Primero--part two

(continued from previous post)

I glared at him because I was in the trough between the tops of my contractions. Labour pains are like waves. You have to ride them--they build up to crests that froth and spume pain (excuse me, "discomfort') before they come crashing down into a lesser sensation of hurt--but like waves, the action is never over--even the troughs are always slipping and sliding with sensation (as in "pain").

Before I could respond to such an inane question, I started sliding up a trough, heading towards the crest. "Hey," said Jack, looking at the monitor's feedback strip of paper. "It looks like a contraction is starting." To busy to comment on THIS inane observation, I practiced my deep, focused breathing. My labour coach (as in Jack) was too busy examining the monitor's parts and checking out its feedback to help with my breathing. Riding the wave of a seriously strong contraction, all I could do was breathe, focus, breathe, focus, breathe. Finally it ebbed. "Wow," Jack commented, reading the squiggles on the paper strip. "That was a big one."

This pattern (including Jack's commentary on the technical prowess of the monitor) seemed to go on forever. I lost track of time, and also of Jack (lucky for him). I was too focused on the squeezing and tightening and crushing sensations that chased themselves across my abdomen for hours and hours. Every so often, I returned to my surroundings. The first time this happened, I heard screaming. A voice nearby was shrieking "Cut me open! Get it out! I can't take this anymore!" This was followed by more screaming. Apparently the young woman in the next labour cubicle had no coach with her--she was all alone, or so the nurse had informed Jack. "Gee," he said, "I wish I could go and help. It's not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I think I'm pretty good at this!"

I closed my eyes, not having the energy (or trust in myself) to answer. Back to surfing the waves. When I surfaced again, Jack was eating something out of a bright yellow Tupperwear container. I croaked, "Could I have some ice chips, please?" Ice chips were all you were allowed back then. Apparently water was deadly or something.

Jack spooned ice chips into my mouth. I could smell beef stew on his breath. I'd been in labour for about fifteen hours by now. His mom, concerned and helpful, brought him some dinner. He needed to keep his strength up.

Remember what I said about all the senses being heightened during labour? Smell is one of them. The aroma of beef stew was too much for me. I punched Jack on the side of his head and he reeled back. Apparently labour hadn't affected my aim. "That stinks!" I hollered. "Get away from me!" and promptly threw up on the sheet. Jack managed to catch the last of it in the wastepaper basket.

The nurse, having just come in for a peek, quickly whisked away the soiled sheet and tucked a clean one around my legs. She peered into the wastepaper basket and said, "Next time use the kidney basin--it's the blue thing in the bedside table cupboard."

It's funny the things you remember--we felt completely chastened because I'd barfed into an improper receptacle. When you're young, you can get buffaloed by the darndest things.

More breathing and focusing went on for what seemed like days, but were, in reality, hours. Every once in a while, a nurse or doctor would pop in and check to see if I was fully dilated. That was another term I was becoming intimately connected with--dilation. It meant, was the opening opening or was it staying closed?

Apparently mine hadn't budged for quite a while now. Another doctor came in--he looked like the actor Walther Matthau, but I was fairly sure it wasn't Walter Matthau, although by then I was pretty out of it. It could have been Walter Matthau for all I cared. I just wanted the opening to open and pop out its load. If Walter Matthau could make that happen, I was all for it.

By now, the screamer next door had delivered and wasn't screaming any more. I didn't think this was fair. I'd been behaving myself--hadn't sworn at anyone, hadn't screamed, hadn't done anything wrong (except maybe for slugging Jack and puking into the wrong container). Why hadn't I been rewarded for good behavior?

Walter Matthau did something--I don't know what--I was too busy surfing the waves to notice. Apparently something was blocking the cervix (a term for the opening part that wasn't opening enough). Walter thought it might be part of the amniotic sac. Of course, I didn't know this at the time--I couldn't understand anything at that point. This is what he told Jack, who was finally earning his coaching stripes.

They wheeled me into a delivery room--looked pretty much like an operating room to me--giant overhead lights, steel instruments, masked people milling about. Jack put on a mask and trotted alongside. He kept patting my arm, his eyes huge above the green mask. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay! Don't worry, it'll be okay!" He was starting to annoy me again. This is what I discovered spousal labour are really for--to store technical information and be emotional lightening rods. It's an important job.

Walter Matthau did something else--again, I was off surfing. I later found out that he'd punctured a small bulge of amniotic sac, releasing the last of the waters I'd left on our kitchen floor hours ago. Walter left, and things moved quickly after that.

We'd arrived at Labour Stage Three--the pushing part. All the books I'd read assured us that this stage, while the most intense, was also the shortest. Again, theory collapsed in the face of practice. I spent ninety minutes pushing--over and over again, a contraction would come, and my family doctor, who'd finally arrived when it looked like things were starting to move, kept urging me to "Push! Push! Just one more!" Doctor Heather Morris "one more'd" me all through this stage, coaxing me on from between my legs at the end of the contraption I was lying on. Jack had my back, literally--he shoved me up and held on as I bore down with all my might. I got oxygen from time to time--puffs of coolness that kept me going. The nurses cheered on from the sidelines. Team baby--go team, go!

