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Before we go any further, let's back up to about week 31 of Jami's pregnancy. Our doctor told us to go to the hospital because we thought Jami was going into pre-term labor, due to the fact that she had more than 6 "contractions" in an hour. Whatever those symptoms she was having, I have a hard time calling them contractions.
Back to the birth story. As we sat in triage, Jami was experiencing the grandeur of real contractions. The difference between the contractions of 31 weeks, and her current contractions was significant to say the least. Her previous "contractions" were almost ticklish compared to what she was now experiencing. Jami said it felt like a really intense and painful version of abdominal crunches that one might do to tone one's midsection. Judging by her reaction when the contractions hit, it looked more like doing a crunch whilst being tortured by a electrocution device made from a converted car battery and a piece of chain link fence in some Vietnamese POW camp; I kept waiting for Jami to answer any questions I might have had by repeating only her name, rank, and social security number.
"How are you feeling babe?"
"Private first class, Jami L. Cecil, 318-49-1234!"
"Can I get you some ice water?"
"Private first class, Jami L. Cecil, 318-49-1234!"
If you've ever seen a woman have contractions, you know that they come in waves. You also know that it's obvious when she's having one. She has a sort of distant stare, as if she's remembering a far off time when she thought getting pregnant would be a wonderfully beautiful experience. If you've ever seen a woman have contractions, you also know NOT to ask her questions or take her picture. She can't answer your questions because contractions literally take her breath away. She doesn't want her picture taken because she believes you are in some way making light of her current painful state, which YOU are responsible for. Since I had never had the pleasure of witnessing contractions before, these realities were unknown to me. I was taking pictures like Ansel Adams, until Jami gently asked me to cease and desist.
"DO NOT TAKE MY PICTURE RIGHT NOW!" she said in a guttural voice several octaves below her normal pitch. I was half-way expecting her to start speaking in Latin, and for her head to begin spinning around. I was reaching for some Holy water just in case this whole pregnancy thing was just a ruse and I actually needed to do an emergency exorcism.
"The power of Christ compels you." I said under my breath.
Eventually our doctor stopped by to tell us that we could go ahead and do the C-section at 12:30, which was a little less than two hours away. I was conflicted, three emotions were stirred up within me.
1. Joy. My little guys were almost here! I have been waiting so long, imagining what they would look like and what it would feel like to hold them.
2. Empathy. I felt really bad for Jami, she was clearly in a lot of pain. I wanted to be able to take it all away from her.
3. But also...Fear. I felt woefully unprepared to be a father in less than two hours. Shouldn't we wait a bit longer? I mean that's only thirty minutes after lunch, I seem to remember something about not going swimming for at least twenty minutes after you eat; I can only imagine that something as immense as giving birth would require at least a two week waiting period following a noon time meal. Let's just slow down there doc.
From about 11:30 till about 12:30 when we were moved from triage to the delivery room, life sort of got blurry. Probably because my world was spinning at a pace akin to those contraptions astronauts find themselves spinning in for gravity defying training purposes.
We arrived in the delivery area, where Jami and I had to part ways momentarily. The nurses took Jami back to prep her for surgery, which included the much needed spinal anesthetic that would help Jami's labor pains evaporate. I was given some materials to wear over my clothes so as not to contaminate the sterile environment of the delivery room.
I opened the package I was given, inside I found what I at first thought was a "Haz-mat suit". Between my frazzled nerves, and the intricate structure of the suit I had to wear over my street clothes, it took roughly 45 minutes and the help of two nurses, a physical therapist, and a hip-replacement patient that had just come out of surgery to help me into my new duds. I had my booties on, my jumpsuit zipped up, a mask pulled taught against my face and a lovely hospital-blue hair net to cap off the ensemble.
Trying to calm myself down, I paced back and forth across the hospital room stopping repeatedly to sanitize my hands with the foam dispenser attached to the wall. Left, right, left, right, left, right, turn; left, right, left, right, left, right, sanitize. I was like a germ-a-phobic Buckingham palace guard with OCD. My routine was finally broken when the nurse came back to get me and bring me in to the delivery area.
Jami was sprawled out and strapped down to the operating table. The doctors had set up a base camp comprised of a tent of blue sterile napkins covering the lower half of Jami's body. Her belly was rising up from the middle of the sanitary blue ocean like a Leviathan out of the deep sea.
I've heard many a person say that watching the birth of their child was one of the most beautiful events they'd ever witnessed. I'm not sure what program they were watching, but it can't have been the same thing I saw. What my eyes were privy to, was a cacophony of violence and a menagerie of bodily fluids. It began with a thick coat of rust tinted iodine slathered across my wife's stomach. With the skill of a samurai, the doctor took her scalpel and made a careful and precise incision just below my wife's waistline; that was the last I saw of anything I would classify as skillful, careful, or precise.
The doctor and her cohort maneuvered both of their hands on either side of the gap the incision had made. They proceeded to lean back with all their weight, tearing the gap and the tissue beneath even wider. It looked like they were having a tug-o-war using my wife's abdomen for a rope. Once the exit wound was wide enough, the team of doctors and nurses began the process of securing the portal from which the babies would be brought forth; this included a lot of clamping, sucking, and more tugging. As the queasiness began to rise up inside of me, the surgical team began to stuff a giant hoop inside the hatch they had carved into my wife's belly. I proceeded to throw up a bit in my mouth. I was later told that the hoop was a gentler way of performing a C-section which allowed them to not take several major organs out including the uterus. My thought is: if this is a newer gentler way, what did the old way look like?
"Nurse hand me my field knife, and give the patient a stick to bite down on...this is gonna get messy." said the doctor in the movie that was playing in my mind's eye.
The doctor said something to the effect of are you ready, and plunged her hands into the cavity in my wife's midsection. When she withdrew her hands there was a tiny human head gripped between them. I can remember a Christmas when I was young and my cousin let me hold her new baby at grandma's house, my mother kept cautioning me to be gentle and support the baby's head and neck. You can imagine my horror then, when this medical professional was yanking and twisting my offspring out of their womb...by the neck!
My first thought when I saw my children for the first time was pure joy! They were finally here, with me and their momma. The whole moment was surreal, and a tear welled up in my eye. Once I caught my breath, I realized that my children were beautiful yes, but...also kind of gross. They were covered in goop, had a blueish gray pigmentation, and heads that were seemingly too big for their little bodies; but mostly covered in goop. Let me reiterate, that when the doctor presented my children to me fresh out of the womb, they were beautiful yes; however I did want to ask the doctor, "Hey doc, you're gonna clean those up before you hand em over to me right?"
Thankfully the answer was yes. Once the kids were pulled from whence they came, the medical team quickly took them over to little stations set up in the room. As I followed the flurry of action, I saw people poking, prodding, wiping and weighing my babies. Excitement and emotion grew inside me, I can't believe these are mine. When the doctor finally told me I could touch them, I was overwhelmed. I extended my finger and touched my daughter's hand, to my amazement she gripped it and squeezed. Inside I melted, and decided as soon as I got a chance I would get on the internet and buy my little girl a pony. Seeing my children grab hold of daddy's finger was one of greatest moments of my life.
After Jami was sewed up and cleaned up, the babies got to meet their momma. To see the love in her eyes as she met the children she had been carrying for 9 months was another of the greatest moments of my life. I have a new appreciation for my wife; what she is capable of, her unconditional love, and her selflessness amaze me.
So there we were, Mom and dad; with our babies 50% me and 50% her. We were a family for the first time. My heart was, and is...full.
