New Person is Here (Final Entry)

[June 3, 2010]

That night Carey left the light on in the bathroom again. I hate it when she does that. I’m not that deep of a sleeper and quite sensitive to light. So when I woke up at 3:17 in the morning to see the stupid bathroom light on again, I was irritated. When I realized Carey was awake too, I spoke up.

“Why is the light on in the bathroom?” I groused. She looked kind of spaced out lying on her side staring at the light in the bathroom. “Are you alright?”

“Earlier my stomach hurt and woke me up and I think my water broke.” Here we go. Even if that was what happened, we learned in just about every birthing class and birthing book and video on birthing that only 20% of labors start with the water breaking. It’s not like it is in the movies or TV. I’m so sure.

“I’m going back to sleep-"

“Ugh! You have horrible breath! Go brush your teeth or something.” AND she’s back.
I ignored her request and turned over to go back to sleep. I gave up on having that obnoxious light turned off. She on the other hand got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

“I stopped peeing,” she shouted from the toilet “but liquid is still coming out. Should I call the doctor?”

“No…” I almost always say no when she asks this question and inevitably she always calls. After hanging up she gave me the scoop.

“The nurse practitioner said I should go back to sleep until 8am. Then call back and make an appointment.” Finally some sense. I thought I was going to be able to go back to sleep. But then Carey had a tiny contraction. “Oh. This is different. It’s lower.” She started rubbing the underside of her belly, an area she hadn’t seen in months. Fine. Now I’m awake.

“Well let’s just monitor them. If you have more than five in an hour-”

“Ow! I’m having another one.” Carey phoned back the on-call nurse.

“She said we should come in just to check on me. I’m gonna call the doula.” After a few minutes she reported “The doula says to go ahead and go in. We’ll probably just go in and they’ll give me steroids and I’ll come home. But there is a chance that I’m going in to labor.” 34 weeks and 3 days. It was actually further along than we initially thought possible considering her bicornuate uterus. But we weren’t convinced this was the time. Carey, however, had one of two bags already packed for the hospital. She had also filled out our birth plan form, according to our previous discussions, which we were going to go over with our doula the following Sunday. It had a bunch of areas highlighted because we weren’t sure what they meant. I printed it out anyway along with the Google document of the list of things to bring to the hospital. While doing this Carey called her mom and dad in Connecticut letting them know they might want to think about buying a plane ticket. We kept going back and forth about only taking one bag since we knew we were most likely coming back. We threw a load of baby clothes in the laundry so they’d be clean of brand new chemicals just in case. We grabbed our crap (including a brand new unattached car seat) and drove four blocks to Swedish Hospital. Fortunately we had kept a folder with all the papers, pamphlets, and forms concerning birthing at Swedish. We couldn’t remember where to park, though. The folder was behind me in the car and Carey couldn’t reach it. In a huff I stopped the car, got out of my seat, opened the back door and grabbed the stupid folder and threw it on Carey’s lap. I’m a little bitch at 5 in the morning. It’s old news. Get over it… She found the paper with directions/instructions for after hours parking and we proceeded. We parked and then deliberated again about whether we should bring the second bag in with us. It had an iHome so we could play music with our iPods and a small video camera. Junk like that. We erred on the side of bringing it. Onward to the birthing center triage!