I remember announcing that I'd had enough, thank you very much, and was ready to go home. This wasn't working out--maybe next time, so sorry, but 'bye now. Not wanting to be a quitter, I knew when enough was enough.

By this time, they'd decided to haul the baby out. "No forceps!" I cried, remembering all the horror stories I'd heard about babies hauled out using these giant salad tongs.

"Don't worry," said Heather. "We're going to use a vacuum extractor instead of forceps." Somehow this didn't sound any more reassuring. They were going to hoover the baby out?

Something was wheeled up to the table--a silver cup dangling by a metal chain. Jack said afterwards it looked like something put together in a basement for a ninth grade science fair. Maybe it was.

Heather did something with the metal cup. She pumped a valve, frowned at the gauge, pumped some more, frowned again. "Darn thing!" she said. "There's no pressure here!" She tapped the glass front. All of a sudden, the needle jumped. "Whoops!" she said. "We've got suction!"

Heather "one more'd" me once more. She coaxed, cajoled, urged and finally ordered me to push, push, push. Jack reported that the look on my face as I pushed these final few times was scary. And men wonder why women aren't thrilled at the thought of being videotaped during labour.

"Head's crowing!' announced Heather. "It's coming! Keep pushing!"

By this time, all thoughts of going home were gone. I could see the finish line. I could do this. And so I did.

"Here's the head," cried Heather, as she removed the silver cap from the baby's noggin. There was a strange bulge on the top of his head. "Uh," said Jack. "That'll go away, right?"

"Sure will," said Heather. "It's just from the vacuum extractor--maybe a wee bit too much pressure there." We looked at each other, remembering her finger tapping against the gauge before the needle jumped. "Not to worry--he'll be fine."

Okay then. (We are happy to report that the bulge did disappear and left no ill effects.)

"One more push for the shoulders," she said.

As Jack leaned into my back, holding me up for the final push, we looked down and saw the baby's head--it was looking right at us! I know, I know--babies don't look around before they're out--but this one did. His big, dark eyes blinked and locked onto us. "Holy cow," said Jack. "He's looking right at us. Hi baby! Welcome to the world!"

It was at this moment that we realized here was a creature fresh from another world--a tiny space alien beginning his terrestrial journey, and we were his native guides. That second when our eyes locked seemed to last forever. To this day, I have no idea how long it really was, but it was a moment of reverence for something primal and mystical.

"One more," ordered Heather. One more and the rest of the baby slithered out. "We've got a boy and he's a big one!" she crowed, cleaning out his little mouth so he could start hollering, which he did--loud. The nurse bundled him off to the side, where they performed something called the APGAR test. Apparently he passed, because in a few seconds he was laid on my chest, still waxy and wrinkled from his soujourn inside.

What also must be experienced, and cannot be communicated in words, is the feeling of holding the safely arrived newborn. Happiness is too thin a word. It is far deeper--it is joy, bliss, elation, exultation, rapture, wonder--these all fill the breast while the newborn face is contemplated.

I remember our three faces close together--Jack's, mine and baby's--our breaths commingling as his tiny lungs took in their first puffs of air.

We checked him out from top to toe--loads of black hair, huge eyes, a lovely round head with tiny determined chin. The arms and legs were sturdy, robust. The fingers and toes were impossibly small--fingers like tiny pink shrimp curled into fists. Toes were small balls of pink plasticine stuck onto fat little feet. The genitals proclaimed "male"--they looked so large on the tiny frog-body. "That's my boy," murmured Jack proudly.

A warm blanket, heated in some blissful hospital oven, was wrapped around me. There is was--the fruits of labour--an infant, a partner, a warm blanket, and an end to pushing.

The three of us, together in that little space, became, for a brief span of time, the world. As John Donne states, "For love all love of other sights controls, / And makes one little room an everywhere." ("The Good Morrow"). We stayed in that little world for an eternity, and for all too brief a time--the moment would never come again. (Of course, NO moment ever comes again, but the really good ones you wish could).

We were on the brink of an amazing thing--a sea-change in our lives because of this little creature from the black uterine lagoon. It was the end of Jack and me, and the start of a family. It was the beginning of a journey that would go on forever--a chapter in the human story--for we are all begotten, born and die, to paraphrase Mr. Yeats. We are all part "Of what is past, or passing, or to come." ("Sailing to Byzantium")

A friend of ours, given to black Celtic visions, reported that upon the birth of his first child, he looked up in the delivery room and saw his ancestors crowding around the birthing bed. While I didn't experience such a vision, I did feel, as I held that scrap of humanity on my breast, a profound sense of the generations--each of us, encoded in our DNA, carries parents, grandparents, great-grandparents within us. We exist because they came before. Passing that along makes us conduits of something ancient, something imminent. This infant was a hostage to fortune, indeed. Here was another small sailor beginning his way to Byzantium--we all go there at some time, and await those who will come after.