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"Dave."
"Dave!"
"DAVE!".
This voice in my dream kept calling my name. I was sleeping the
restful and deep sleep of someone that had been stressed and
exhausted for weeks and had purposely had a couple extra drinks.
"Dave come here, I need you!". It was Lyn calling from the
bathroom. I had been asleep less than an hour, it was about 10
o’clock at night. I sat up in bed (as the room spun) and said
"Rile Bead ere Gi Minute". (It made good sense to me). I
stood up from the waterbed and couldn’t get my land legs. I
didn’t exactly fall over on my face but the doorjamb seemed
strategically located so I grabbed onto it with both hands.
I peered into the bathroom and Lyn was standing in the bathtub.
"My water broke", she said flatly and then added ominously,
"its time".
I chanted my mantra for the evening in response: "Alright,
alright" and "alright, alright".
We had weeks ago packed Lyn’s overnight
bag. We had walked through the process many times. What we had never
planned for was me being inebriated and working on only 45 minutes of
sleep. For me, 45 minutes is a magical amount of sleep as it actually
makes me groggy and longing for more. Two, three hours, ok. Stay up
with no sleep, fine. But 45 minutes always leaves me confused enough
that I might easily drive to the hospital in my underwear with Lyn
standing at the curb.
Lyn had been wearing loose-fitting pull over shirts and large wasted
pull on pants for the final  weeks
of her pregnancy. We stepped outside and the May evening was very
pleasant, dark with some stars visible. We locked the house, got in
the Pontiac and headed for Oakwood hospital. On the way, I used the
car phone to call first Lyn’s mom, then mine, and let them know
we were on our way to the delivery room. Lyn had not been having any
labor pains or anything unusual during the 5 minute drive. We hit the
light in front of the high school red, and I loved putting on my
emergency flashers and after looking both ways, running through it.
I dropped Lyn of at the emergency entrance, then went to park the
car. She was ushered to the maternity floor (which we had been
familiarized with during one of the silly Lamaze classes) so I knew
what to expect. She was still dressed in street clothes, sitting on
the bed in a small ‘labor room’ that had been assigned to
us for the duration. She was about to undress and change into the
hospital gown when I stopped her and took out the camera. I snapped
two pictures of Lyn sitting there in the room, ready to give birth at
any minute. She posed and smiled, but was so upset that I was showing
such poor judgment in a critical situation. The moment I saw those
prints, and to this very day, those two pictures are my favorites and
always make me smile. They are even more important to me, across the
years, when we ended up having only one child.
I had been told that it was important to track
the timing of the labor pains. They were currently coming about every
10 minutes and were of fairly mild strength. I had been told that
once they were coming every two or three minutes it would be time to
deliver the baby.  I
took out the yellow pad and pen, dated the top sheet "May 20,
1987" and logged the time from the large wall clock in our room.
It was just after midnight and we had been sitting around, pretty
much on our own, for a little over half an hour. A nurse had poked
her head in once or twice, but certainly nobody was doting over us. I
was starting to get concerned, only to learn that we had arrived
during ‘shift change’ so the afternoon shift had given us a
room and a gown, but the midnight shift was going to deliver our baby
for us. Lyn was comfortable, and our midnight nurse had introduced
herself to us, so I did what was certainly the most important thing I
could do at that moment and in my current situation. I first asked
permission, then excused myself from the little room, and headed
straight down to the hospital cafeteria. I bought a cup of coffee and
drank it while preparing and buying two more to take back to the
room. I drank the second cup in the elevator and placed the third on
the window sill of the window that looked out into the tiny airshaft courtyard.
When I returned, Lyn was in her hospital gown and tucked into bed.
For the next hour or so Lyn would sit and look at me (without her
glasses, so I’m sure I looked like a large fuzzy blob), then
unexpectedly lurch forward and do that funny ‘bug-eye’
thing and say ‘wooh’. I would smile and nod and write down
the time (every 5 or so minutes). While we waited, Lyn and I made
small talk, held hands, nuzzled and stared into each others eyes.
