There are always two sides to each story, and then again perhaps more. For the birth of our daughter there are two sides. My wife who gave birth and provided her own OBGYN service and there is my version, the one of the husband. To hear my wife recount the story it sounds quite amazing, there is a high speed car chase, there is drama, suspense, hallmark moments and a miracle. Effectively an Oxygen made for TV movie. For me and my version, well, we may need to air that home movie on the Playboy channel.
Monday morning at around 5AM MST my wife woke me to tell me she was having contractions. I am told the key to a healthy marriage is good communication. However what I don’t remember was the piece on when to communicate this and if there were any rules to good times to do so. So I woke up and started to prep myself for the event ahead. I took care of something for work, charged my cell and started to gather what I would need to survive the next 24 – 48 hours.
My wife had packed her bag weeks, potentially decades ago and now was my turn to do same. It was simple, laptop, ipod, power cables, phone charger, cash and the all important wireless card for the laptop. Ready to face anything I was shortly confronted with anything en-mass. My wife called her family and asked for them to come over. The request and everything else did not seem to hold a sense of urgency at all. It was more like a general invitation to afternoon tea, something, whenever. Around the 6 AM mark the sense became urgent, we called and they were en route. En route was not good enough, so I called a neighbor and asked them to come and sit the kids.
The cavalry arrived and I could take Juls to the hospital. We can insert the dramatic high speed car chase here. I followed any car at a brisk speed with words of encouragement from my wife and a dire need to be there. So I decided to slip stream a FEDEX truck heading in the direction of the hospital, who was in turn attempting to slip stream a truck of people who were heading to the construction site of the hospital. So here we are all participating in a bizarre convoy to the hospital.
After turning into the drive it turned into driving miss daisy and slower than snot uphill. The FEDEX truck moved as I lay on my car horn. This left me with the construction people who then parked on the road into the hospital lobby. I called the hospital and told them my wife was crowning and was moments away from the door. However between me and the door was the construction truck which had stopped doors opened and out come the clowns who blocked entry. Once again I lay on the horn. They looked at me like I was being a jerk. To me they were the jerks blocking the drive. So I had to cross country around them and get my wife to door.
So we pull in under the canopy and I jump out of the van to open the door to realized my wife has already taken her pants off in the anticipation she will deliver in the van. So as I hold the door and the blanket she struggles to get some clothes on and get out of the van. Within moments Juls mom and sister pull up behind us.
As we walk in through the door Juls continues to contract. The nursing staff rush towards us with a wheel chair in the hope of getting her settled and bring her upstairs. A nurse tells her to not push, might as well have told her to imagine she is not pregnant. Not going to happen there folks. She stops to prop herself on the fountain and they ask if she wants to deliver here. My wife replied with where am I supposed to go, and the nurse calls to her aide to get the elevator and she runs off with the wheel chair and then comes back and runs back to grab the elevator. Was rather a panicked few seconds. We manged to get my wife to the elevator and the ride up one floor took an age. The nurse started to joke that we should call the child Elly if she was born in the elevator. My wife was not pleased and wanted the ride to be over, she gripped my arm to let me know this.
As we left the elevator the contractions came on strong, she stopped beside the elevator doors. Suddenly we were surrounded by medical staff. Juls started to remove her pants again and I turned to the Dr and tried to relay to him as much of the birth plan as was logical at this time. Dr Barney and I had agreed that I could catch the baby. No sooner am I saying this to the Dr (not Barney) who is putting gloves on he looks at me and looks at Juls. A simple statement of ‘too late’ was uttered. As I turned around my wife was holding our daughter in her arms She had delivered and caught her own child and with no pain meds folks. This was child number two she had delivered with no meds.
Once again my memory leaped into action, we talked about the cord and not cutting it until it had stopped pulsing. As I said this I looked at my daughter and she was not a good colour, there was an urgency to clamp and cut the cord. I was given the scissors and allowed to cut it. There was more noise in the background, a need and sense of urgency once again hit us, the stunned silence had passed. My daughter was not doing well and needed to be rushed away for medical attention. As with our birth plan it was agreed that I follow our child and my wife will be tended by medical staff.
The nurse who carried my daughter away tried to clean her off and get her breathing. Life suddenly became a little less real, not that the last few minutes were not somewhat unreal, but the urgency changed again. My daughter was carried to the infant care unit and a lot of information was exchanged, some form of language which essentially meant everyone come here we have work to do. I stood back helpless as my daughter was placed on a table and people raced to stabilize her, to get her pink and breathing.
I stood back where I could see my daughter as she started to fight the medical staff and scream at them, I stood there helpless and watching. I had no idea what was happening to my wife at this time, I had no idea what she was going through or how she was doing. All I knew was I was having an intense conversation with God about my daughter as I watched powerless to help.
My memory once again stirred and I was able to share with them the desire to have no vaccines etc as we had declined them and signed whatever waivers needed to be done and our physician already knew. There was a brief comment made and then the attention went back to my daughter. They poked her, took blood, hooked her up for sound and light. Trying to find a vein for an IV and meds in someone as small as my daughter was not an easy task. She was x-rayed and whatever else needed to be done.
The term that had been used a lot was she was not pinking up. Essentially she retained that delightful shade of gray best suited to the borg! Blanche the nurse tending her would not give up and even though a life flight had been ordered for my daughter to a critical care facility, she continued to work to keep my daughter at the hospital.
Slowly but surely my daughter started to pink up, her breathing started to even out and hit the numbers the nurses required.
— I attempted to complete more of this story tonight, however due to other things going on around it was difficult to do so.