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.