We kept discussing the fact that we had never
been able to select a girl’s name. We had known about
‘Jesse’ for almost 10 years, but could never manage to pick
a girl’s name (and the ultrasound had been no help!). It was
sometimes suggested that a girl baby could be named
"Jessie", but I had wanted, in that case, to save the name
for a second child. Of course, that would have horrific psychological
ramifications (to the parents and both kids) if we had a daughter
followed by a son. We had dozens of conversations in the prior weeks,
suggesting names in groups like family: friends; TV Stars; the baby
name book we had bought in the checkout lane at the supermarket. I
had even suggested the streets in our neighborhood: Katherine,
Gertrude, Dudley.
So we sat in our little room and timed the labor pains and talked
about girls names because we were given the definite impression that
you wanted to have a name for your baby at the instant of its birth.
It would be an honor to refer to "Baby Jesse" in the
delivery room, and to write his name on all of the little powder blue
cards. It seemed to be a mark of disgrace to refer to ‘it’
as ‘baby girl’ on the little pink ones, like ‘what the
hell were you doing for the last nine months that you couldn’t
think up a name’. It was considered by some a sign that you
‘didn’t really want the baby’ and EVERYBODY watches
the couple (individually and as a pair) for any sign whatsoever of
that trait, like nazis.
Our nurse that night was a delightful young woman, who’s face
and features have long passed from memory and who never stood for a
picture. Her name was "Shayna" and, in the passion of the
moment that evening, her name struck us both as one that was simple
yet beautiful, melodic and poetic. Yes, we thought (but just short of
decided), a girl will probably be named "baby Shayna". By
the way, this was definitely preferred to our Lamaze leader’s
name: "Sharmin"
A telephone call had been placed to our
‘high-risk’ OB/Gyn doctor. During the previous months, I
had spent around an hour or two with him, listening to the baby’s
heartbeat, during different appointments. Of course, he and Lyn had
been almost going steady for the last four months. To our surprise
that night, we learned around 1am that he would simply not be
available for our delivery. As the details were given to us, he was a
citizen of Egypt, staying in the US on a work visa. He had returned
to his home country a couple weeks previous (Lyn had an appointment
or two with his substitute) and he was now being denied reentry for
some reason. We would be attended by a different high-risk physician,
who we had never laid eyes on before that night.
Lyn’s cute eye-bugging lurching labor pains
were coming faster and faster and she reported them being
considerably more painful (actually, she called it 'intolerable').
She escalated the muttered breathy ‘wooh’, first to
‘ouch’, then ‘hey!’ and finally
‘Wow-ow-ow-ow!’ as time progressed. She requested some
Demerol, a painkiller injection that would not cross the placenta and
affect the baby. I had mixed feelings about her receiving that and my
feelings were given their appropriate level of attention: zero. Now
that our mystery doctor had arrived and checked out his evening's
work area, he could authorize the painkiller for Lyn. After receiving
the injection, she immediately vomited, repeating that little trick
at random intervals to keep us all off guard. What a lovely evening
this was turning out to be. I continued to log the time intervals on
the labor pains, helped out when told to do so, and stayed out of the
way the rest of the time.
By now we had met our doctor, and shared almost
two dozens words with him. He had arrived in a preppy v-neck sweater,
but was now in surgical scrubs by the time he had checked Lyn out. He
had dark hair and a dark mustache and I would truly have to look at
the birth certificate to even know his name. We had met the whole
midnight crew of nurses by then, with Shayna being ‘our
nurse’, but there were two or three other nurses that would stop
in occasionally. Lyn’s contractions were regular, and increasing
in pain, and had been going on for six full hours now. However, we
were making no progress in the baby department. She kept riding out
the contractions (‘Lamaze style’) since the delivery canal
was still not open. Somewhere along the way here we figured out that
this was going to turn out to be a difficult delivery. Sometimes,
with a first baby, blazing a trail (so to speak) takes extra effort
and time and is quite painful to the mother. I made a mental note to
remind Lyn that ‘the next one’ would be a lot easier.
