One month ago today

Procrastination:

1. the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or deferring an action to a later time.
2. dilatoriness: slowness as a consequence of not getting around to it

layabout:

1. idler: person who does no work; "a lazy bum"

River was late. I would say fashionably late, but I 100% don’t know what that means. The OB we saw a few days before the due date asked Colette if she wanted to “strip” or “sweep” her, which, as it turns out, is generally about as painful as it sounds. She declined. And we waited until River decided to show.

One of the other OB’s, Doctor Laird, finally assigned an induction date, and we were pretty uninterested in that, as we are learned folk, and knew that this required a mega-dose of the “baby-come-now” drug Pitocin, which was supposed to give very strong contractions, and not be fun for anybody. Colette was worried, but also anxious to see our baby so we just told each other that it didn’t matter, she would come before that.

August 10^th was the induction date set for 2:30 P.M. The night before Colette was in a panic that we didn’t have a bassinet yet, so there was nowhere for the baby to sleep. So at 2 in the morning we almost made a Wal-Mart run, but decided to go in the morning instead.

When I woke up around 10 that morning, Colette was awake and looking slightly quizzical. “I think I’m having contractions,” she said, as if she was saying “I think I’ll have the fish,” while out for dinner.

I immediately panicked a completely appropriate amount, and began to dutifully record her contractions. We decided to get some breakfast just in case things escalated fast, and headed to The Good Egg, where I proceeded to tell everyone she was having contractions so I could delight in their reactions. (Rhymed)

Afterwards, we headed to Target, bought a bassinet, some extra sheets for it, and other whatnots and wherefores we thought we might need. I also told the Target Team Member she was having contractions so we could ring up at Customer Service and not have to wait in line. (Nice)

Back at the house, I was positively baffled by the directions to assemble the damnable contraption. All the while I was noting contraction times (Colette kept forgetting to tell me when they were over, which didn’t make me bonkers at all). Finally I threw up my hands and Colette assembled the bassinet between contractions. (Thanks, dear!)

contractions consmactions

When her contractions reached about 3 minutes apart, we decided, what the hell, the hospital will only send us home if we’re not ready so let’s just go.

We drove to the hospital and I commented how I didn’t think the drive to deliver the baby would be such a calm affair. I even set the cruise control.

We had pre-registered for the hospital, so we thought we would just breeze in and go up. Not so. We sat for about 15 minutes while paperwork, identification and insurance cards were copied and verified, all the while Colette was contracting and wincing beside me in the seats.

Finally the man came with the wheelchair, cracking jokes and flirting with the staff. It was all quite surreal and not like the movies or tv at all, thank you very much.

Once the nurse got a hold of us, she verified that, yes, she was very ready and we would not be sent away. She hooked her up and got her gowned and prepped. She took her blood pressure, which was unusually high. This was the catalyst to all the events that followed.

When the nurse checked to see how much Colette was dilated, she turned her on her side, and her water broke, and the nurse looked at the other nurse. You know, “ looked”. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” look. I think Colette caught it too, and she asked. “There’s a lot of meconium, (cue Wikipedia) which is the earliest stools of an infant. Unlike later feces, meconium is composed of materials ingested during the time the infant spends in the uterus: intestinal epithelial cells, lanugo, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile, and water. This is not a great thing for babies to have, thought it is normal. But breathing in their waste can be extremely dangerous. So immediately the nurse paged the doctor on call, and told us the baby was in distress.  They put Colette on an oxygen mask, and began giving her fluids in an attempt to stabilize them both. 

I started making the calls to family.

We were finally moved to the delivery room where we waited for the doc to show. Colette was feeling very frustrated and anxious. Her contractions were very painful now, and the oxygen mask was making her feel confined and restrained. She was squirming a lot and would occasionally issue a muted grunt of pain, but bore it all with great strength and fortitude. The family began to slowly trickle in, and by the time they had all arrived, they had dominated the waiting room with their numbers. Doug, Nathan, Stacey, Grandma and Papa, Kaylee, Dustin, Angel and Drew as well as my dad and Yvonne were all in attendance. 

