The Miracle of Life

Floro's Late to the Party Reviews - Parenthood

Tough guy gym slogans say "Pain is weakness leaving the body." This is never more true than during the birth of your child. No matter the advances in modern medicine, regardless of the plans you write or the books you read, the birth of a child is the literal personification of weakness. It never follows the rules.

You got me, this isn't a movie review. This is a recounting of some of the longest hours of my life as they related to the birth of my son, Jackson.

And son, should you ever have the chance to read this, you have already put your mother and I through many hells today, before you were even out. By the time you do read this, you will have found many more hells to inflict upon us. I pray that we have given you the knowledge, guidance, and care to teach you the ways to avoid putting yourself through any more than you must.

I will not pretend to speak for my wife's experience. As one of the many silly books I was gifted (Show Dad How by Shawn Bean) says, "...when the baby is born, dad is on Day 1, and mom is on Day 462." For me, Day 1 was Wednesday May 22, 2013 at 6:27PM.

Every dad I spoke to leading up to this event had this secret-knowing "it's amazing, man." expression of excitement for me. No one ever really tried to describe this thing, and I can only begin to understand why. I've been a dad for just over 2 hours, met my son for just over 5 minutes, and already I catch a glimpse of what they mean. While reality is still sinking in, I want to capture the feeling as best I can.

Meeting your son(or daughter, I assume) for the first time is in fact a life changing event. I watched this unknowable thing grow and wear on my wife for the better part of a year. In the last 48 hours, I've watched as this pulsing bulge put my wife and I through at least 3 kinds of hell. And I know he will put us through at least a dozen more growing up. The feeling to describe is the shock and terror of so much uncertainty, which is immediately combined with the courage to walk through those hells unblinking. I know now more than ever this thing, for which I am entirely accountable, is going to find every imaginable and unimaginable opportunity to challenge my sanity, patience, knowledge, restraint, humanity, and love. I wholeheartedly and unquestioningly accept.

I'm also this ripped by default, right?

It's the odd combinations that make this so hard to describe. Knowing that like so many people before you have done successfully, you now have the seemingly insurmountable task of not screwing up, and knowing that you inevitably will. There are times I feel nervous to even touch him, as though he's made of ancient tissue paper and the museum doesn't know you took him out of the display case. Even so, I know with every fiber of my being that I would lay waste to all who would try to stop me.

My Day 1 actually started at Day Minus 5. Last Friday was our due date. That pre-ordained point in the timeline where everything will magically start and end, because that's how babies work, and the smiley twig of an ultrastenographer used her magic MSPaint tools to somehow calculate the hours and minutes by measuring your blob's slightly more circular blobs 8 months ago.

By my calculations, must have doinked on a Tuesday at 9:17PM 19 weeks ago. Doink being the medical term.

So we waited. Like we had for the previous 40 weeks. (By the way, 9 months never equalled 40 weeks in my mind - 4 full weeks in a month, 9 months, 36 weeks. Obviously.) We heard all the good hope stories of how "that one friend I had went days early." and "that other friend went right on time" or "I had all of my babies exactly on schedule, or else they would be grounded." As was the case for the previous 40 weeks, nothing happened.

So we stayed on high alert. Nothing happened. We tried to relax. Nothing happened. We saw Iron Man 3. Nothing happened. We walked and walked and walked and walked. (Seriously Jackson, you were almost named Jackson "The Proclaimers" Floro)

Then I remembered that this album is that one song on repeat.

The backup plan to the plan was to go in to get induced starting Tuesday evening. We had heard all the good hope stories of "that friend who had her baby the night before she was supposed to be induced." or "that one time I was about to get induced and then the baby just popped out and I went right back to work at the sandwich shop." We took the morning to walk (500 more), visit the birds at Wild Wings, and get ourselves prepared for an easy dinner at home, and a night of infinite wonder.

She calls the clinic at 2 like she's supposed to. They had already called her at 1:30. "We'll see you by 4!", they said, as if no other plan had ever existed.

We compose ourselves, kiss the puppies goodbye, make a bunch of "go time" phone calls, grab our way too many bags and go. We arrive and (thankfully) her mom is already in the lobby. As someone in charge of addressing infection prevention, she has an added weapon to her arsenal of pre-existing "if you're nervous about dating caring for my daughter, then I'm doing my job" tools. The peons are nervous (there are several), the doctors wear glasses like...well like the Proclaimers (what is this, boot camp?), and the tenured nurses go about their business.

That business is asking a billion questions while strapping my hospital engowned wife to multiple belts that hold external monitors to measure her contraction timing and the baby's heartrate. Of course throughout this the resident is talking about the process. It's all OK. We have a new plan. Do some drugs tonight and then the magic will happen. If it doesn't, we'll do some more drugs in the morning and THEN the magic will happen.

Drugs likely made this happen too

Oh, by the way, you now need to ask permission to move more than 2 feet away from the machines next to your bed, and the baby's watery glubglub heartbeat will be playing in the background until we're done. Anytime we don't get a reading on these things someone will come into the room and stare intently at the computers next to your head. Also we have a machine to randomly take your blood pressure. Hope you didn't like wearing pants, or walking around to calm your nerves or anything!