We signed in and got our special room. In a room nearby a woman was wailing. It sounded like something out of a National Geographic video depicting a more primitive culture when they morn. Long painful groans that were really unpleasant to hear. While giving the intake with the receptionist, Carey quipped, “That doesn’t sound fun. Don’t worry. I’m not that far along!” They put Carey in a robe in order to do some exams all the while she continued to leak. They tested it and sure enough, Carey’s water had totally broken. Dr. Young N Handsome did a speculum check which just about popped Carey’s head off. After he left the room she was upset for not thinking to bring her make-up kit and hairdryer. She began trying to schedule a time when I could go home and pick those things up. Also, she felt she was a little jungley down there. I tried to persuade her that she didn’t need to worry about it. But in Carey’s natural fashion, first she’s embarrassed and then she embarrasses others. The next few nurses and doctors she saw she apologized for her supposedly unkempt nether regions. The range of responses included “I’ve seen all types, honey,” to “…”. But no one was going to see down there for awhile anyway because they gave her these King Kong-sized pads to compliment the hospital grade planet-sized underwear they had her wear. Lots of leaking occurs during this event, we discovered. From the speculum check Dr. Handsome couldn’t help but notice that Judah had already dropped down and Carey was already two centimeters dilated. Dr. Handsome explained the predicament we were in. In the olden days they used to induce labor at 34 weeks no problem, he explained. But nowadays they’ve discovered that it’s better to wait because this is the time when the lungs are still finalizing development. On the other hand, if the water was broken and he was on his way out, they won’t stop the labor by artificial means. Now there was concern as to why Carey’s water broke 5 ½ weeks early. One of the guesses was that it could be some sort of an infection had made the water break in order to not have Judah swimming around in the muck or whatever. So what to do, what to do… The solution – bed rest at the hospital until he arrives. So they put us in a room they didn’t have a name for. It wasn’t a labor room or a pre-labor room (we asked) because they didn’t officially use that as a title. It was more for bed rest only. We quickly learned that it was more like a storage room without any supplies. Finally our on-call physician (Dr. Good-looking India Doogie Howser) from the Obsetrix Pediatrix group came for a visit. He confirmed what Dr. Handsome (also in the room) thought was the best plan of action and that was to do an amniocentesis. This is a horrible procedure where they force a harpoon-sized needle into Carey’s stomach and draw amnio fluid out of the sack to determine if Judah’s lungs were up to snuff and if there was in fact an infection. Oh, and we were told the baby might not come for days. Days! Possibly not until Monday. So Carey was supposed to lie in that stupid room as still as possible maybe for four days? That's gonna happen.

It was 7:30 in the am when they moved us to the supply closet, er, I mean storage room, I mean…hospital room? Enough time had passed since we arrived (at 5am) that we decided breakfast would be a good idea. Carey phoned up room service. I nibbled on her breakfast when no one was looking. Carey’s main course was a giant chocolate protein shake. In between bites Carey called and texted some peeps. I put on some tunes on the iHome. Things were mostly tranquil so far. Carey even suggested I go home and get some real food for breakfast (and don't forget the make-up and hair dryer). But settling Carey in the storage room consisted of a very frustrated nurse trying to get the fetal monitor Doppler to locate Judah’s heart beat. A second monitor was also added to track Carey’s contractions on one of those seismograph machines where the lines make those jaggedy mountain range scrawls and then spike when she’s actually going through the contraction. A number rating shows the intensity. Low 20’s is normal for minimal contraction hurting and 100 is blackout pain. Tracking that wasn’t an issue. The problem was they couldn’t locate Judah’s heartbeat. The nurse spent FOR-EV-ER trying to find that beat. She even blamed the equipment and got a new Doppler plug-in. The seismograph did show that he was moving around a lot, a good sign. The other issue was that these monitors were really constrictive. We’d been warned by doulas, and even the birthing classes Swedish taught us, that the monitors are, yes in fact meant to make sure the baby is okay, but also to keep a paper trail if anything goes bad. To protect the hospital. And here’s the other thing – there are other kinds of Doppler/readers that are mobile but the nurses don’t like them because it requires more work on their part . Carey and I were on our guard about this situation. The nurse got so frustrated at one point she started talking about getting an internal monitor. That we seriously did not want. Especially this early in the game. That would mean that if Carey were to go in to labor she would have to stay put, lay on her back, and barely move so that the tiny braided wires attached to Judah’s skull up inside her hoo-hoo would not come undone. Carey would have to suffer through contractions without being able to move to make sure that monitor stayed put. That’s where I stepped in and asked the nurse if Carey would be able to get in the bath if that was in her because the bath will be a priority once she actually goes into labor. The nurse was unsure and faltered. We started emailing, texting, and calling our doula who was being paid to advocate for us in this kind of situation. Thankfully, we had enough knowledge to dodge that bullet. Meanwhile Dr. Good-looking India Doogie Howser did a quick mini-ultrasound to find an area where he could needle Carey to pull out some amniotic fluid. No luck. There was none left. That idea flew out the window. Next plan: give Carey some antibiotics intravenously just in case there was an infection after all.

