Been quite some time since either of us have managed an entry, and with good reason. Our family of two is now three...everybody, please welcome Eva Jean Laurie! Kate's been working hard for the past nine-plus months, carrying the little bean, taking obsessive care of herself.
At times her anxiety would rise to levels that made her cry, however softly: she wanted so desperately to have a healthy baby, and was more conscious day by day that she was part steward, part bystander in this process where a new life weaves itself a human form and emerges.
Now we have the beautiful baby...a quiet, occasionally squidgy little girl named Eva, one who loves to sleep right on a person's chest (though she seems to prefer Kate to me so far). Without getting ahead of myself--I'm going to tell this story beginning from back in Alaska, when the birth was still in the pleasant haze of the future. But I'll share a few of my strongest impressions of the baby right now, before I begin. First, is how immediate the parental connection is. Eva came out--I was right there in the delivery room, and did better than my own joking predictions that I'd be out cold--and was the pink, shriveled prune that most babies are, and she started crying right away. And so did Kate and I. There was nothing different about Eva from virtually any other child ever born, but Katie and I both know her for ours, and that made every trait, every sound, every motion of first importance to us.
Second, now that we're home, is how much I love the sound even of the little baby's occasionally labored breathing. Babies are developing quickly, so I'm learning, and their body systems are still adjusting to being in the air, on top of being tiny and barely functional. So she often coughs and wheezes, and squirms quite a bit, and every detail of her activity endears her to me. This isn't a doting thing. It's an immediate connection, one I don't even feel with Kate because she's an adult like me, already proven she can survive for a few decades and create her own life. But it's not all protective, either...think of a human kitten. They're frail and helpless, but adorable and beautiful too. That's a baby.
Third, kind of part of the second, but a bit more particular: how happy and relieved I am when I hear her start to scramble and squall and complain at night. Every cry is preceded by a few seconds' gasping warm-up, sort of like those old-fashioned sirens which had to wind up and down before and after an alarm. And that warm-up is my first signal, after any silence, that she's doing just fine. Phantoms exist. In the high-technology, populated world, there are phantoms whose presence and power we don't deny, because we hear about them constantly in the news, and hope desperately that we'll not be visited. Cancer. Abduction. Poverty. Their effects in our minds aren't unlike old-world superstitions of the devil, and the corresponding anxious vigils we mount. And in Kate's and my case right now, the spectre of SIDS sits in the back of our minds, barely stirring, but large and malevolent. So we follow the one rule we've been taught to rely on: position the baby on its back. (Now, of course, there's the answering syndrome: Infant Flat-Head Syndrome. So word has become, position the infant, somehow, on its side...to be followed, I'd guess, by something like Infant Dislocated Shoulder Syndrome.) Anyhow, I'm rambling. Of course we fear for the survival of this little ray of sunshine in our lives, and every sign she gives us that she's ornery and strong is water to minds parched by fear.
Last, something I've touched on already, is just how EJ ramps up for a good cry. It's a whole-body process. It begins either with the eyes clenching and mouth starting to open, or with the fists clenching and starting to shake. Then the arms and legs together begin to tremble, as little Eva's whole body convulses--slowly and mildly, but there's no other word for a full-body spasm--before the trouble re-expresses itself in the face, where here eyes clench more and she begins to splutter. After a few squeaks, half-coughs and spits, a brief cry bursts out of her. A few more splutters and she's ready for full-volume production. Needless to say, thus far Kate's responding well before Eva reaches the high alarm, but on those occasions when she makes it, it's still enchanting...not to mention a relief when she settles back down.
Anyway, I need to dial this post back two weeks and two days from now, to Monday, September 7, Labor Day and the last day of the rootin' tootinest, biggest, most flabulous fair in all of Alaska...the Alaska State Fair, ten days, right there in Palmer. I missed the demolition derby, and spent most of the holiday weekend in Anchorage, either at the library or the bookstore. Monday evening Kate and I were chatting via webcam again, when she mentioned that her sister Cori, who was pregnant and due only slightly earlier than Kate herself, had begun having contractions. Cori is notorious in the family for the efficiency and ease of her (now, four! And all at home) deliveries. Implication was heavy in the air.
Not having much of a coherent emotional response, I filed it under, "Another sign that we're getting close."
Next morning, I was at work, at 9:15 AM (1:15 EDT...the four-hour difference is manageable but awkward at times), when I got a text: "1 cm dilated".
I went into a bit of a dither. Was she talking about her sister Cori or herself?
I went quickly outside and called, for clarification. "No, silly, Cori delivered last night. She always goes quickly," Katie answered on the phone. "It's me."
I didn't know anything more than the next guy about delivery, so this "dilated" stuff, sure, I could gather the meaning, but what did "1 cm" imply? She's ready to go? She's still a month off? She's in pain already and cursing my name between breaths?
"The doctor says that I could go in a few days, or a few weeks."
Oh good. That cleared things up.
So we started talking about a new plan: maybe I come home sooner, so as to be more sure I wouldn't miss the birth, and we'd take the time afterward as it came. Seemed good to both of us so I arranged in the office for the time off and the flight: out of Anchorage, potentially after a full day of work, Saturday night shortly after midnight, through Seattle and Cleveland and into Providence at 5:30 PM Sunday. I love red-eyes. Very manly (i.e. somewhat self-destructive) way to travel. So that was that.
Until Wednesday, when I got another call, that Katie's urine test that morning had shown elevated protein levels. I couldn't tell anybody what this might mean, except that the fact that it was news, probably made it bad. (Sherlock has nothing on me. I read all his books and everything.)
So that morning I learned about eclampsia, the very dangerous state where kidneys and liver don't properly remove waste from the blood. It's potentially fatal to both mother and baby, so doctors keep a sharp lookout for it. The onset is called pre-eclampsia, and it manifests through protein-rich urine and high blood pressure.
Suddenly, Katie's pregnancy was in some trouble. Not tremendous trouble: her blood pressure was still normal to low (the nurses wondered if she were an athlete--that's my bengal!), and EJ was late in term, so even an immediate C-section wouldn't require emergency incubation. She was viable already. But Katie faced the possibility of (a) a pregnancy wrecked by a sudden condition (very small), or (b) being denied the satisfaction of delivering naturally, after carrying for nearly ten months (quite a bit more likely). And it bears mentioning that there is at least some crow to be served among three competitive sisters who like showing the others how tough and capable they are.
So on numerous levels, from the deadly serious to the slightly comic, Katie suddenly had a mental cliff in front of her. It was one of my most impotent moments as a husband, hearing the concentrated fear in her voice and being able to do nothing. Not only was I thousands of miles away, but I was ignorant. And then Kate showed me what she's made of. She handled the whole situation with real intelligence, learning from the midwives and doctors what was likely to happen, and the fact that her pregnancy was not at serious risk, and hearing the likeliest courses of action. But I know my little bengal, and to abuse the image a bit, most everybody else sees the stripes, green eyes and fangs, but I feel the midnight trembles. I knew she needed company.
That was not the first time her mother came to the rescue, and drove down Thursday night to keep Katie company through Friday and Saturday's appointments and tests, and the loud countdown to whatever might follow. I already had my tickets--and was upset at myself for picking Saturday, when it turned out Friday was a perfect field day and we were done 24 hours sooner than I'd expected--so I was just waiting too. As the plan stood, Kate would have her test results by Saturday night, Eastern time, and she'd know then if the doctors wanted to bring her in on Sunday to induce her. So I faced the prospect of being picked up at the airport by my bride and mother-in-law, and being whisked off without so much as a face washing or cup of coffee to the hospital, where Kate would get down to business. The scenario had an element of romance.
At times her anxiety would rise to levels that made her cry, however softly: she wanted so desperately to have a healthy baby, and was more conscious day by day that she was part steward, part bystander in this process where a new life weaves itself a human form and emerges.
