After being asleep for about 45 minutes Friday night, I was awakened by one of those “Hand of God” moments by the wife at about 12:25am Saturday. She looked at me and said “I don’t feel right. I think I may have passed my mucous plug and I think I’m having contractions.”
Ummm…can I get a sip of water and a bucket to vomit in please?
(See, last time she never felt a contraction. She already had the epidural so she didn’t know what one felt like, and since the real ones are different than the braxton hicks kind, she had no idea what to expect).
Seriously, did she just say that? What does that mean? Is she in labor? The baby’s not due for 2.5 more weeks and the C-section’s not until December 2nd. What the fuck?!?!?!
Molly called her practice’s service and we waited for the return call and while we did so, she also called her sister Colleen who said “I’ll be in the car in five minutes. If it turns out to be nothing, I’ll just lose an hour of sleep but at least I’ll have brushed my teeth.”
The service called back and said “it’s probably nothing, but just to be safe, go ahead and take a warm bath for an hour and track the contractions, noting how far apart they are.”
Ummm…okay. I’m all for coming on in to the hospital, but that’s fine. I’ll spend the time getting presentable while she takes a bath.
Colleen arrived in about twenty minutes, and the contractions were ten minutes apart. After Caca (what we call Colleen) came in, the phone rang at about 1:00am. Who on earth is calling us?
It was uncle Todd from across the street. It seems that he had noticed the lights on while getting up for a midnight thank you to his 40+ year old prostate / home security system. He asked if everything was okay, to which I replied “Ummm…I think she’s gonna have the baby.”
He said “I’ll be right over.”
The contractions got down to about three minutes apart at 30 minutes and we said “fuck this. We’re going to the hospital.”
So I showed uncle Todd how to use the TV and, after Caca moved the baggage from the wife’s car to her van, we headed out to the hospital.
By the time we got about twenty miles into our 30 mile drive, the contractions were two minutes apart and I think the wife was officially freaking a bit. She was outwardly calm, but I know I was freaking, so I’m guessing that she was too.
We got parrked and to the admit desk and I did all of the paperwork. I was amazingly calm, but I credit most of that to my friend Percocet.
A wheelchair arrived and we figured it for the old lady. I was waiting for one too, since I had already far exceeded my exercise / exertion limit for the day.
(If you want to feel like a pussy, make sure to tell your wife’s OB/GYN to be sure to note that you’ll need a wheelchair at the hospital. VERY masculine).
So they wheeled her to a pre-op room thingy and soon thereafter a chair came for me.
One good thing about OB/GYN wheelchairs over cardiac ICU wheelchairs is that the OB/GYN ones are WAY wider and very comfortable to a fella of my…stature.
So we met up in the hall and went in and met Lilly. She was our nurse. She was also the 15th of 20 brothers and sisters and 45 years old with a 105 year old father. She was also (according to her) the only latin family to not have a Jesus or Maria on the rolls. Nice one, Lilly.
It was about 1:45am and things were progressing a little fast for my wife’s liking. Lilly (and another woman whose name I can’t remember) assured us that everything was fine and that as soon as the labs came back, they’d get the epidural running and we’d be having this baby around 4am.
And then it hit me. I’ve just had heart surgery and now our baby was coming 18 days early. Sure, urchin 1.0 was 16 days early, but we could really use the extra time.
Dr. Robbins got there around 3am or so (I think) and the anesthesiologist came shortly thereafter. All along we had planned that I’d handle the still photos and the stool sitting next to the wife and Caca would handle the videography (like with urchin 1.0), and we . The wife got pretty upset when the anesthesiologist told her that only one person would be allowed in during the procedure.
But we both knew it didn’t matter. Our only real goal was that I’d be recovered enough to be there for the delivery and everything else after that would work itself out. It’s tough to be selfish about the little details when you’ve been as lucky about as much as we have for so long.
So at around 3:45am we gowned up (Caca and myself) and headed for the scrub area for OR number 4. The anesthesiologist then informed us that Caca would be able to film thru the window in the scrub room, meaning video footage from the foot of the C-section. With discretion, that could be pretty cool.