Doctor Laird showed, and determined that Colette had preclampsia, which is a complication of pregnancy, affecting about 5% of all women, characterized by hypertension and damage to the linings of the blood vessels of the brain, liver, lungs and kidneys, which can lead to multiple organ failure, convulsions, coma and death, also for the baby. The only cure is delivery of the child. Colette was visibly upset and started to cry, and I was knocked out. I had never thought something like this would happen, I thought everything would go perfect. I know everyone does, but for some reason I had this fundamental knowledge that it would be, and this information challenged that. It was as if someone had walked up to me and told me my eyes were actually not brown, it was that incomprehensible. The nurse told me to go get the cord blood kit from the car, and all the while I googled preeclampsia and read all the terrible things that might happen, though I told none of it to Colette. I forced myself to be calm and told her that everything was going to be fine. The baby was fine and she was fine and everything will work out in the end. I held on to that idea and refused to let it go no matter what, because I had no other choice.

My dad and Angel and Drew were the first people I saw. I opened up the door and saw them and tried to tell them what was going on, but my eyes filled up and I got choked and couldn’t really get the words out. My dad gave me a hug and Angel rubbed my shoulder. It was so unexpected to become so overwhelmed when I had fixed my resolve so firmly in the room with Colette. For Colette’s sake, I suppose, and also for mine. I finally managed to get it out, and told them as soon as we knew something we would let them know. I think Angel went in at this point, and when I went back in, she was sitting at her bedside with her head titled down and was speaking softly to Colette, reassuring her.The doctor came in and said she might have to have an emergency C Section if the baby continued to be distressed and Colette’s blood pressure continued to rise. Colette did not like this, but I just wanted River and her to be ok, no matter what, but I didn’t say anything other than to reassert everything was going to be ok.

So we waited, the doc said she was going to wait and see if they stabilized from the fluids and oxygen. Colette’s contractions were really knocking her out, and she made the difficult decision to go ahead with the epidural. We were informed that the anesthesiologist not only had a ridiculously long name to type, but was busy and it would be about an hour or so before he would arrive. So Colette bore the pain and discomfort with grace and sheer force of will. In fact, the worst thing she said to me the entire time, including delivery was “Please stop rubbing me baby. I’m sorry.” 

Hours went by, I munched a Clif Bar out of eyesight because Colette couldn’t eat or drink. I held her hand beside her bed as she dozed. I read up on preeclampsia and the risks, tried to play a game but felt oddly guilty and just sat there instead. Colette woke and we watched reruns of Friends on the TV, Ross and Rachael were at their OB and arguing over names for their baby.

Eventually the anesthe..the guy with the drugs showed up, a nice guy, and he hooked Colette up (literally). It was not a shot or anything like I thought; it was a catheter-like system that I assume hooked into her spine and fed her a continuous dose of the drug. I was told this was so that she could get more if she were to go long with labor and run out the cassette. I thought it was weird that they called it that. A cassette.

Once the epidural kicked in Colette said her feet and legs felt a little tingly. Soon after she was in full embrace of the effects and her entire mood shifted to the good. She felt so much better that we both took a well deserved sigh of relief. After 7 hours of worrying, the doc came in and told us that she looked good, the fluids and oxygen had done their job and the baby was no longer in distress. Therefore, mom, dad, and the entire family were no longer in distress either. 

Now we just had to, you know, have the baby.

I first have to impress upon you, faithful reader, how the mood of the room was during the birth. We had one nurse in the room with Doctor Laird, a twenty-something nurse who was about 8 months prego herself, with a sweet, kind face and a very calming energy. She monitored the contraction reader machine thingie and held Colette’s left leg and told her when to push. I held her right leg, and kept my big gob shut so as to not create any more noise/stress. I issued encouragement with my face and the occasional word or two. Then the doc got called out on an emergency, and it was just the nurse, Colette and me. We continued the pushing and eventually I saw River’s hair starting to show. This knocked me out. That was our baby’s hair. Right there! That’s our baby’s head.

Eventually the doc came back, (all went well) and Colette continued pushing and River continued making good progress. Towards the end, Colette started to feel a lot of pressure. A lot. Very uncomfortable, even with the epidural, and we knew it was almost time. The doc said “Your baby will be born within the next 30 minutes.” It was 8 p.m. by then.

Slowly Colette worked, guided by the nurse and doc, and I watched with mounting amazement as my baby’s head poked (so pointy!) its way out. Finally the doc said “Call the prep crew in, she’s almost out.”