Now we have the beautiful baby...a quiet, occasionally squidgy little girl named Eva, one who loves to sleep right on a person's chest (though she seems to prefer Kate to me so far). Without getting ahead of myself--I'm going to tell this story beginning from back in Alaska, when the birth was still in the pleasant haze of the future. But I'll share a few of my strongest impressions of the baby right now, before I begin. First, is how immediate the parental connection is. Eva came out--I was right there in the delivery room, and did better than my own joking predictions that I'd be out cold--and was the pink, shriveled prune that most babies are, and she started crying right away. And so did Kate and I. There was nothing different about Eva from virtually any other child ever born, but Katie and I both know her for ours, and that made every trait, every sound, every motion of first importance to us.
Second, now that we're home, is how much I love the sound even of the little baby's occasionally labored breathing. Babies are developing quickly, so I'm learning, and their body systems are still adjusting to being in the air, on top of being tiny and barely functional. So she often coughs and wheezes, and squirms quite a bit, and every detail of her activity endears her to me. This isn't a doting thing. It's an immediate connection, one I don't even feel with Kate because she's an adult like me, already proven she can survive for a few decades and create her own life. But it's not all protective, either...think of a human kitten. They're frail and helpless, but adorable and beautiful too. That's a baby.
Third, kind of part of the second, but a bit more particular: how happy and relieved I am when I hear her start to scramble and squall and complain at night. Every cry is preceded by a few seconds' gasping warm-up, sort of like those old-fashioned sirens which had to wind up and down before and after an alarm. And that warm-up is my first signal, after any silence, that she's doing just fine. Phantoms exist. In the high-technology, populated world, there are phantoms whose presence and power we don't deny, because we hear about them constantly in the news, and hope desperately that we'll not be visited. Cancer. Abduction. Poverty. Their effects in our minds aren't unlike old-world superstitions of the devil, and the corresponding anxious vigils we mount. And in Kate's and my case right now, the spectre of SIDS sits in the back of our minds, barely stirring, but large and malevolent. So we follow the one rule we've been taught to rely on: position the baby on its back. (Now, of course, there's the answering syndrome: Infant Flat-Head Syndrome. So word has become, position the infant, somehow, on its side...to be followed, I'd guess, by something like Infant Dislocated Shoulder Syndrome.) Anyhow, I'm rambling. Of course we fear for the survival of this little ray of sunshine in our lives, and every sign she gives us that she's ornery and strong is water to minds parched by fear.
Last, something I've touched on already, is just how EJ ramps up for a good cry. It's a whole-body process. It begins either with the eyes clenching and mouth starting to open, or with the fists clenching and starting to shake. Then the arms and legs together begin to tremble, as little Eva's whole body convulses--slowly and mildly, but there's no other word for a full-body spasm--before the trouble re-expresses itself in the face, where here eyes clench more and she begins to splutter. After a few squeaks, half-coughs and spits, a brief cry bursts out of her. A few more splutters and she's ready for full-volume production. Needless to say, thus far Kate's responding well before Eva reaches the high alarm, but on those occasions when she makes it, it's still enchanting...not to mention a relief when she settles back down.
Anyway, I need to dial this post back two weeks and two days from now, to Monday, September 7, Labor Day and the last day of the rootin' tootinest, biggest, most flabulous fair in all of Alaska...the Alaska State Fair, ten days, right there in Palmer. I missed the demolition derby, and spent most of the holiday weekend in Anchorage, either at the library or the bookstore. Monday evening Kate and I were chatting via webcam again, when she mentioned that her sister Cori, who was pregnant and due only slightly earlier than Kate herself, had begun having contractions. Cori is notorious in the family for the efficiency and ease of her (now, four! And all at home) deliveries. Implication was heavy in the air.
Not having much of a coherent emotional response, I filed it under, "Another sign that we're getting close."
Next morning, I was at work, at 9:15 AM (1:15 EDT...the four-hour difference is manageable but awkward at times), when I got a text: "1 cm dilated".
I went into a bit of a dither. Was she talking about her sister Cori or herself?
I went quickly outside and called, for clarification. "No, silly, Cori delivered last night. She always goes quickly," Katie answered on the phone. "It's me."
I didn't know anything more than the next guy about delivery, so this "dilated" stuff, sure, I could gather the meaning, but what did "1 cm" imply? She's ready to go? She's still a month off? She's in pain already and cursing my name between breaths?
"The doctor says that I could go in a few days, or a few weeks."
Oh good. That cleared things up.
So we started talking about a new plan: maybe I come home sooner, so as to be more sure I wouldn't miss the birth, and we'd take the time afterward as it came. Seemed good to both of us so I arranged in the office for the time off and the flight: out of Anchorage, potentially after a full day of work, Saturday night shortly after midnight, through Seattle and Cleveland and into Providence at 5:30 PM Sunday. I love red-eyes. Very manly (i.e. somewhat self-destructive) way to travel. So that was that.
Until Wednesday, when I got another call, that Katie's urine test that morning had shown elevated protein levels. I couldn't tell anybody what this might mean, except that the fact that it was news, probably made it bad. (Sherlock has nothing on me. I read all his books and everything.)
So that morning I learned about eclampsia, the very dangerous state where kidneys and liver don't properly remove waste from the blood. It's potentially fatal to both mother and baby, so doctors keep a sharp lookout for it. The onset is called pre-eclampsia, and it manifests through protein-rich urine and high blood pressure.
Suddenly, Katie's pregnancy was in some trouble. Not tremendous trouble: her blood pressure was still normal to low (the nurses wondered if she were an athlete--that's my bengal!), and EJ was late in term, so even an immediate C-section wouldn't require emergency incubation. She was viable already. But Katie faced the possibility of (a) a pregnancy wrecked by a sudden condition (very small), or (b) being denied the satisfaction of delivering naturally, after carrying for nearly ten months (quite a bit more likely). And it bears mentioning that there is at least some crow to be served among three competitive sisters who like showing the others how tough and capable they are.
So on numerous levels, from the deadly serious to the slightly comic, Katie suddenly had a mental cliff in front of her. It was one of my most impotent moments as a husband, hearing the concentrated fear in her voice and being able to do nothing. Not only was I thousands of miles away, but I was ignorant. And then Kate showed me what she's made of. She handled the whole situation with real intelligence, learning from the midwives and doctors what was likely to happen, and the fact that her pregnancy was not at serious risk, and hearing the likeliest courses of action. But I know my little bengal, and to abuse the image a bit, most everybody else sees the stripes, green eyes and fangs, but I feel the midnight trembles. I knew she needed company.
That was not the first time her mother came to the rescue, and drove down Thursday night to keep Katie company through Friday and Saturday's appointments and tests, and the loud countdown to whatever might follow. I already had my tickets--and was upset at myself for picking Saturday, when it turned out Friday was a perfect field day and we were done 24 hours sooner than I'd expected--so I was just waiting too. As the plan stood, Kate would have her test results by Saturday night, Eastern time, and she'd know then if the doctors wanted to bring her in on Sunday to induce her. So I faced the prospect of being picked up at the airport by my bride and mother-in-law, and being whisked off without so much as a face washing or cup of coffee to the hospital, where Kate would get down to business. The scenario had an element of romance.
Late-night airport trips have a whiff, to my grandiose and occasionally mundane imagination, of the heroic. The night is impenetrable, full of mystery. He's up late, well after hours, sacrificing a night's rest to put two whole days together, sparing everyone else the tedium of the extra wait. A gallon of his blood for an ounce of their convenience.
Truth is, not so much. I talked to the cabbie for the whole nervous hour from Palmer to Anchorage, and once at the gate, sat there feeling stoned waiting for the plane to arrive. Once it did, I boarded in ill temper with the other haggard folks. There had been a generic announcement of overbooking and volunteers possibly being needed to step off and wait. A scene formed itself in my head: me being randomly selected to wait, and, what with extra books (disallowed by the airline's luggage weight limit) and heavyweight jacket (unable to be fit into the bag) making me sweat like I'd been running, me going off in outrage at the slightly taken-aback ticket agent, who would promptly call guards and have me hauled away to a holding room, with me shouting at the top of my lungs, "My wife is giving BIRTH tomorrow, and you're telling me to wait!?"
