Beginnings and Endings
How to Relax on Vaca

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. 

 

 

IMG_2628

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

  IMG_2720

 

 

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_2731

 

 

And I guess he was. 

 

 

 

IMG_2932

 

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. 

 

IMG_2742

 

IMG_2707

 

IMG_2640

 

IMG_2649

 

 

We are all punch drunk with baby love. 

 

Comments