

"Mom? Mom! We're going to the hospital."

"What?" 

"The back pain is getting worse and we called the doctor and she said get to the hospital."

Okay. Teach me to go to the bathroom in medias res. 

I was to follow them, and they were to remember I was following them because I'd only been to this hospital once before (on New Year's Eve when everyone thought she was losing the baby) and my hands were shaking too much to GPS the sucker and they weren't waiting for me to do that anyway. Of course, they lost me two minutes from the house.

We still arrived in 20 minutes, were sent straight up to Labor and Delivery, she was put into a bed and hooked up to the fetal monitor. 

And her labor stopped. Again. 

My daughter was quiet and I saw her spirits sink. She'd already been in early labor for almost a day and nothing seemed to be progressing. We were all trying to be reassuring but were picturing the car ride back home. 

I began the texting. So much texting over the next 24 hours....

I was already looking ahead to whether I should take the next day off or risk having to run out of an assignment again if she went tomorrow,  when the OB came into the room and threw us out to examine her. Her own OB was not on duty, but we knew this doctor from a hospital visit a few months ago. I liked her. She was  petite, wiry woman, probably in her early 50's. She was efficient, a little brusque, but knew her stuff. She disappeared for a few minutes and then came back.

She stood at the end of my daughter's bed and solemnly told  my daughter that she knew she was afraid that she might have to have a C-section, and she was sorry, but she could not guarantee that she would not need one. (There were other issues, had nothing to do with the progression of her labor at this point.) 

We all looked at her quizzically. Silence fell.  

She's not afraid of having a C-section, I found myself blurting out, she's afraid you are going to send her home.

Oh no, I'm not sending you home! You've gone from 2 centimeters to 3 and your due date is 7 days away. Things are changing and there's no reason to postpone this.

There was a sharp intake of breath by all as the collective unconscious in the room was zapped from oh my we are really embarassed to have jumped the gun again  to oh my you mean you really are having a baby we thought you were faking all this for 9 months!  

I looked at my daughter: her face was  pale. I looked at my  son in law: his eyes could not get much wider.  My own face was a perfeclty composed frozen smile that said mummy is right here and everything will be perfectly fine just relax and breathe whilst mummy goes into the bathroom and throws up those cherries. 

So much more texting ensued. 

 

Stay tuned for Part II wherein we discover that it's not over till it's over and that holding a baby person is even more fun than holding a baby goat.