Fortunately reality was different. The plane was only half full, and I had a whole row to myself--a whole row in which to learn just how wretched a bed three airline seats make. Suffice it to say, there's neither length, width nor cushion enough to make any position comfortable. I passed the three hours from Anchorage to Seattle in various states of discomfort, with my eyes closed. At about 5 AM local, I found my way to the next gate and waited there. The question: coffee or no coffee? Rally or rest? I opted for rest.
On the next flight, five hours to Cleveland, I managed to sleep fitfully, in my middle seat, for probably a total of three hours on the day. Better than I'd expected leaving Anchorage, at least. The hop from Cleveland to Providence was comparatively quick, with a few catnaps, and some polite conversation with the man next to me, a young Texan heading up to Rhode Island for a conference on wind power. I don't think he'd been expecting to run into such an environmental egghead, though, so he turned the conversation more to the restaurants and casinos he was hoping to visit throughout the week.
That brought me to Providence, and my lovely little bengal, who can flub things endearingly from time to time. Like last February, when I'd driven up from Lafayette, Louisiana (straight shot, 25 hours. A boom-boom...whooooo doo you looo-ooo-ooovvve...boom, boom, boom, a-boom-boom. For you Thorogood fans out there). But her cell phone was dead,and she didn't get any of my text messages from New York, Connecticut or Rhode Island about how close I was getting. I arrived home to nobody but the cat, and had to call her grandmother's when I realized she wasn't here.
This time it was kind of my own doing...the flight from Cleveland had been delayed 20 minutes, so I texted her that fact. We must've made very good time in the air, though, so we landed at the scheduled time, 5:30...only Katie and her mother weren't there. They hadn't even left the condo, apparently. Since she was expecting me at 5:50, she thought that would mean more like six...so, I hung out in the terminal. At least I finally got my espresso, after collecting my luggage. I had only just finished before that familiar Toyota drove up with my dear anxious wife inside.
We didn't take long for a greeting, since we were in the loading zone, after all, and there was a general urgency to the whole situation. And besides...Katie and I never seem to stand on any ceremony. Hellos and goodbyes, except on the phone, which are always awkward and difficult, are very easy with us. I can't look at her without smiling, even if it's the last look I'll get in a while. And when it's the first look I've had in some time, it's just as easy, as if the time in between hadn't passed. That in itself isn't so strange, but the degree to which it's been true for us I've always found a bit amazing. Maybe next time, leaving Eva Jean as well, will be worse. I don't know yet.
So I tossed my stuff in the truck and we headed to Women & Infants'. We checked in, which took some amount of time but it was all a blur to me, pretty much. Up in the pre-natal/post-natal room, nurses were doing all kinds of things to Kate, most of which I forget now but included a lot of vital signs. She'd been given some pre-induction drugs to help ripen the cervix, so we were just waiting now either for contractions to pick up on their own, or to begin with the IV drug in the morning.
Since we were just sitting around, the ladies gave me permission to run home, shower, change into something less smelly and more comfortable, have a bite to eat, and not least at all, say hello to the cat. I did that, and wound up wearing something only a five-year-old boy could love: my comfortable fleece pants, bright red, white and blue plaid; my Porsche racing T-shirt; and sneakers. That's prime Saturday morning comfort wear there. Not the kind of thing you might put on to cut an elegant dash anywhere. Suffice it to say, I didn't really resemble an adult (aside from the slightly graying hair and facial stubble, that is).
Back at the hospital, it was a fairly tough night. That I could sleep at all in the fold-out chair alongside Kate's bed was testament to how exhausted I was, as I learned a week later. Kate herself was having mild contractions, and was upset enough about the entire procedure that her face was a constant mask of worry, annoyance, resignation and fear.
In the morning--and my recollection of these events is somewhat hazy--Katie walked into the delivery room, and hooked up to the IV drip for antibiotics, saline, and pitocin, the inducing drug. But then another doctor, whom we hadn't spoken to yet, showed up and laid out an extensive course of reasoning for why the hospital staff was now considering stopping the inducement. I'd basically fallen asleep in the chair beside Katie. I figured that I was still butt-tired, and when the time came for me to rally, I would. Until then, I snoozed, holding her hand, and she snoozed too. (I'd like to think I relaxed her, but I didn't ask.)
After the doctor, a midwife came in, defended their earlier decision to induce, and probed to see Katie's progress--causing Kate so much pain that tears were sliding down her face as she begged the midwife to stop. "You're far enough along, we should induce. And if that hurt so much, you'll definitely want an epidural."
At this point I could feel the defeat in Katie's demeanor: this had turned into everything she'd hoped it wouldn't, a coldhearted, industrial nightmare. No windows, a parade of unfamiliar faces spouting all kinds of information, and Katie herself merely the inert subject, being talked at and not to. The mother had been separated in the medical staff's minds from the welfare of her own baby. It's safe to say this isn't how the little bengal had spent nine months imagining the birth of her baby daughter would go.
Another nurse--a kindhearted and somewhat impulsive woman, who spoke her heart--came back in and expressed her outrage at this back-and-forth indecisiveness. The inducement was now off, the drugs had been disconnected and only the saline was running through the IV. The nurse removed all the now-unneeded tubes and left us three sitting there, angry and frustrated. Then Katie's mom made a fateful remark: "You should just pull the IV out of your arm and leave."
It wasn't long before words were action.
Perhaps twenty minutes of sitting alone in the delivery room, with no visits by any staff, had brought all of our anger to a much hotter degree. So Katie stood up and grimaced while I pulled the medical tape off her forearm, and then pulled the needle from her vein. Only we hadn't planned on how much the puncture would bleed afterward, and I stood cupping the red stuff in my two hands as Kate's mom ran for some paper towels. We contained the bleed, wiped up the floor, and got the mess cleaned up before Katie took the next step: popped her head out the door and called loudly for a nurse.
When they realized she'd pulled the IV from her arm they got a lot more attentive, and within moments we were surrounded by a crowd of doctors and nurses with forms and instructions and apologies. The gist: they overreacted on the pre-eclampsia, and should never have tried to induce two weeks before the due date, which is still too soon. I was still kind of bleary but Katie's and her mother's anger pretty much powered the whole "let's-get-the-release-forms-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here" animus, and we were on our way soon after that.
We got home, dropped our bags, and Katie went upstairs for a good quality cry. I can't claim to know what she was thinking or feeling, but I think the frustration, the stress, and the exhaustion got the better of her, as well as the apprehension that she still might need to go through something that demeaning again. But once the wave of energy had passed and she'd relaxed, I realized that (a) we hadn't had more than a few harried minutes to ourselves since I'd come home, and we hadn't been together at all since July; and (b) I hadn't eaten good food in several days at least. So I thought, damn the budget. We both need a night out.
Our favorite, a little local place that serves autentico 'taliano, Sergio's, was closed. Somewhat at a loss, we turned north, and without much premeditation or clue of any sort, decided on a somewhat upscale place in East Greenwich, Meritage. (And no, I don't mean to make this blog seem like a commercial. But I do believe in steering friends and family toward places I like.) Anyway, this restaurant had a similar ambiance to where we'd had our first date, and it was a pretty good antidote to the day just past. I managed to get some smiles and laughs out of her, and by the end of the dinner the day's cares had lifted off and floated away. We were back to our sometimes dreamy demeanor with each other by the time we left.
Whatever was to come in the days ahead, we'd greet together, composedly, with Katie having gained quite a bit of confidence in her own sensibility. She wouldn't be hounded a second time into decisions she didn't agree with.
