Birth Story

We went to the regular weekly OB check up at 37 1/2 weeks with some mild concern. On Saturday, Mrs. Rodius had a couple of strong contractions, then nothing. Beginning on Sunday, and continuing into Monday, little Thumper was more lethargic than his usual self. He wiggled around in there, but not with his usual frequency or vigor. He was even unenthusiastic about his post-ice cream dancing. The OB had told us that decreased fetal movement was one of the four reasons to call and wake her up in the middle of the night, but Thumper had sleepy days before, and we didn't want to be the nervous parents who called at the slightest provocation. We should have called.

The nurse took Mrs. Rodius blood pressure. She didn't tell us the numbers, as she usually does, but said that it was fine. When the doctor came in, we expressed our concern about Thumper's lethargy, and she chastised us kindly and put Mrs. Rodius on a fetal heart monitor for twenty minutes. Halfway through, she came to check on us, and wasn't encouraged by the squiggly lines on the stock-ticker paper. She gave Mrs. Rodius a couple of juice boxes with which to stimulate Thumper's thumper, but when she came back again, she announced that we had failed the test. It wasn't so much that his heart rate was fast or slow, it was just flat. She expected to see it increase and decrease over the course of the twenty minutes as he moved around in there, especially after the stimulation of the juice. Instead, it remained fairly constant, between 135 and 145 beats per minute. She also mentioned that Mrs. Rodius blood pressure was elevated. After an ultrasound, she said that Thumper was transverse. He'd been head-down at the previous week's appointment, but maybe during those contractions on Saturday, he'd been spun around sideways. The doctor's concern was that if Mrs. Rodius went into labor with him in that position, there was a risk of the cord "presenting" first, which would be bad. Very bad.

"You're having a baby today," she said. Huh? What? Today, like today? Well, can we go home and get the bag?

"No. I don't want you to be concerned. This isn't an emergency where we're rushing you over for immediate surgery, but I'm concerned enough not to let you go home for the bag. It looks like you're going to have this baby in the next few hours. Go across the street to the hospital, straight up to the third floor, and check in. I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming."

Huh. Wow. Today. We're having a baby! While Mrs. Rodius went to the restroom, I listened to the doctor call the hospital. She reiterated the same equation: heart rate + blood pressure + position = c-section. Today. I wasn't so much excited, or scared, or nervous. I was simply stunned. I felt like I'd been programmed to proceed with a set of directions, but I wasn't really thinking much. I was in cruise control. But by the time we'd pulled into a spot in the garage, it was starting to hit me. His birthday would be July 31. We were really doing this.

Mrs. Rodius called her office to let them know she wouldn't be coming in. I called my office and did the same. I don't remember who else I called. I think I called my mother. And maybe Mrs. Rodius' mother. Or maybe she called her herself, I don't know. Things were starting to feel a little unreal. When I left the hospital the next day to go home and give Puck his antibiotics, I would have absolutely no idea where I'd parked the car.

And speaking of Puck and his antibiotics, I felt guilty every time I left Mrs. Rodius at the hospital over the next four days. Puck had already been through one round of antibiotics to fight a urinary tract infection, and I really didn't want it to come back again because we didn't finish this round. So I went home twice a day every day but one. To give the cat a pill. At his follow-up this week, they pronounced the infection beaten. Thank God, because I don't think we really need that to deal with on top of everything else.

So, we went to the third floor, dropped Mrs. Rodius' name like a password, and were immediately ushered to a room. A nurse, named Angie if I recall, hooked Mrs. Rodius up to a blood pressure monitor, a fetal heart monitor, and IV fluids. We watched bad weekday morning TV. We made small talk and laughed nervously at each other. We listened to the underwater sound of the heartbeat on the monitor. We listened to the underwater heartbeat of the baby in the belly in the room next door, too. We watched another stock-ticker stream of paper slowly ooze out of the machine.

Angie typed an exhaustive medical history into the computer next to the bed. I'd wondered aloud to Mrs. Rodius earlier if I could get internet on that computer, so I could blog, "Today's the day!" She said probably not. After maybe an hour or so, Angie pronounced Mrs. Rodius' blood pressure perfect, examined the squiggly lines and declared Thumper "the most beautiful baby ever." His heart rate was rising and falling just as it should. She speculated that perhaps Mrs. Rodius had been dehydrated, causing the reduced movement and flat heart rate, and that her stress over that had elevated her pressure. But with the introduction of IV fluids, both problems had resolved themselves. Mrs. Rodius didn't really see how she could possibly be dehydrated, though, with all of the water she was drinking, and all of the trips to the bathroom to get rid of it again. But whether dehydrated and rehydrated, whether high blood pressure or low, the kid was still stuck in there sideways.

So after we called the offices and the moms again to say maybe it wouldn't be today after all, the doctor came in to check on us, and agreed with Angie's assessment. Things looked good; maybe today wasn't the day. But: he's a big kid, with a big head, and he's only going to get bigger. He's in there sideways. Mrs. Rodius' swollen legs and feet indicated that blood pressure was likely to eventually become a problem again anyway. We're here; we're ready; what do you say we just go ahead and get this kid out of there?

Hey, sure! What the hell? Why not? Let's have us a kid today!