They brought me in from the scrub room side and I actually saw them making the horizontal incision across my wife’s tummy. And I didn’t faint. Cool huh?
So I took my seat at her left hand and waited. A few minutes later Molly asked “when are you starting?” to which Dr. Robbins replied “we’re almost done Molly.”
It was then that I stood up and looked over the drape and saw urchin 2.0’s rear end.
Seconds later she was making noise and she was here.
And for the second time, I saw the fruit of our loins removed from my wife via C-section and taken to the warming table for primary cleaning and her first test score (an 8-9 on the apgar for the record).
This time was entirely different than last time though. I remember being so overwhelmed by the process that I wasn’t really there. This time, I was right there, aware, alert and in the moment. And it was spectacular.
I then got up, headed over to the sneezeguardless buffet warmer to see me daughter. She was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, and an absolutely perfect face, and what appeared to be a hint of red hair.
Oh sweet lord. Not only am I the only man in the house, but one of the three women is going to be a redhead?
Anyway, we headed across the hall for urchin 2.0’s first real detailing. They do the rocker panels, the undercarriage, as well as the top and everything else. She cleaned up real nice, warmed nicely and was utterly relaxed and unaffected by the whole thing, which was quite the opposite of my previous urchin.
She was 7 pounds 7 ounces, 19 3/4 inches long, had a 14 inch head, and she did, in fact, have some light red hair.
Molly was brought in and shortly thereafter given our daughter to hold, which she did for about half an hour.
(One unfortunate thing about this event was that since everyone had been told that I was the spouse who’d had bypass surgery via robot, everyone…and I mean everyone, wanted to talk about that. That was fine when it was just me around, but I’m beginning to think that my wife’s wishing that I’d had the old fashioned bypass so no one would be quite so interested in my story).
Anyway, one other thing changed during this process. We had planned to name her Sophia Grace. Until the heart thing.
When all of that happened and we weren’t sure how things were going to go, we decided that if the doctor agreed to take my case, could successfully complete it, and save my life (without cracking my sternum was an added bonus), then we’d make Sophia’s name Murphy.
Murphy’s also a family name, as it’s the wife’s mom’s maiden name. It was also, as it turned out, the surname of the nun that sat with my wife all day while I was in surgery. It was as though it was meant to be.
So, we decided to name her Sophia Murphy Berger.
The rest of the morning was a bit of a blur. I had been awake for about 24 hours and had a good bit of Percocet in my system, and I was tapped out. Once the wife returned from post-op and was brought to the room and I knew that Sophia was okay, Caca drove me home. She then took urchin 1.0 down to the hospital to see Sophia.
Let me say here that we’ve received more help thru all of this than anyone deserves, but I cannot imagine how it would have all turned out if Caca hadn’t done all she had done. So thanks Caca.
I then ate, tidied up, and went to bed. It was 10am. I awoke at 11am, took two percocet and went to sleep for another hour and a half. I was a new man.
I then spent the rest of the day laying in bed watching football, frequently talking on the phone to my wife. I was and am so incredibly proud of her. I am incapable of effectively putting into words how amazing she is. She barely made a wimper through all of it.
Then, I spent the afternoon in a hospital gown laying in bed watching football with my nephew Nick by my side. We thoroughly enjoyed watching Auburn kick the ever-loving shit out of the over-rated Alabama Crimson Tide. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching those dumbshits in houndstooth hats holding a poll topped with detergent and asswipe get their collective plows cleaned in our house.
Oh, and Sophia will forever share her birthday with our friends Priscilla and Barbara. I love that too.
And then GA Tech went into Miami and beat the number three team in the nation. That also kicks ass.
And once every so often, Sophia’s birthday will be on the same day as the Auburn-Alabama game. THAT kicks much ass to me.
So you see, in a nutshell, my Saturday pretty much kicked ass. That says it about as well as I could, but it would have saved you reading the 4,000 words you already have.
But hey, you were already here. What else did you have to do?
What say you?