The rest of the week passed quietly enough. The four-hour time difference, and horrible two nights' sleep, left me out of sorts for three days, and I got some schoolwork done--not much, but some. Kate had several clinic appointments, to monitor her blood and overall health. The elevated protein level, the cause for the original alarm, was still present and still cause for observation at least. Her primary midwife, Fiona, was very apologetic for the entire weekend's debacle, and her own role in it, of having called the first alarm. But her reasoning seemed sound: the protein count implied strongly that the onset of pre-eclampsia would eventually become actual pre-eclampsia, so it was wise to try to anticipate that and induce.
This was hard to deny, so once Kate had digested all the medical data and timelines and my own back-to-work schedules she made up her mind: if the doctors would let her walk around the delivery room, as opposed to lying helplessly on the bed, she'd agree to be induced on Monday, provided she hadn't delivered by then. If the doctors refused that, then to hell with them, and she'd continue carrying to term. Our next deadline was Sunday morning, an appointment with one of the midwife team at Women & Infants'.
We'd gone out on another date Friday. This one kind of evolved. Kate had suggested going to see Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, a computer animation of a children's book that I'd said I wanted to watch (in one of my semi-conscious moments at the hospital, apparently). Plus, we both lusted for some food at Sergio's. So dinner and a movie...of course, we were the only adults in the theater who weren't chaperoning a group of kids, but so what. And it just so turned out, that we saw a very important preview...
I'm a big Roald Dahl fan. He's written all kinds of things. Sexual thrillers, horror, suspense, children's stories and children's novels...like Poe, and even more than Stephen King, he's a writer gifted with a terrifically strange imagination who shows much different forms of fantasy have in common, and how slight the differences can be. In Poe's case, science fiction, mystery, and horror. In Dahl's case, thrillers, horror and children's books. It would be no tremendous stretch to turn the premise of James and the Giant Peach into a genuinely blood-curdling tale...and one of my favorites, Danny the Champion of the World, features the hero Danny's father being shot, arrested and thrown in prison for poaching. Tinges of darkness...but my favorite is Fantastic Mr. Fox.
I mean, come on. Is there a cooler fictional animal than the fox? Debonair, cunning, courageous, always a step ahead...foxes just rule. (They come off as kind of snivelly and weak when lions are around, but to hell with the lions. They're mostly bombastic oafs anyway.) So...Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'd mentioned to Kate and her mom that this book, in light of all the comic and children's books being made into feature-length films these days, was just screaming to be made into a movie. (And of course I'm not going to spoil the plot!)
Of course I was thrilled to see the preview trailer. I like the animation style, too: stop-frame models, like in the old Christmas claymations. December this year. The Sutherland family will be going (well, maybe Eva will stay home with a babysitter, but we'll work that out later). So we watched the Meatballs movie, and then after a coffee and dessert, I was feeling the caffeine and the fox thing and so I suggested to Kate that we ramble on up to the bookstore and hunt for kids' books. She agreed (we also stopped to pick up some castor oil, in case she wanted to try Fiona's suggestion for a do-it-yourself version of inducement...the unopened bottle is still sitting on the kitchen counter). After browsing the kids' section we came away with Katie's favorite Chris Van Allsburg book, one or two others, and my Fantastic Mr. Fox. Good news...
...so I read half to her that night, until her eyes closed. Saturday was quiet, and I finished reading to her that night. Next morning we were both hoping would bring the start of Eva's journey to us.
We went to bed at two, I'd set the alarm for eight, and when it rang I turned it off and rolled back over. Appointment, schmappointment...the midwife would be there all day. No need to be early...when Kate got herself out of bed at 8:30 and headed into the bathroom, I knew something was up. I can count on one hand the number of days she's beaten me out of bed.
When she emerged from the shower she told me, "I'm having contractions...and I felt some motion last night that I hadn't felt before. I think this might be it."
I'd already hit the panic button once in Palmer, Alaska, so this time I was a bit more sane. No need to hurry or be a fool, but no time to dawdle either. We were both ready to go by about 9:30, and out we went. After picking up my obligatory morning coffee (she wanted nothing, another hopeful sign) we headed on up to the hospital.
Once in the examination room, the midwife on call, Amy, walked in, asked a few questions, and did an inspection. "Five centimeters dilated, 90% effaced. Today's the day."
Having been through one false alarm, I wasn't going to let myself fly off the handle, but I felt a surge of energy. I can't imagine what Katie felt (on top of the increasing strength of the contractions, that is). She walked into the delivery room--looking quite cute in her johnny and white Nikes--and we settled in.
At this point, I needed to know if it was time for me to get my hopes way up too, and when I asked one of the nurses, she answered, "Today is absolutely the day." So I called Kate's mom (it was about 11:30), told her to get here ASAP, and got ready to work.
Kate had her choice of lying on the bed, or standing up, or using the birthing ball (known as exercise balls at gyms--those big, heavy-duty beach balls that people contort themselves on). A few nurses came in with Amy, and told us what was going to happen: basically, Katie's own body would conduct everything, and the rest of us were there to keep an eye out and give her encouragement (my job in particular was the encouragement).
And then they abandoned us. Well, not abandoned us, totally. But they had other women getting ready to deliver too, obviously, and lots of work to do besides hover over us. Besides, the whole premise of midwives' work is to leave the birth in the control of the mother, so that's what they did. "Talk to me, babe, tell me I can do it," Kate asked, fairly early on. Amy concurred immediately, so I began a quiet, persistent stream of "Breathe deep, that's it, you can do it...just like your mother said, one contraction at at time...just get through this one...doing great, babe..."
I mean, what else could I say? Katie was now in hard labor and I had no idea what she was going through actually felt like, but I could see the stress in her face and in her whole posture, and the monitors hooked up to her told me that the muscle activity was getting steadily more powerful...I could rub her back, and try to egg her on like a runner staggering through the last of a marathon, but I really didn't have a very good clue as to how she was doing. So I just kept at it and hoped for the best.
Amy had mentioned perhaps twenty or thirty times that going into the jacuzzi would help initiate the final pushing stage. After moving between standing and sitting on the ball five or six times, and with me murmuring the same encouragements over and over into her ear for about three hours, Kate let us know that she was ready for the hot tub. So she shuffled slowly in, sat down in the water, and waited. It took only about three contractions, I guess (so she told me), before she announced that she was ready to push. (I might mention here that the nearly three hours between Katie's walking into the delivery room, and out again to the jacuzzi, felt more like five minutes. It passed by with serious speed.)
So out she came again, none too quickly of course, but moving gradually back to the big, brightly windowed delivery room. We had about eight attentive nurses surrounding us (childbirth is their mission in work, clearly), and Kate lay down on the bed, painfully and carefully, ready for the home stretch.
It was about quarter to three, and I was starting to think that her mother might not make it in time, but would arrive to see her granddaughter already bundled up, crying and lying on her daughter's chest. The midwife and nurse were right there now, telling Kate to push, while I stood at her left side, helping hold her knees wide and up adjacent to her ribs, to open the pelvis and help her push. And with each contraction, she began pushing.
Kate's mother walked in cheerfully now, chatting briefly with the nurses before she came over to Kate, asked how things were going, and assumed her position next to the midwife. Her mom now gave some advice of her own, as Kate began groaning with the next push: "Push down with that breath! Don't let it out with a noise, use it to push the baby out!" So Kate quieted down immediately and kept working.
This was my first real surprise of the whole process: subtract the pain that every guy hears about (repeatedly, for our whole entire life long), subtract the anticipation of a young child about to emerge and draw its first breaths, and in the mother, you're left with sheer determination. I was a little stunned--not because I didn't think she had it, but because I didn't realize how major a part in giving birth it plays. I was a little stunned at the hardness of the resolve in Kate's face. There was nothing there but will to finish the work. Her jaw was clenched and jutting out, her eyes were wide open, just a little narrowed, and there were no furrows of worry on her brow: her facial expression was clear and hard.
My little tiger at work.
She didn't make every push in silence, though. She'd give a cry now and then, spasmodically, which reminded me that, yes, she was also in very real pain. But she kept going, and soon the midwife announced, "I can see the head! Oh, it's got a lot of hair!"