And then! Nothing happens. We stay put playing cribbage, which she proceeds to quickly remember how to beat me. Put some hockey on the TV that's supported by an eraser. A whole night of nothing but occasional vitals checks, bathroom breaks, and the sad "womp-womp" sound the blood pressure machine makes when it realizes you either aren't wearing the cuff, or you're dead. Night time Nurse Julie is very helpful, encouraging, and talkative.

In the morning, Day time Nurse Julie (yes, there's a difference), is also friendly, encouraging, and talkative. The difference (aside from AM/PM) is she's staring at the monitors. Dr. Gunter (wife's doc) shows up and is bright and cheery to us, and eyeballing the screens. AMJulie says "He's down for 1, 2, 3....4.....". Dr. Gunter starts speeding through some other information in a very positive tone, and calmly telling AMJulie to push a few red buttons.

Like this.

A couple of scrubs in hairnets lean in to the room as they pull on gloves, and Dr. Gunter visably exhales. We then learn that baby "was being naughty" by having his heart rate drop for a while. We learn the rule is "after 5 minutes, we go C-Section immediately.". Jackson was at 4 and a half and change. Doc says he's pinching a cord depending on how he/mom moves. He keeps realizing it so it's not too bad, but we've gotta watch for it. So the rules change again. Any time the monitor dips too low, you will get a legion of scrubs coming in to check everything and flip you around until we get it back up. Fill out these papers for "in case of emergency" processes.

Then we start the extra drugs to get things rolling. By things rolling I mean all of the horrible pains you've been waiting for. And nothing happens. This newest nothing continues from 9 to almost 3. Nothing. Nothing. Check the monitors. Nothing. "Are you feeling contractions?" "I guess? Sort of. They're frequent but not that big a deal".

Finally, shit gets real. Fast.

This was approximately my face for the next 7 hours

The drugs finally figured out what they were doing, and starting kicking my wife's ass up and down. Without too much detail, she goes from ~0 to 7 in a few hours. Most people do half that in that time, if they're lucky. My wife is not most people.

The problem was our "naughty" baby. Every contraction would drop his heart rate, as expected. But it's everytime. And with his cord issues, he doesn't recover quick enough. The doctors describe it as being held under water repeatedly. Basically, trying to have this baby is waterboarding him.

Docs put an internal montior on to get consistent accurate readings. Glubglub becomes beep beep. This is worse by any measure. Instead of a calming ocean kind of noise, we have a movie bomb clock ticking away that slows wayyyy down every few minutes.

Docs try flushing the cord loose. Since they had to technically break her water to get the monitor in, this process is not unheard of. It is, however, non-effective. Last ditch move is to stop the "gobabygo" drugs, to basically halt labor. Drugs stop, but they worked like they were supposed to. Labor continues. The team of known and unknown scrubs continually increases. "Hi I'm Doctor blahblah [stare at screen, nod head]".

"OK, we're going to give you a shot of this stuff. It'll stop your contractions so baby can recover. Then we'll give him a break. Not what we wanted, but we need to do it for him." [tiny shot administered] "It should take just a minute for it to kick in." I had enough time to count to 10.

1....2....Wife is calming down a little....3.....4... completely unaware Father in law is calling looking for an update and when he can come visit...5....Something seems missing in the background....6....Doctors are grimacing a little.....7......8....Nods all around....9...bars-up-bed-unplugged-door-open-masks-up-hair-nets-on-wires-disconnected-page-the-OR-You-both-stay-here-like-we-talked-about-everything-will-be-fine. Gone.



10.



I am alone in a room with my Mother in law who had stopped by to encourage my wife, and was roped into a hurricane. A nurse comes back and asks if we have a camera. Since I can't be there, she will take pictures. I love her confidence. I hand her the camera, apparently. I stay business-mode with the grandparents that aren't present. "The next phone call you get will tell you you're a grandparent. Pray until then. Don't spread word until we're done."

We wait. I eventually decide it's high time I hit the bathroom. I come out and there's nurse # 7 saying "Congrats! You're a daddy! Mom's fine. Baby's fine. Just sit tight and we'll bring him by before he goes to the nursery." In reality, this took less time than writing the last 2 paragraphs. In my mind, I now get to order off the Senior menu at Friendly's

It's this, with or without fries. That'll be $7 and 3 hours of your life.

Then I get it. Him. I get to meet him. He's not even 15 minutes old and I am holding my son. He makes faces like an angry Gollum, followed by his trademarked "wwWWAAaaahh *Squeak*. Then calmness. Cross-eyed, totally lost calmness. Then back and forth between squeak cry and look around. He is perfect. The pediatrician will even say so tomorrow, but I don't have to wait until then. I already know.

Dr. Gunter comes back and tells me a bit about the recovery process, and that Jackson came into the world screaming. To us, this is a good thing. To the medical professionals, it makes them take pause to question "did we do the right thing at the right time." I tell them clearly yes thank you yes.

The cord was looped once around his neck, and once over the side of his head like a cheap pair of headphones. It doesn't matter anymore. He's a little splotchy; most newborns are. He's a little scaley; most post-term babies are. He's a little mucus glazed; most C-sections are. But he's ours. No one else is.