The room slowly filled with nurses and the doc put Colette’s legs in the stirrups and put what looked like a plastic apron with an oversized pocket under her. Colette’s contractions and all the pushing was taking more and more out of her. She strained and struggled with each one just a bit more, fatigue and adrenaline finally resolving their differences in her body. Finally the doc said to her, “You have to push harder, a couple more good pushes.” And then it happened. Colette pushed so hard she almost kicked me and the nurse across the room. And there she was. Everything came out in a rush, and there she was. The doc aspirated her, and I heard her cry for the first time. I stupidly reached into my pocket thinking to record her first cry, and when I looked up, the doc was holding a pair of scissors in front of my face. I stared at them as if she had just pulled a rabbit out of Colette instead of a baby. Finally I said, “where do I cut?” and she pointed and I cut. It wasn’t easy, it took two go’s.  

She placed river on Colette and she held her for a fraction of a second, and then the nurse came and took River and began to clean her up. She put a tube down her throat and sucked out all the meconium she had breathed in and I heard her choking on the tube and my heart seized. She was done quick as a whip and began measuring her and taking her APGAR Score (9/10 and 9/10!). She beckoned me over and I stared at my daughter and tried to find each of us in her face and in her eyes. I put my finger in her hand and she squeezed and the world took a coffee break.  I just reveled in that moment in time for as long as it lasted. I watched her be weighed and cleaned and measured and then I grabbed my dad’s video camera and set it on a table to record River and Colette’s second meeting. Colette took her in her arms and whispered to her “That’s the hardest thing you will ever have to do baby, I promise,” and I could feel tears climbing my eyes. 

The rest is blurry. I went and got the family and told them everyone was ok. They fixed Colette up and the family came in and everyone crowded around and took pictures. The nurse showed me how to give her a bath, and I recorded it just to be sure. We eventually got everyone out, and moved to our recovery room, which was much smaller, but cozy.

The first night was so strange. Here was this newborn, a couple hours old, lying swaddled in a plastic bin with a tag that said “River” on it. I just stared at her. Whose baby is this and why is it in our room? Trying to wrap my mind around the idea that what was once in there (mommy’s belly) for so long, is now out here, breathing air and blinking against the lights. That was our daughter. Right there. Our daughter.

I went to the caf, was actually told to go eat, I had had that awful Clif Bar and some mixed nuts all day but I wasn’t hungry, I was drained. The caf was open and I argued with the cook about what I wanted to eat.

“I would like the chicken salad, please.”

“You want a salad with some chicken on it, or what?”

“Uh. I want what that says on the menu there, a chicken salad sandwich.”

“What? I don’t know what it says there, I don’t read that thing.”

“…..”

After securing a turkey burger for myself and a chicken salad sandwich for Colette, I headed up and we ate.

They put Colette on a Magnesium drip to try and get a handle on her blood pressure. It made her feel like a zombie, and ruined food for her, but she handled it remarkably well. She continued her nursing and the first night was a nightmare, we couldn’t get her to latch. I had to keep bugging the nurses, but they were so damned good at it and that made all the difference. The second night River was nursing like a champ and we thought, hey this is easy! But later it went to a mix of the both, sometimes easy, sometimes 30 minutes would go by and they would both be frustrated and upset.

The second night a nurse took pity on us, and took River so we could sleep a couple hours, I tried to crawl into the bed with Colette but I had gained too much sympathy-weight, I think, and had to go back to the couch. 

Myrna was our last nurse, and I think she was the greatest of them, though they were all exceptional and kind. She was a gruff, round woman with the shoulders of a Viking. She absolutely had the heart of a nurse; attentive and caring and warm. I remember once I asked her about co-sleeping and she hesitated and said only “Just don’t lose each other along the way, it happened to me.” And Colette and I both got sad and felt for Myrna and what she may have lost. 

We had visitors and mini-adventures that escape me now, a month to the day of her birth. At 8:29 P.M. River will be one month old. She’s currently 8 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long. She’s thriving, as the pediatrician said on her first visit, thriving and healthy and loved beyond words. Colette has continues to surprise me at how great she is at being a mom. We all knew she would be, she’s perfectly suited to the task, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s the heart she has put into everything River that is astounding. Never complaining, staying up sometimes all night, changing and feeding, letting me sleep so I can be rested for work. Doting, affectionate and 100% percent in the moment with River at all times, she now personifies what I believe to be the perfect mom.

So here we are faithful readers, the end of the tale. I don’t know what I have forgotten, (obviously) but I think I have remembered enough to give you a window into that time. Even after a month, it’s slowly fading; the corners are bending and turning in on themselves to reveal the new page. Hopefully I will be more diligent about filling them in the future.

James