Now, of course, the midwife is a pro at this, so she had a much more practiced eye than I did. I looked, and I can say honestly that I couldn't find the skull or the hair she was talking about. But, I figured I'd see it soon enough, so I turned my attention back to Katie. I also availed myself of a moment between contractions to snap a few photos of her face (risking being killed for it later, but so be it). I just needed to preserve that look of resolution. While it's in her character, and not always too far from the surface, it rarely shows itself in such pure, brilliant form. So I snapped the photos (but they're not going in the blog...I'd really deserve to be hurt for that).
A few pushes later, I really could see the top of the head. Katie was crying out more often now. The midwife was trying to help pull the baby out, but there wasn't enough for her to get a grip on. Kate barked out, "Get it out of me!" The midwife's immediate answer, "Push it out!"
No coach could challenge an athlete more directly than that. Not in football, not in hockey, not in a weightroom. Kate had no choice, so she kept on pushing. She made the same yell a few more times, and Amy had the same answer. "It's about to turn the corner," one nurse said, "one more push and she'll be on her way out."
I really had no clue what I was talking about, but I was saying things like "One more push, babe! Just one more and she'll be with us!...she's almost here...I can see her...you're almost done!" I was starting to get pretty emotional myself. I didn't want this pain to continue, especially since the baby was partway out...with the next push, the head finally emerged.
Man, that thing was huge. This was my second big surprise. The little bit of skull I'd seen earlier, when Amy began trying to assist, was only the top. The whole head looked like the Alien, long, narrow and bean-shaped, wet of course and covered with a mat of dark hair. The whole baby followed almost immediately, and seconds later she began to cry. I leaned down to Kate and whispered, "You did it, babe, she's finally here," and we both bawled.
Now Eva kind of resembled a bright-red prune when she came out, and her hands especially looked like she'd just taken a four-hour bath (they still kind of do, actually). Her eyes were swollen shut. So when one nurse said, not more than ten seconds after Eva had come out, "She looks just like her father," I said, "Yeah, sure, when I've just woken up," but the consensus of everyone so far is that she looks just like me. I guess.
I mean, what is it with women and identifying facial features in babies? I see two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears and hair. What's to tell? She's still so small. Her skull is still soft--it's not even a complete skull yet, for cripes' sake. And they can already tell that she looks just like me? I mean, I'll take it on faith that it's a compliment, and they are talking about my daughter, and I don't care what she looks like--but I just have no idea.
We both cried, not for long, but still a real squall of tears. I'd thought at times that Eva's birth would be for me an answer to Mom's and Dad's death, a catharsis from pain to joy, and I'd cry for ten or twenty minutes. Not so. Grief isn't anything close to being so simple. Emotional processes like that overlap and tangle themselves in our lives, for as long as we live. So the joy and relief of having a new child is simply that, joy and relief for the new child. It removes none of the grief of things before. Silly that I'd thought it might be otherwise...
Of course, birth doesn't end with the emergence of the child. There's the umbilical cord, the placenta and the blood. The nurses clipped off the umbilical cord, handed me a pair of scissors, and told me where to cut. It was kind of like cutting a wet shoelace--not difficult, but a little tougher than you'd expect at first--and that was that. Amy was tending to the placenta as the nurse put a freshly wiped-down Eva on her chest. And so we celebrated our new baby...
...but Amy was having trouble with the placenta. The cord had come detached, and Katie's pushing wasn't accomplishing much. So here Amy showed her colors as a pro. She reached in and began feeling for it, to pull it out. Kate barked again, begging her to stop, but Amy disregarded her and kept working. For about twenty seconds Amy kept at it, and when she'd finally drawn it out, inspected it and looked very dissatisfied. "It's not good that the cord came detached. I think some of the placenta is still in the uterus, and that will be a problem."
As I was told, any remaining placenta on the uterus wall is basically an open spigot for blood. It would be an almost surely fatal condition to leave it, so Amy called for the doctor, saying it was an emergency.
I'm no stranger to death or trauma (not as used to it as my sister Lisa the physician's assistant, but I've had my experiences). So the midwife calling "Emergency!" raised my eyebrows, but that was all. I could see Kate, her complexion still healthy, still bathed in the joy of giving birth to Eva, and the nurses around us, all tending to one task or another. I didn't see echoes of Amy's alarm in anyone else. The thought occurred to me--not for the first time--that I might lose my little bengal, and have to raise Eva on my own, with her being my best living reminder of the woman I loved.
But I never at any moment seriously feared that, because both Kate and the other nurses seemed too composed. Doctor Tetrault came in, said the situation was common enough and could be remedied by, essentially, vacuuming out the uterus. "It's a five-minute procedure," she said, "and once we're done, and Kate has sensation again in her feet, we'll bring her up to the recovery room."
So they wheeled Katie to OR, and put Eva into a rolling bassinet to bring her up to the nursery. Kate's mom and I followed, and once on the sixth floor, I tried walking right into the nursery too, but the nurse stopped me. "We don't allow family members in. We'll tag her, and you'll see that her number matches the number on your wristband. If you'd like to watch, you can walk around to the windows on the other side."
I didn't want to be any more than two feet away from my daughter, but the nurse seemed pretty believable so I walked around and watched as they unwrapped the blankets from around her, sprinkled water on her and rinsed off her head and chest, and wrapped her up again. I saw her face crinkle and her mouth open as she was getting her bath, but then grow calm again once she was wrapped up and placed in an incubator.
Kate's mom and I waited in the recovery room, and about an hour later, Kate herself was wheeled in, not drugged up like I'd feared, but weary and happy. Soon after that Eva was brought in to join us, a tiny little package with a pink ski cap and a red face. She was quiet, as she lay on Kate's chest...then Kate tried to breastfeed her, just to get started and give the baby some colostrom.
Right from the start, Eva latched on with no difficulty or hesitation. Now I can see Sutherland resemblance in that: a big mouth, and no problems with bodily functions. (That too is still the case...it's become one of Katie's favorite jibes, that Eva Jean is definitely my daughter.)
Only problem was, once Katie stopped, Eva missed it...I got my first practice calming a squalling baby. And maybe Eva's pretty easy, but she settled down very quickly once I picked her up, nestled her in my forearms and bounced her ever so slightly up and down. That was immensely reassuring, that I could do something to comfort my own baby.
Since most of our readers are veterans of the kid process themselves, they won't be surprised that I'm dwelling on the details like this--in fact, I could go much further in. But if you haven't been through the process yourself, even as one of the professionals helping, then you probably don't have the emotional recognition of it, the physical memory of how important, and amazing, each moment is.
My mother told me once that seeing a baby born would make anyone believe in God. I don't share that belief, but I do believe that birth is the most awe-inspiring thing I've ever witnessed. The months of anticipation, the building anxiety, the intensity and effort and pain of the birth itself, and the overwhelming sense of peace and calm afterward, make every other experience in life pale in comparison.
I'm not denigrating the rest of life: it's full of passion, triumph and defeat, and plenty of work and anticipation as well: but life begetting life is why we're here. All our thoughts, all our ideas, all our philosophies, sciences and histories, are trappings draped on existence itself. An Indian mystic might tell me that I have it backwards, that existence is the veil draped on thought. And the mystic might be right. But in either case, the thought is formless without the existence...and when you've participated in bringing a new, breathing life into the world, and you've helped prolong existence...it's a lifelong memory.
And if you're like me, you become a bit of a doting fool.
I guess I'll leave the follow-up either for a later post, or untold. This one's long enough, a record of what led up to the Sutherland family of two becoming three. From now on, it's Eva's story too...