The nurse assigned to us began the process of sticking a needle into one of Carey’s veins. Carey told her it was going to be hard and that she should probably start with a butterfly needle. The nurse smugly dismissed this advice. She poked a bunch of times in one of Carey’s arms to no avail. She switched arms and numbed the area first this time and dug around some more. Nothin’. She actually gave up and had another nurse come in to do the job. This new nurse on the scene Carey would later refer to as Nurse Stupid-Bitch. That was maybe a bit unfair, but you get the idea of how Carey felt about her. Now while all of this stab, stab, stabbity stabbing was going on, Carey’s contractions were increasing. They were coming on about every seven to eleven minutes with varying degrees of intensity. And when I say intensity, I mean Carey goes bat shit crazy with pain. Contractions had lost their novelty about two hours previous. In our eyes they ceased having any sort of curios nature about them. They sucked. Sucked BAD. But Nurse S-B would just keep reminding Carey that it was a long haul and how she should conserve her energy blah, blah, blah.

From our birthing classes, we were instructed, in a gentle manner, about the three stages of labor. (For the full effect, whisper-talk, sing-song these next few sentences) “The first stage consist of 30-45 second contractions and only a few occur in an hour. The second stage contractions can last up to 90 seconds and they begin to grow closer together allowing less time for recovery. Finally, the mother uses the contractions in the final stage to push out baby.” Huh. Just like that. Nice. One of Carey’s first exclamations after surviving a rip-your-face-off-painful contraction was, “They lied! They lied in those classes!” At one point she actually had a ten freakin’ minute contraction. I know, because I was watching the clock. 8:55 to 9:05. “It’s not going away! Owwww!” I tried to help Carey through the pain. I breathed with her slowly using the “Inhale. (sucking sounds)…, exhale (blowing sounds)…” and that helped a few times. I rubbed her back, and massaged her shoulders and stood upright when she wanted to lean her head into something and push. And they still didn’t move us to the labor room. Nurse S-B was still trying to effectively find a vein (in Carey’s hand now) to get some antibiotics in there (just on the off chance there was an infection, may I remind you), but she kept getting interrupted because Carey was actually already in labor. During one of the meaner contractions, Nurse S-B thought it best to just have a conversation with Carey. It started out sounding like encouragement, “You’re doing great, honey. Yeah, just work through that pain.” Carey either ignored our loudly drowned out this truly unhelpful talk. Nurse S-B’s tactics weren’t working to her liking so she decided to blame us for Carey not handling her contractions appropriately. It sort of sounded like an accusation when she said “Didn’t you guys take any of our birthing classes?” That’s when Carey yelled at her “I NEED YOU TO STOP TALKING NOW.” That shut her up. Momentarily, at least.