The newest technology at that time was a real-time fetal monitor.
This is a table top piece of equipment with a small wire leading to a
small (actually teeny-tiny) screw prong at its tip. I got squeamish
(and thank goodness Lyn did not see this) when the teeny-tiny screw
prong was actually inserted into Lyn and pricked, and then twisted
into our poor unborn baby’s scalp! The machine was used to
monitor the baby’s heartbeat and other vital signs, but I hope
by now some newer technology has been developed, as this one seemed
more than just a little medieval in nature.
I kept logging the contractions, and Lyn kept vomiting and moaning
and crying out (but, thank goodness, not actually wailing like some
of the other mothers-to-be). It was considered an act of shame for
the mother to cry or moan 'too much'. A ‘screamer’ is
ill-appreciated on the maternity floor and, rumor has it, receives
slightly inferior service. These wonderful nurses help deliver
anywhere from 6 to 10 babies per night, so being cooperative for them
seems like the least you could do.
"The crew" started checking on us, and the little question
about ‘dilation’ started to pop up more and more. Dilation
is, of course, the signal when it is time for mother and baby to
enter the home-stretch, so to speak. Lyn would not dilate. The
discussion came up a little after two or three hours, then more so
after another hour or two. As morning neared, dilation was the only
thing that everybody would talk about, and they were popping into our
little room, individually and in groups of three or four, on what was
becoming ten minute centers.
Lyn and I were both scared when the little
asides about dilation became more and more an issue. The word first
appeared as a whisper, then slowly evolved to a contingency. Very
soon it would become part of a plan. The dreaded word was 'Cesarean
section'. If Lyn would not dilate, and do it darn soon, the stress to
the baby being stuck in the birth canal would start to merit removing
it surgically. Nobody wanted to do this. It is hard on the baby. It
requires surgery, and weeks and weeks to recover for poor Lyn, who
would be unable to enjoy the first days at home with her new baby.
Also, by not ‘blazing a trail’ for the next baby, it would
almost assure that any future child would also be taken by Cesarean,
making it less likely that we would have more than one child.
Everybody wanted to have the baby by natural delivery. The doctor,
all our nurses, and especially me. Oh, yeah, and Lyn too, I guess. By
now Lyn was in constant and unbearable pain, one Demerol shot had
worn off and another one (or two I can’t remember) were given.
She had been stretched out for over seven hours, in constant pain.
She, too, had gotten no sleep that night. Our poor baby had been
trapped, stuck in a too-tight squeeze for the last two or three
hours. What were we going to do?
Our crew of three nurses came in after a fifteen or twenty minute
break. It was now after 6:30 in the morning, and it was starting to
be light outside. The pronouncement was direct and, to this very day,
it still warms my heart and brings a smile to my face. "Our
shift is changing within an hour, and we are going to have this baby.
We’ve done all the work on midnights and the day shift is not
going to have our baby." Shayna had stepped aside in
deference to an older, more matronly woman. She was a foot taller and
possessed obvious upper body strength despite her salt-and-pepper
hair and silly smile. I got the general impression that she had
delivered more than her share of babies in her day.
"This young lady is not going to be having a C-Section" was
her pronouncement, and she then asked for me to assist in the next
step or to please wait outside. I wasn’t going anywhere and was
instructed to take Lyn’s left foot while our expert took her
right and gently (no, just kidding, nobody mentioned gently) push on
it in such a fashion that Lyn’s knees were generally thrusted
toward her shoulders. I guess this is how midwives handled undilated
moms since the stone ages, and Lyn was an unenthusiastic but
co-operative pretzel during this little exercise.