Truth is, not so much. I talked to the cabbie for the whole nervous hour from Palmer to Anchorage, and once at the gate, sat there feeling stoned waiting for the plane to arrive. Once it did, I boarded in ill temper with the other haggard folks. There had been a generic announcement of overbooking and volunteers possibly being needed to step off and wait. A scene formed itself in my head: me being randomly selected to wait, and, what with extra books (disallowed by the airline's luggage weight limit) and heavyweight jacket (unable to be fit into the bag) making me sweat like I'd been running, me going off in outrage at the slightly taken-aback ticket agent, who would promptly call guards and have me hauled away to a holding room, with me shouting at the top of my lungs, "My wife is giving BIRTH tomorrow, and you're telling me to wait!?"
Fortunately reality was different. The plane was only half full, and I had a whole row to myself--a whole row in which to learn just how wretched a bed three airline seats make. Suffice it to say, there's neither length, width nor cushion enough to make any position comfortable. I passed the three hours from Anchorage to Seattle in various states of discomfort, with my eyes closed. At about 5 AM local, I found my way to the next gate and waited there. The question: coffee or no coffee? Rally or rest? I opted for rest.
On the next flight, five hours to Cleveland, I managed to sleep fitfully, in my middle seat, for probably a total of three hours on the day. Better than I'd expected leaving Anchorage, at least. The hop from Cleveland to Providence was comparatively quick, with a few catnaps, and some polite conversation with the man next to me, a young Texan heading up to Rhode Island for a conference on wind power. I don't think he'd been expecting to run into such an environmental egghead, though, so he turned the conversation more to the restaurants and casinos he was hoping to visit throughout the week.
That brought me to Providence, and my lovely little bengal, who can flub things endearingly from time to time. Like last February, when I'd driven up from Lafayette, Louisiana (straight shot, 25 hours. A boom-boom...whooooo doo you looo-ooo-ooovvve...boom, boom, boom, a-boom-boom. For you Thorogood fans out there). But her cell phone was dead,and she didn't get any of my text messages from New York, Connecticut or Rhode Island about how close I was getting. I arrived home to nobody but the cat, and had to call her grandmother's when I realized she wasn't here.
This time it was kind of my own doing...the flight from Cleveland had been delayed 20 minutes, so I texted her that fact. We must've made very good time in the air, though, so we landed at the scheduled time, 5:30...only Katie and her mother weren't there. They hadn't even left the condo, apparently. Since she was expecting me at 5:50, she thought that would mean more like six...so, I hung out in the terminal. At least I finally got my espresso, after collecting my luggage. I had only just finished before that familiar Toyota drove up with my dear anxious wife inside.
We didn't take long for a greeting, since we were in the loading zone, after all, and there was a general urgency to the whole situation. And besides...Katie and I never seem to stand on any ceremony. Hellos and goodbyes, except on the phone, which are always awkward and difficult, are very easy with us. I can't look at her without smiling, even if it's the last look I'll get in a while. And when it's the first look I've had in some time, it's just as easy, as if the time in between hadn't passed. That in itself isn't so strange, but the degree to which it's been true for us I've always found a bit amazing. Maybe next time, leaving Eva Jean as well, will be worse. I don't know yet.
So I tossed my stuff in the truck and we headed to Women & Infants'. We checked in, which took some amount of time but it was all a blur to me, pretty much. Up in the pre-natal/post-natal room, nurses were doing all kinds of things to Kate, most of which I forget now but included a lot of vital signs. She'd been given some pre-induction drugs to help ripen the cervix, so we were just waiting now either for contractions to pick up on their own, or to begin with the IV drug in the morning.
Since we were just sitting around, the ladies gave me permission to run home, shower, change into something less smelly and more comfortable, have a bite to eat, and not least at all, say hello to the cat. I did that, and wound up wearing something only a five-year-old boy could love: my comfortable fleece pants, bright red, white and blue plaid; my Porsche racing T-shirt; and sneakers. That's prime Saturday morning comfort wear there. Not the kind of thing you might put on to cut an elegant dash anywhere. Suffice it to say, I didn't really resemble an adult (aside from the slightly graying hair and facial stubble, that is).
Back at the hospital, it was a fairly tough night. That I could sleep at all in the fold-out chair alongside Kate's bed was testament to how exhausted I was, as I learned a week later. Kate herself was having mild contractions, and was upset enough about the entire procedure that her face was a constant mask of worry, annoyance, resignation and fear.
In the morning--and my recollection of these events is somewhat hazy--Katie walked into the delivery room, and hooked up to the IV drip for antibiotics, saline, and pitocin, the inducing drug. But then another doctor, whom we hadn't spoken to yet, showed up and laid out an extensive course of reasoning for why the hospital staff was now considering stopping the inducement. I'd basically fallen asleep in the chair beside Katie. I figured that I was still butt-tired, and when the time came for me to rally, I would. Until then, I snoozed, holding her hand, and she snoozed too. (I'd like to think I relaxed her, but I didn't ask.)
After the doctor, a midwife came in, defended their earlier decision to induce, and probed to see Katie's progress--causing Kate so much pain that tears were sliding down her face as she begged the midwife to stop. "You're far enough along, we should induce. And if that hurt so much, you'll definitely want an epidural."
At this point I could feel the defeat in Katie's demeanor: this had turned into everything she'd hoped it wouldn't, a coldhearted, industrial nightmare. No windows, a parade of unfamiliar faces spouting all kinds of information, and Katie herself merely the inert subject, being talked at and not to. The mother had been separated in the medical staff's minds from the welfare of her own baby. It's safe to say this isn't how the little bengal had spent nine months imagining the birth of her baby daughter would go.
Another nurse--a kindhearted and somewhat impulsive woman, who spoke her heart--came back in and expressed her outrage at this back-and-forth indecisiveness. The inducement was now off, the drugs had been disconnected and only the saline was running through the IV. The nurse removed all the now-unneeded tubes and left us three sitting there, angry and frustrated. Then Katie's mom made a fateful remark: "You should just pull the IV out of your arm and leave."
It wasn't long before words were action.
Perhaps twenty minutes of sitting alone in the delivery room, with no visits by any staff, had brought all of our anger to a much hotter degree. So Katie stood up and grimaced while I pulled the medical tape off her forearm, and then pulled the needle from her vein. Only we hadn't planned on how much the puncture would bleed afterward, and I stood cupping the red stuff in my two hands as Kate's mom ran for some paper towels. We contained the bleed, wiped up the floor, and got the mess cleaned up before Katie took the next step: popped her head out the door and called loudly for a nurse.
When they realized she'd pulled the IV from her arm they got a lot more attentive, and within moments we were surrounded by a crowd of doctors and nurses with forms and instructions and apologies. The gist: they overreacted on the pre-eclampsia, and should never have tried to induce two weeks before the due date, which is still too soon. I was still kind of bleary but Katie's and her mother's anger pretty much powered the whole "let's-get-the-release-forms-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here" animus, and we were on our way soon after that.
We got home, dropped our bags, and Katie went upstairs for a good quality cry. I can't claim to know what she was thinking or feeling, but I think the frustration, the stress, and the exhaustion got the better of her, as well as the apprehension that she still might need to go through something that demeaning again. But once the wave of energy had passed and she'd relaxed, I realized that (a) we hadn't had more than a few harried minutes to ourselves since I'd come home, and we hadn't been together at all since July; and (b) I hadn't eaten good food in several days at least. So I thought, damn the budget. We both need a night out.
Our favorite, a little local place that serves autentico 'taliano, Sergio's, was closed. Somewhat at a loss, we turned north, and without much premeditation or clue of any sort, decided on a somewhat upscale place in East Greenwich, Meritage. (And no, I don't mean to make this blog seem like a commercial. But I do believe in steering friends and family toward places I like.) Anyway, this restaurant had a similar ambiance to where we'd had our first date, and it was a pretty good antidote to the day just past. I managed to get some smiles and laughs out of her, and by the end of the dinner the day's cares had lifted off and floated away. We were back to our sometimes dreamy demeanor with each other by the time we left.
Whatever was to come in the days ahead, we'd greet together, composedly, with Katie having gained quite a bit of confidence in her own sensibility. She wouldn't be hounded a second time into decisions she didn't agree with.