We began to hate being in that storage room. It didn’t have any of the things that a typical hospital room should have. Things we needed. One of Carey’s freak outs occurred while she was in the bathroom. As soon as she was done she tried to get out of there in order to beat the contraction to the bed. But she couldn’t get her mondo panties up in time and the diaper-pad fell into the toilet. She just threw it away and bent over and walked like Igor out of the bathroom. After the contraction she yelled for something to replace the pad. I looked all over that stupid room and couldn’t find anything. She wanted something NOW! So I grabbed a wad of santi-wraps, those thinner than paper toilet seat guards, and shoved a wad in her underwear. This was only humorous for about two seconds. Nurse S-B was still trying to put a needle in Carey when the barfing started. Guess what? There was no bucket in that damn room to catch the puke! Carey didn’t really give a damn at this point and just yakked all over the floor next to the bed. Gallons of it! Mostly the chocolate protein shake from breakfast, but even more than that. There was stuff mixed in there from food she had consumed back in 1992. Apparently the nurse couldn’t find anything in there either so she just threw the blanket from the bed on the floor to sop up the mess. (I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t she use the bed sheet? Wouldn’t that have been a more logical choice for sopping up fresh vomit? By this point we’d actually already used up the bed sheet because those santi-wraps were irritating Carey during contractions [imagine that?] so she decided to ditch the whole undergarment business entirely and go straight for the bed sheets.) Round two of the heaves came on and the good nurse wanted to try another method. She instructed me to offer Carey one of those kidney-shaped hospital drool catchers to collect the torrential down pour of puke. Linda Blair, I mean Carey, batted the tiny thing away and finished soaking the blanket all the way through. At one point between rounds of hurling, the nurse was trying to clean it all up and Carey hacked again and sort of got a little on the nurse (not to mention my shoe) and that seemed to make Carey happy for a fleeting moment. Another common occurrence we learned about labor, in addition to the ralphing, was that it’s typical during contractions for the preggers to get burning up, sweating hot. But then just as quickly cool to freezing. My job then was to help regulate Carey’s temperature. I would fan her during the episode and blanket her afterwards. She’d rip off her robe during and beg for it after. Now if you know Carey in real life, then you’ve probably experienced how difficult it is for her to sit still. This translated in this situation to rocking in place, stomping around, leaning up against the bed, and getting away from whichever nurse was still trying to put that IV in her and/or keep her fetal monitor attached. It was like these nurses had been educated under the instruction of the Keystone Kops. Finally, they decided maybe, yes, we should think about moving Carey over to the labor/birthing room. This bright idea was probably prompted by Carey screaming through a contraction, “JESUS H CHRIST! THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS ROOM!” At that point we had pretty much gone through every sheet, blanket, and robe available in the supply-less storage room they had us in. We’d used up everything to sop up any and every liquid coming out of all of Carey’s orifices (well, just about). Funny thing is, right after Carey’s outburst, Nurse S-B quickly came in and argued the point, “Well, that’s not true. There are too supplies in here.” I paused from Carey’s exorcism and thought, “Really? You are a trained birthing nurse specialist or whatever, right? This is most likely not your first dealing with a woman in labor, I’m guessing. And you think it’s a good idea to disagree, to argue with a woman in the throes of crazy-ass contractions about whether or not there are supplies in the room? The same room where all you could come up with to catch the gushing river of vomit was a dish best suited for brushing teeth in bed? Really?” Maybe Carey’s name for this nurse did apply…

Finally got a hold of the Doula on the phone. She said she would be there in thirty minutes. The time we moved into the labor/birthing room was 10ish in the am. First thing Carey did was order up a bath. All the videos and books and classes said the bath was awesome in helping with the horror of labor. Because they had finally acknowledged that yes, maybe Carey was in labor someone had the bright idea of checking the diameter of her cervix. It was at five centimeters. Plenty of time to get to ten. Nurse S-B followed us in with a birthing ball with a towel on it (a towel? From where?) for Carey to sit on. When an onslaught of contractions came on, Nurse S-B kept trying to get Carey to sit on the ball. I really felt like this nurse just wanted to keep Carey quiet. Like Carey was a real bother. She didn’t seem to have that, “How can I help you with the pain of being totally destroyed on the inside?” It was more like “Sit on the ball and maybe that will finally shut your damn mouth up!” Moments later she showed up with an electric fan, which was an idea that had been abandoned about fifty years previous. A fan would have made Carey’s head explode. That noise and the constant air movement on her skin. No this is when Carey would, at the height of a freak-out, rip off all her clothes and rock, entirely naked, bent over the bed or on all fours on top of the bed while madly sweating and then go back to freezing. I suggested we keep the fan in the room and if we really need it, at least it will be close by. I continued to alternate fanning Carey with the Hospital Menu to rubbing her lower back to holding her bottle while she tried to keep hydrated. But it turned out that was just more fodder for regurgitating. She spewed a watery substance all over the bed and floor. Nurse S-B resumed trying to get an IV in to Carey’s arm. Yup. They were still on getting that needle in. Another contraction attacked when Nurse S-B’s cell phone went off. I kid you not. And she had it on a lanyard around her neck, dangling right in front of Carey’s face. Naturally it was a super annoying ringtone. Carey flipped. “OH COME ON! ARE YOU SERIOUS? YOU’VE GOT TO GET THAT OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW! GET THAT OUT OF MY FACE.” Nurse S-B, living up to her name, couldn’t wait to answer the phone until she was outside the room and began talking as she left. “Yeah, I’m in one of the labor rooms right now…”

The bath was taking forever. It had been running for what felt like infinity times ten. A nurse checked on it and came back to report, “I’m running the jets now. After a few minutes we’ll drain it and fill it up again so it’ll all be ready for you.” What the what? Did someone just finish in here before us? Swedish Hospital was totally not living up to its reputation. So that bath had to be pre-prepared before use? Stupid.