There was a lot of screaming, and more vomiting. Lot’s of
bug-eyes, and moans, and "Oh God’s". But within 5
minutes, we had dilation, and in a hurry. It was time to deliver and
the time to deliver was RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Shayna scrambled to find
the doctor and our lead nurse and I put Lyn back together to hold
things up a minute or two. I suddenly needed to don surgical scrubs,
a hairnet and shoe booties. At the age of 28, I was about to become a father.
Our son or daughter was on his or her way. And suddenly I learned how
the maternity ward operated. We were in a small ‘labor room’
and the large ‘delivery room’ (which was actually an
‘operating room’ in case you needed a C-Section) was
centrally located. Lyn’s bed that she had been in for the last 8
hours was on wheels, and no sooner had Shayna split for the doctor,
we released the brakes and rolled Lyn (very anxious to deliver) out
in the hallway, down three doors and into the delivery room. I was
looking into her eyes this whole time, and there is no possible way
to suspect the miracle that was about to occur.
Our drill instructor nurse shouted.
"Where’s the doctor, the baby is here" and was told by
Shayna that he was scrubbing up. "Tell him I’ll be doing
the delivery if he is not here in 60 seconds!" and shazam he was
there, in his hair net and his shoe booties and then, as you might
imagine everybody took positions where you would expect. Of course,
they all do this all the time, spending years learning how in college
and had delivered hundreds of babies by now. What I am saying is,
well, I was suddenly kind of the ‘odd man out’. Also, I had
a few bad experiences about this in the past. Everybody knows that I
faint at the slightest sight of blood and I cannot bear to watch
anybody be poked by a needle. During high school biology class and
also during Lamaze training just a month or so previous, I always
managed to sit through the little film about ‘the miracle of
birth’. What I mean by this is, if I had not been sitting, I
would have fainted dead away.
So with Lyn’s knees up and a nice hospital surgical sheet
protecting me from seeing the view, so to speak, I focused on the
most important person in my world. I walked up the side of the table
and took Lyn’s hand. I looked into her eyes and told her how
much I loved her and how excited it was to know that our love and our
marriage was about to produce a baby.
She was a wreck. She was a mess. Her face had been disfigured by the
hours and hours of intense labor. Her skin on her forehead had gone
first, covered in small red freckles that were actually blood
blisters. Now both her cheeks and shoulders were also covered with
them. When she had this baby, it would be her first chance to rest in
almost 10 hours.
Using the Lamaze, natural childbirth method, Lyn had been breathing
and humming through the hours and hours of contractions, fighting the
natural urge to push and deliver the baby. Of course, this had been a
great strain on her (and on every mother that has ever delivered a
child 'naturally'). But the time to wait was now over. It was the
doctor that ordered it. "It is time to push", he said.
"When you feel the next contraction, help it out, push and help
the baby out". I saw him oiling his catcher’s mitt,
slapping his fist into it and signaling for a fastball down the
middle. Lyn started to push and suddenly there was lots of shouting,
like in a room full of air traffic controllers during a wheels-up landing.
"It’s coming", says one, "Its two inches",
and "Push slow" or "Push hard" or "Push
sideways" the instructions were all rolling together.
"It’s coming now", and "just one more push"
and then "there, we’ve got it".
There was a hush, and the doctor talked to the baby. "Yes, there
you are, little fellow". Then he spoke to us. "You have a
little boy. You’ve had a son".
I had been peeking over the sheet and saw the red and pruney beat up
and exhausted little baby for the first time. I don’t remember
if the doctor actually held him upside down and slapped his bottom,
but I remember hearing his little cry, just for a second. I turned to
Lyn, took a step up and with tears welling in my eyes said
"We’ve had a little boy", and "It’s Jesse,
he’s here". I kissed her head and kissed her cheek and I
cried because I couldn’t hold it in another second.
It was just after 7am on May 20th, 1987.
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