The rest of the week passed quietly enough. The four-hour time difference, and horrible two nights' sleep, left me out of sorts for three days, and I got some schoolwork done--not much, but some. Kate had several clinic appointments, to monitor her blood and overall health. The elevated protein level, the cause for the original alarm, was still present and still cause for observation at least. Her primary midwife, Fiona, was very apologetic for the entire weekend's debacle, and her own role in it, of having called the first alarm. But her reasoning seemed sound: the protein count implied strongly that the onset of pre-eclampsia would eventually become actual pre-eclampsia, so it was wise to try to anticipate that and induce.
This was hard to deny, so once Kate had digested all the medical data and timelines and my own back-to-work schedules she made up her mind: if the doctors would let her walk around the delivery room, as opposed to lying helplessly on the bed, she'd agree to be induced on Monday, provided she hadn't delivered by then. If the doctors refused that, then to hell with them, and she'd continue carrying to term. Our next deadline was Sunday morning, an appointment with one of the midwife team at Women & Infants'.
We'd gone out on another date Friday. This one kind of evolved. Kate had suggested going to see Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, a computer animation of a children's book that I'd said I wanted to watch (in one of my semi-conscious moments at the hospital, apparently). Plus, we both lusted for some food at Sergio's. So dinner and a movie...of course, we were the only adults in the theater who weren't chaperoning a group of kids, but so what. And it just so turned out, that we saw a very important preview...
I'm a big Roald Dahl fan. He's written all kinds of things. Sexual thrillers, horror, suspense, children's stories and children's novels...like Poe, and even more than Stephen King, he's a writer gifted with a terrifically strange imagination who shows much different forms of fantasy have in common, and how slight the differences can be. In Poe's case, science fiction, mystery, and horror. In Dahl's case, thrillers, horror and children's books. It would be no tremendous stretch to turn the premise of James and the Giant Peach into a genuinely blood-curdling tale...and one of my favorites, Danny the Champion of the World, features the hero Danny's father being shot, arrested and thrown in prison for poaching. Tinges of darkness...but my favorite is Fantastic Mr. Fox.
I mean, come on. Is there a cooler fictional animal than the fox? Debonair, cunning, courageous, always a step ahead...foxes just rule. (They come off as kind of snivelly and weak when lions are around, but to hell with the lions. They're mostly bombastic oafs anyway.) So...Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'd mentioned to Kate and her mom that this book, in light of all the comic and children's books being made into feature-length films these days, was just screaming to be made into a movie. (And of course I'm not going to spoil the plot!)
Of course I was thrilled to see the preview trailer. I like the animation style, too: stop-frame models, like in the old Christmas claymations. December this year. The Sutherland family will be going (well, maybe Eva will stay home with a babysitter, but we'll work that out later). So we watched the Meatballs movie, and then after a coffee and dessert, I was feeling the caffeine and the fox thing and so I suggested to Kate that we ramble on up to the bookstore and hunt for kids' books. She agreed (we also stopped to pick up some castor oil, in case she wanted to try Fiona's suggestion for a do-it-yourself version of inducement...the unopened bottle is still sitting on the kitchen counter). After browsing the kids' section we came away with Katie's favorite Chris Van Allsburg book, one or two others, and my Fantastic Mr. Fox. Good news...
...so I read half to her that night, until her eyes closed. Saturday was quiet, and I finished reading to her that night. Next morning we were both hoping would bring the start of Eva's journey to us.
We went to bed at two, I'd set the alarm for eight, and when it rang I turned it off and rolled back over. Appointment, schmappointment...the midwife would be there all day. No need to be early...when Kate got herself out of bed at 8:30 and headed into the bathroom, I knew something was up. I can count on one hand the number of days she's beaten me out of bed.
When she emerged from the shower she told me, "I'm having contractions...and I felt some motion last night that I hadn't felt before. I think this might be it."
I'd already hit the panic button once in Palmer, Alaska, so this time I was a bit more sane. No need to hurry or be a fool, but no time to dawdle either. We were both ready to go by about 9:30, and out we went. After picking up my obligatory morning coffee (she wanted nothing, another hopeful sign) we headed on up to the hospital.
Once in the examination room, the midwife on call, Amy, walked in, asked a few questions, and did an inspection. "Five centimeters dilated, 90% effaced. Today's the day."
Having been through one false alarm, I wasn't going to let myself fly off the handle, but I felt a surge of energy. I can't imagine what Katie felt (on top of the increasing strength of the contractions, that is). She walked into the delivery room--looking quite cute in her johnny and white Nikes--and we settled in.
At this point, I needed to know if it was time for me to get my hopes way up too, and when I asked one of the nurses, she answered, "Today is absolutely the day." So I called Kate's mom (it was about 11:30), told her to get here ASAP, and got ready to work.
Kate had her choice of lying on the bed, or standing up, or using the birthing ball (known as exercise balls at gyms--those big, heavy-duty beach balls that people contort themselves on). A few nurses came in with Amy, and told us what was going to happen: basically, Katie's own body would conduct everything, and the rest of us were there to keep an eye out and give her encouragement (my job in particular was the encouragement).
And then they abandoned us. Well, not abandoned us, totally. But they had other women getting ready to deliver too, obviously, and lots of work to do besides hover over us. Besides, the whole premise of midwives' work is to leave the birth in the control of the mother, so that's what they did. "Talk to me, babe, tell me I can do it," Kate asked, fairly early on. Amy concurred immediately, so I began a quiet, persistent stream of "Breathe deep, that's it, you can do it...just like your mother said, one contraction at at time...just get through this one...doing great, babe..."
I mean, what else could I say? Katie was now in hard labor and I had no idea what she was going through actually felt like, but I could see the stress in her face and in her whole posture, and the monitors hooked up to her told me that the muscle activity was getting steadily more powerful...I could rub her back, and try to egg her on like a runner staggering through the last of a marathon, but I really didn't have a very good clue as to how she was doing. So I just kept at it and hoped for the best.
Amy had mentioned perhaps twenty or thirty times that going into the jacuzzi would help initiate the final pushing stage. After moving between standing and sitting on the ball five or six times, and with me murmuring the same encouragements over and over into her ear for about three hours, Kate let us know that she was ready for the hot tub. So she shuffled slowly in, sat down in the water, and waited. It took only about three contractions, I guess (so she told me), before she announced that she was ready to push. (I might mention here that the nearly three hours between Katie's walking into the delivery room, and out again to the jacuzzi, felt more like five minutes. It passed by with serious speed.)
So out she came again, none too quickly of course, but moving gradually back to the big, brightly windowed delivery room. We had about eight attentive nurses surrounding us (childbirth is their mission in work, clearly), and Kate lay down on the bed, painfully and carefully, ready for the home stretch.
It was about quarter to three, and I was starting to think that her mother might not make it in time, but would arrive to see her granddaughter already bundled up, crying and lying on her daughter's chest. The midwife and nurse were right there now, telling Kate to push, while I stood at her left side, helping hold her knees wide and up adjacent to her ribs, to open the pelvis and help her push. And with each contraction, she began pushing.
Kate's mother walked in cheerfully now, chatting briefly with the nurses before she came over to Kate, asked how things were going, and assumed her position next to the midwife. Her mom now gave some advice of her own, as Kate began groaning with the next push: "Push down with that breath! Don't let it out with a noise, use it to push the baby out!" So Kate quieted down immediately and kept working.
This was my first real surprise of the whole process: subtract the pain that every guy hears about (repeatedly, for our whole entire life long), subtract the anticipation of a young child about to emerge and draw its first breaths, and in the mother, you're left with sheer determination. I was a little stunned--not because I didn't think she had it, but because I didn't realize how major a part in giving birth it plays. I was a little stunned at the hardness of the resolve in Kate's face. There was nothing there but will to finish the work. Her jaw was clenched and jutting out, her eyes were wide open, just a little narrowed, and there were no furrows of worry on her brow: her facial expression was clear and hard.