The contractions turned even uglier and Carey alternated bewteen volcanic and trance-like. Eyes always closed. Monosyllabic communication. Primordial moaning. I had already overused all my breathing techniques. I was starting to feel useless. The room grew tight and suffocating. Where was the damn doula? It had been over thirty minutes by that point. The doula was more like a don’t-la! Or Do-less! I began to feel like I was coming apart at the seams. I was enduring perhaps one of the longest times stretches of my life. Finally at quarter to eleven our Doula arrived. She came in and kissed Carey on the sweaty brow. Talked to her explaining how the pain was a means to an end and other calming talk. I stepped back to let her do her magic. Or do-la her magic, I should say! (Sorry. I’ll stop with the doula puns now.) At this point, I realized that I was at any second going to lose my shit. During a quick second between contractions, our Doula asked me if I had eaten breakfast. Not really, was my answer. She told me I could go out in to the hall and eat something. That helped. I stood outside and ate a banana, some fruit leathers, paced and texted friends and family. I felt slightly better after that so I rejoined the show. I resumed my position in the corner while the doula helped Carey work through the pain. I occasionally fanned her, but I feared there was no way I was going to be able to keep it together any longer. Any second I was going to burst into bawling. I was fighting to keep it down by drinking from Carey’s water bottle every time I thought I was going to burst into weeping. Tears kept blurring my vision. I didn’t have an explanation. I didn’t feel sad or happy or any regular emotion involved with crying. I was just uniquely overwhelmed. I kept thinking, “I’m gonna lose my shit right this instant.” I knew that was a bad idea. I knew that if I started crying out loud like a wimpy wiener that I’d be asked to leave. “Get him out of here, now!” they’d say. “He’s only making things worse!” Carey looked at me a few times between the spells of madness and I was able to fake some assurance, but then I had to quickly turn away and drink some water stuffing my share of crying. After an excruciating contraction, Carey was sure the baby was ready to come out. It took some convincing, but Carey finally coaxed a nurse in to checking her cervix again. The nurse took a peak and announced, “The cervix is complete.” Which didn’t register for me. But then I got it. Carey’s cervix was totally dilated to 10 centimeters and Mr. Baby was ready to come out. It was happening. RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW! Carey communicated that she needed to push and she needed to go to the bathroom. The nurses and our doula, almost in unison, shouted at her not to push. They needed to get the doctors there because it was time. Carey kept saying she had to push, she had to go to the bathroom. They found her request suspicious. They were afraid she was going to try and push the baby out into the toilet or that would happen if she tried to go numero two. She convinced them it was just pee so they let her go. I blinked and there were twelve people in the room. Nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, interns, Neonatal Intensive Care people. After Carey's bathroom break, for some reason her latest contraction took place on the bed. This was good for the doctors. This is how they like to be – in the baseball catchers position with preggers on their back, legs up, pushing the baby out into the doc’s hands. One woman put on a clear plastic face apparatus that looked like a motorcycle wind shield attached to a mouth air filter. I guess she was expecting to get sprayed or something. After counting the heads, all I thought was, “Eleven people in here are going to see me lose my shit and humiliate myself like the pathetic weakling that I am.”(followed by drinking some more water). Okay. Now came the time for the pushing. We had officially entered stage three. Our doula had Carey positioned with her legs spread, grabbing underneath her knees, being ready to pull her legs to her chest when a contraction came on. I was given the role of supporting Carey’s neck when she rolled her body doubled over. “Alright. One’s coming,” Carey announced. The doctor explained that at the top of the peak of the contraction Carey should push with all her might down and out. Bearing down, they called it. Carey gritted her teeth and tensed all the muscles in her body, holding her breath, eyes squeezed shut, pushing from the inside outward. She gasped for air at the end. The doctor at the other end of Carey inserted an internal monitor (twisted up wires) through a tube up inside the birth canal. “What are