From that moment, things moved rapidly along. From "What the hell, why not?" to "Holy crap, that's my son!" was probably about 45 minutes. I got papered over, with hat and mask and gown and booties. They wheeled Mrs. Rodius into an operating room to prep her and give her a spinal. I stood in the hall holding her purse until a nurse took pity on me and showed me where I could leave it. Then she sat me on a stainless steel chair outside the operating room to wait.

I noticed I was breathing hard, fogging up my glasses above the mask. I did some breathing exercises from BFF's bible. I tried not to look as if I was listening to two nurses trying to detective out what happened to some narcotics. One was sure she'd given it to the right patient, but marked it down to the wrong patient in the computer. They were poking away furiously at a touchscreen computer. Surgeons came and flirted with the nurses while they washed their hands. None of them paid any attention to me.

I was beginning to feel exactly like I did right before riding a roller coaster the last time I went to an amusement park. When I was a kid, I could ride all the rides and never get sick. But after many years in roller-coasting hiatus, I returned to discover that even the kiddie coaster made me vomit. After the first vomit experience, I suddenly became very nervous while standing in line and especially while sitting in the coaster as it click-click-clicked its way up that first anticipatory hill. Saying to myself, "Don't throw up, don't throw up, please don't throw up," oddly had absolutely no effect, and I threw up on every ride I tried.

Big Brother had told me about his surreal cesarean experience of talking to his conscious and coherent wife on one side of the screen while looking right down into her exposed guts on the other side. Many years ago, after several stitches experiences, I decided I was going to sit up and watch the doctor stitch up a cut in my hand. He thought it was a bad idea, but wasn't inclined to stop me. As soon as the needle touched my skin, a nauseating wave of heat hit me in the face, and I suddenly had to lie down. Watching was indeed a bad idea.

So between the roller coaster, the brother, and the stitches, I was not at all confident of my ability to stay conscious in the operating room. So I sat still as a stone on that steel chair, my eyes darting all over at the doctors and nurses bustling by. Occasionally a nurse would pop out to tell me "almost ready for you." I tried to keep breathing. I tried to stop with the "don't pass out" mantra. Finally, they called me in.

I needn't have worried. Perhaps they've had experiences with the fabulous fainting fathers, so they immediately directed me to a chair by her head and told me to hold her hand. The screen hid everything below her neck. It was high and insurmountable, and I said a prayer of thanks for that. We grinned nervously at each other. The anesthesiologist said a few encouraging words. Mrs. Rodius kind of jiggled around a little bit as they tugged and prodded her. After a few minutes, she said, "Have they started yet?" just as the doctor said, "Here he is! He's definitely a boy. Oh, he's peeing already!" He started crying immediately, and so did we. They carried the bloody squirming bundle of arms and legs over to another table that wasn't hidden behind the screen. Somebody told me I could go over and look, so I did. My mind's eye was blinded by the white-hot flash of that singular moment, though, and I cannot see him there in my memory. He peed on two more nurses there; I do remember that. They carried him over to Mrs. Rodius, and she cried as she kissed his fuzzy little head. Then they said I could carry him to the nursery, and I thought, "What, me?" I followed the nurse, walking, walking, turning, walking, turning again. It was a labyrinth. I didn't look at him, for fear of tripping. But he was hot and squirmy on my chest and arms. He squeaked and snuffled. "Don't pass out" had been replaced by, "My son. My son. He's here. My son."

We got to the nursery, and I handed him over to his nurse for the day, Jennifer. I was told to discard all of my coverings, except the gown, because that goes into linens. Then I could watch from outside. So I did. Jennifer wiped more goo off of him, weighed him, took his temperature, and looked over his various body parts. Thumper, in turn, peed on her. Twice. He had now christened one doctor and three nurses, all within his first five minutes out here in the world. Before long, he'd get his mother too, making a beautiful four-foot arc as I changed his diaper to hit her from the crib beside her bed. It must've been all those IV fluids. Then Jennifer gave him a more thorough bath and shampoo, which lowered his temperature, so they had to bake him under the heat lamps for awhile. I stood and watched him wiggle, squirm, cry, and sleep for about another 45 minutes with another new father. His baby, his third daughter, had that newborn conehead, as did several of Thumper's cellmates. Some had hair, some didn't. Some were outraged, some were placid. Thumper was the second biggest, but he was by far the most beautiful.

I took out my phone to call my mother and tell her the good news, and it rang before I could dial. It was Mrs. Rodius' oldest sister, calling to check on us, so that's how she became the first to hear the news and his name. She works hard at brainwashing the nieces and nephews into calling her becoming the favorite Aunty, and I have no doubt she will carry on the tradition with Thumper. So that's how Grandma became the second person to hear, through no fault of my own, except that I answered the phone when it rang.

Eventually, Jennifer pronounced him done baking, and asked me if Mrs. Rodius was ready for him. I had no idea, as I'd been standing there staring at Thumper. She called to find out, then swaddled and capped him, and let me push him back to Mrs. Rodius in a miniature plexiglass crib. For liability reasons, the baby had to be in the crib while out of the room, except for that one "New Dad Walking" march from the operating room.

Mrs. Rodius looked exhausted, but relieved and thrilled to finally be able to hold the baby. I've since seen her looking more exhausted, though. That was the beginning of the strangest, most surreal, exhausting, exhilirating, thrilling, desperate, frightening, worrisome, funniest, saddest, happiest time of my life. She kissed him on the head again. Neither of has stopped since.