My little tiger at work.
She didn't make every push in silence, though. She'd give a cry now and then, spasmodically, which reminded me that, yes, she was also in very real pain. But she kept going, and soon the midwife announced, "I can see the head! Oh, it's got a lot of hair!"
Now, of course, the midwife is a pro at this, so she had a much more practiced eye than I did. I looked, and I can say honestly that I couldn't find the skull or the hair she was talking about. But, I figured I'd see it soon enough, so I turned my attention back to Katie. I also availed myself of a moment between contractions to snap a few photos of her face (risking being killed for it later, but so be it). I just needed to preserve that look of resolution. While it's in her character, and not always too far from the surface, it rarely shows itself in such pure, brilliant form. So I snapped the photos (but they're not going in the blog...I'd really deserve to be hurt for that).
A few pushes later, I really could see the top of the head. Katie was crying out more often now. The midwife was trying to help pull the baby out, but there wasn't enough for her to get a grip on. Kate barked out, "Get it out of me!" The midwife's immediate answer, "Push it out!"
No coach could challenge an athlete more directly than that. Not in football, not in hockey, not in a weightroom. Kate had no choice, so she kept on pushing. She made the same yell a few more times, and Amy had the same answer. "It's about to turn the corner," one nurse said, "one more push and she'll be on her way out."
I really had no clue what I was talking about, but I was saying things like "One more push, babe! Just one more and she'll be with us!...she's almost here...I can see her...you're almost done!" I was starting to get pretty emotional myself. I didn't want this pain to continue, especially since the baby was partway out...with the next push, the head finally emerged.
Man, that thing was huge. This was my second big surprise. The little bit of skull I'd seen earlier, when Amy began trying to assist, was only the top. The whole head looked like the Alien, long, narrow and bean-shaped, wet of course and covered with a mat of dark hair. The whole baby followed almost immediately, and seconds later she began to cry. I leaned down to Kate and whispered, "You did it, babe, she's finally here," and we both bawled.
Now Eva kind of resembled a bright-red prune when she came out, and her hands especially looked like she'd just taken a four-hour bath (they still kind of do, actually). Her eyes were swollen shut. So when one nurse said, not more than ten seconds after Eva had come out, "She looks just like her father," I said, "Yeah, sure, when I've just woken up," but the consensus of everyone so far is that she looks just like me. I guess.
I mean, what is it with women and identifying facial features in babies? I see two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears and hair. What's to tell? She's still so small. Her skull is still soft--it's not even a complete skull yet, for cripes' sake. And they can already tell that she looks just like me? I mean, I'll take it on faith that it's a compliment, and they are talking about my daughter, and I don't care what she looks like--but I just have no idea.
We both cried, not for long, but still a real squall of tears. I'd thought at times that Eva's birth would be for me an answer to Mom's and Dad's death, a catharsis from pain to joy, and I'd cry for ten or twenty minutes. Not so. Grief isn't anything close to being so simple. Emotional processes like that overlap and tangle themselves in our lives, for as long as we live. So the joy and relief of having a new child is simply that, joy and relief for the new child. It removes none of the grief of things before. Silly that I'd thought it might be otherwise...
Of course, birth doesn't end with the emergence of the child. There's the umbilical cord, the placenta and the blood. The nurses clipped off the umbilical cord, handed me a pair of scissors, and told me where to cut. It was kind of like cutting a wet shoelace--not difficult, but a little tougher than you'd expect at first--and that was that. Amy was tending to the placenta as the nurse put a freshly wiped-down Eva on her chest. And so we celebrated our new baby...
...but Amy was having trouble with the placenta. The cord had come detached, and Katie's pushing wasn't accomplishing much. So here Amy showed her colors as a pro. She reached in and began feeling for it, to pull it out. Kate barked again, begging her to stop, but Amy disregarded her and kept working. For about twenty seconds Amy kept at it, and when she'd finally drawn it out, inspected it and looked very dissatisfied. "It's not good that the cord came detached. I think some of the placenta is still in the uterus, and that will be a problem."
As I was told, any remaining placenta on the uterus wall is basically an open spigot for blood. It would be an almost surely fatal condition to leave it, so Amy called for the doctor, saying it was an emergency.
I'm no stranger to death or trauma (not as used to it as my sister Lisa the physician's assistant, but I've had my experiences). So the midwife calling "Emergency!" raised my eyebrows, but that was all. I could see Kate, her complexion still healthy, still bathed in the joy of giving birth to Eva, and the nurses around us, all tending to one task or another. I didn't see echoes of Amy's alarm in anyone else. The thought occurred to me--not for the first time--that I might lose my little bengal, and have to raise Eva on my own, with her being my best living reminder of the woman I loved.
But I never at any moment seriously feared that, because both Kate and the other nurses seemed too composed. Doctor Tetrault came in, said the situation was common enough and could be remedied by, essentially, vacuuming out the uterus. "It's a five-minute procedure," she said, "and once we're done, and Kate has sensation again in her feet, we'll bring her up to the recovery room."
So they wheeled Katie to OR, and put Eva into a rolling bassinet to bring her up to the nursery. Kate's mom and I followed, and once on the sixth floor, I tried walking right into the nursery too, but the nurse stopped me. "We don't allow family members in. We'll tag her, and you'll see that her number matches the number on your wristband. If you'd like to watch, you can walk around to the windows on the other side."
I didn't want to be any more than two feet away from my daughter, but the nurse seemed pretty believable so I walked around and watched as they unwrapped the blankets from around her, sprinkled water on her and rinsed off her head and chest, and wrapped her up again. I saw her face crinkle and her mouth open as she was getting her bath, but then grow calm again once she was wrapped up and placed in an incubator.
Kate's mom and I waited in the recovery room, and about an hour later, Kate herself was wheeled in, not drugged up like I'd feared, but weary and happy. Soon after that Eva was brought in to join us, a tiny little package with a pink ski cap and a red face. She was quiet, as she lay on Kate's chest...then Kate tried to breastfeed her, just to get started and give the baby some colostrom.
Right from the start, Eva latched on with no difficulty or hesitation. Now I can see Sutherland resemblance in that: a big mouth, and no problems with bodily functions. (That too is still the case...it's become one of Katie's favorite jibes, that Eva Jean is definitely my daughter.)
Only problem was, once Katie stopped, Eva missed it...I got my first practice calming a squalling baby. And maybe Eva's pretty easy, but she settled down very quickly once I picked her up, nestled her in my forearms and bounced her ever so slightly up and down. That was immensely reassuring, that I could do something to comfort my own baby.
Since most of our readers are veterans of the kid process themselves, they won't be surprised that I'm dwelling on the details like this--in fact, I could go much further in. But if you haven't been through the process yourself, even as one of the professionals helping, then you probably don't have the emotional recognition of it, the physical memory of how important, and amazing, each moment is.
My mother told me once that seeing a baby born would make anyone believe in God. I don't share that belief, but I do believe that birth is the most awe-inspiring thing I've ever witnessed. The months of anticipation, the building anxiety, the intensity and effort and pain of the birth itself, and the overwhelming sense of peace and calm afterward, make every other experience in life pale in comparison.
I'm not denigrating the rest of life: it's full of passion, triumph and defeat, and plenty of work and anticipation as well: but life begetting life is why we're here. All our thoughts, all our ideas, all our philosophies, sciences and histories, are trappings draped on existence itself. An Indian mystic might tell me that I have it backwards, that existence is the veil draped on thought. And the mystic might be right. But in either case, the thought is formless without the existence...and when you've participated in bringing a new, breathing life into the world, and you've helped prolong existence...it's a lifelong memory.
And if you're like me, you become a bit of a doting fool.
I guess I'll leave the follow-up either for a later post, or untold. This one's long enough, a record of what led up to the Sutherland family of two becoming three. From now on, it's Eva's story too...
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