you doing?! What is that?!” Carey had apparently forgotten what that little doohickey was. We learned all about it in one of our birthing classes. As I mentioned earlier, its braided wires attached at the end to this sharp metal piece that actually sticks into the skin of the baby’s head in order to monitor the heart rate as accurate as possible. All Carey saw was a foreign object being stuck up her hoohoo without any explanation. So the doctor started to explain, but Carey interrupted with another oncoming contraction and a giant push. After this one, Carey apologized to everyone in the room. Apparently, she had defecated during that last enormous push. Everybody consoled her telling her not to worry about it, that just means that she’s pushing using the right muscles. I guess she hadn’t up-chucked everything after all. Our nurse practitioner from the clinic spoke up with some advice. “Okay, Carey. This next time I want you to just push with your splicketybloo. Push through and into the pain only using your splicketybloo. Okay?” The word she used was not splicketybloo, obviously, but it sounded just as fake and a term I had no familiarity with whatsoever. I hoped Carey knew what she meant because on the next big push she kept shouting, “Splicketybloo!. Use your splicketybloo to push through. Splicketybloo! No! Not out your mouth. Don’t make any noises out of your mouth. The energy escapes that way. Push from within outward using your splicketybloo!” Carey must have dropped another deuce because she apologized again to everyone in the room. They all said the same thing. No problem. Everyone does that. It’s fine. You’re doing great. During the next push I actually saw the top of Judah’s head, with wisps of dark hair on it, starting to come out. At the high point of the contraction his head almost came through, but then it ended and his head went back inside a bit. Here’s where Carey started to hit the wall. The pain was too much. She was being stretched out with no relief. “I can’t do this ohhh. I need to push. Owww. I can't do this! I'm not gonna be able to do this!” Everyone yelled at her not to push until the next contraction came on. It didn’t take long. Her face was so scrunched up, she was exerting so much force, I thought she was going to rocket launch her own skeleton out of her vagina. All eyes were on Carey’s birthing canal. Everyone was loudly supportive. YOUR DOING GREAT! ALMOST THERE! PUSH!PUSH! And out he came. A frightening whitish-gray creature that looked like Gollum, but with better posture, slid out of Carey. World meet Judah. I don’t even know which one of the medical staff pulled him out. They were taking turns. It wasn’t the lady with the face shield, though. Whoever it was flipped him around and someone immediately scissored his umbilical cord. Blood squirted out the end up into the air. The doula had the camera and snapped a pic of him at one second old. Three NICU people took him over to a little table and wiped him down. Everybody was going at light speed. He immediately changed color while he cried. Beautiful. Now Judah, the new person Judah, was a purplish red. Carey lost it before I did. Carey was not done with her work, however. There was talk of forcibly removing the placenta, which our doula warned us about. Impatient and fearful doctors are often anxious for closure. They’ve got a golf game to get to or whatever. But it was only a matter of minutes before Carey pushed that out too. I only caught a glimpse of it through a small line of sight between two nurses’ bodies. It was very red, slippery, and had an odd shape like a deformed alien manta ray being. After a quick scrub down, they wrapped Judah man up and let us hold him for about 20 seconds. We were all teary and bewildered and in awe. The doula snapped another pic of our brand new family before they took him away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I followed and stood next to him hanging out in his crib and watched him. When I looked at my watch, I had been on my feet for an hour and a half just staring at him. I cupped his head in my palm or I gave him my finger and he wrapped his entire hand around it. There was an immediate connection that I have never experienced before in my life. A sudden and deep familiarity. Like I thought, I know this guy. I really know who this is. I know him better than anyone else save Carey. I was on the other side now. A father and not just a son. A parent and not just an offspring. Carey popped up to the NICU almost exactly two hours after Judah entered our world. A nurse wheeled her up and into the unit, but as soon as she entered the room she, too, was on her feet weeping and alongside me falling in love with our new person who had arrived.