My wife woke me up at 4 in the morning. She had been having contractions for a while, and now they were about 8-minutes apart. “Honey,” she said, “I’m having contractions. I think we should go.”
If I had been a sitcom character I would have jolted awake, leapt from the sofa and ran around the house looking for the pre-packed suitcase. While my wife looked on, I, still in my college tee shirt and underpants, would sprint past her and out to the car. I would then peel the car down the street, trying to calm her in an obviously terrified voice, only to find that I had forgotten her. Cut to my wife still standing in the living room, chuckling and shaking her head as if to say: “That’s my big, dumb man.”
While I may not be a sitcom character, I am a big, dumb man, and groggily said: “Contractions? Are you sure?” As if my wife was somehow mistaken.
In fact, the mistake was mine for thinking that, at any point over the past 9 months, I was in any way part of a “team.” True, my DNA was being represented, but the “we” stuff that was stressed in all of the touchy-feely books and videos is a myth. Obviously, a husband should be supportive and helpful, but the phrases “We’re pregnant,” “We’re having a girl,” “We’re going to give natural birth a try, but we’re keeping our options open” are lies. My wife was about to give birth to our child; I was along for the ride.
Our doctor had told us that we would know when it was time to come to the Birthing Center (formerly known as a “hospital”) when the husband (me) had to make the next phone call. I spent the next hour keeping notes, while my wife waited for it to hurt more.
When we arrived, I was surprised at the nonchalance of the nurses. Sure, they had been just as nonchalant the first time we visited 5 months ago, but this was clearly different.
We were escorted to our Birthing Suite (formerly known as a “room”) which looked like the result if Life Alert had designed a Fantasy Suite. It took me a couple minutes, but I eventually figured out that we would not be sharing the bed. My bed was a fold-out chair that was built in the former Yugoslavia and rejected by the local prison.
After 2 hours of 2 centimeters, my Magic Pool Noodle had become more of an annoyance than a massage tool. I think my wife’s exact words were: “Okay, just…just…JUST!…”
The Doula arrived like the United States during WWII, and the women had some quality time. I was sent to get Lemon Ice. But I have counting to do, I thought, and I have lines. Who was going to tell my wife that she was “doing great?”
I was beginning to think that maybe they were on to something back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The wife would disappear into a room with several masked people claiming to be doctors and nurses, while the husband sat in the waiting room, chain smoking and reading Field and Stream. Or maybe he would go out and get drunk, and wait for the hospital to call the bar and tell him if it was a boy or a girl and how many fingers and toes.
When I returned to the room, my wife was hugging an exercise ball and moaning. The Doula rubbed my wife like a professional while I stood out of the way, munching on Lemon Ice.
My wife was progressing very slowly. It turns out that this was because our daughter was “sunny side up.” This is the perky, cheerful phrase for “back labor.” Long story short, the baby was resting against my wife’s tailbone, and there was no pressure helping with the opening that the violent contractions were working so hard to create.
After 12 hours, the doctor prescribed “Rest Therapy,” which is the preferred phrase for “a shot of Morphine and 2 Ambien.”
I pulled out the chair/bed, positioned the steel bar directly between by shoulder blades, and my wife waited for it to hurt less. Soon, both drugs began to kick in, and, for the first time in close to 18 hours, my wife and I laughed. We giggled like we the last two awake at a slumber party. What we didn’t know was that it would be 14 more hours and a new day before we would meet our daughter.
To Be Continued…
