In the best of times—when, after taking an careful and objective look around, you realize that the combined life of both you and your significant other could be a whole lot worse—parenthood is challenging. Sometimes those challenges start even before you “officially” become a parent (debate as to precisely when the label “parent” can be applied to person is pointlessly academic; from where I’m sitting, a person can be called by others, or call himself or herself, a “parent” the instant their first child is born and not a second before).
Certainly, my wife and I have had pre-parenthood challenges
before we had our twin boys. Our first child was born approximately a week early,
after a final prenatal exam revealed that my wife’s amniotic sac was
inexplicably empty of amniotic fluid, which meant our baby had to come out as
soon as feasible. Obviously, my wife and I were both worried because neither of
us knew how serious this news was or exactly what it meant; all we knew was
that our doctor conveyed a great sense of urgency about it. Luckily, we’d had
everything in place (the doctor, the hospital pre-registration, etc.), all of
which made the situation unexpectedly manageable, and we checked my wife in
that night to the hospital. They kept her overnight and monitored her. The next
day, there was no change, and we were all still waiting. Lots of pitocin was administered
via IV to my wife in an effort to move things along, but our yet-unborn child
still refused to budge (turns out this was "foreshadowing"). Later that afternoon, after hours and hours of waiting,
after breaking the amniotic sac, and lots of helping my wife walk the halls, it
became obvious she wasn’t going to give birth naturally in a timely enough
fashion, so a C-section was ordered. Several nurses wheeled her away in the bed
to be prepped for surgery and I was told to tag along. Outside the prep room, the
head nurse was very clear that I was to wait outside in the hallway until they
wheeled my wife to the surgery room, when I could see her again. I was handed a
pile of scrubs (with stylish hair net in the same faded green/blue shade as the
scrubs) and had changed into them in the bathroom as quickly as I could and
hurried back into the hall so as not to get left behind.
After 30 or so minutes (a person’s perception of time, when
under stress, is that time distorts and lengthens; it may have been less time
but felt like several hours), I got worried I had been forgotten. I’d like to
believe I’m a fairly progressive, modern husband who wanted to be there for the
birth of his first child; we’re all human, and I imagined I would be easy
enough to overlook in the push to prep someone for an unplanned surgery. But I
was unprepared for how long the prep would take; if any of the nurses or doctor
had told me how long, it hadn’t stuck in my head—my fault, not theirs (more on
this in a later blog entry). So I pushed the door open and wandered in, armed
only with my self-righteous determination to not miss my son’s birth. A couple
of things immediately caught my attention:
·
My wife, sitting up on the wheel bed, her back
to me;
·
A long needle (which looked more like a spear
than a medical instrument) that the anesthesiologist had just started to insert
into my wife’s spine;
·
Every person in the room (except my wife)
turning to look at me.
Someone (to this day, I’m not sure who) yelled, “Get him out
of here!!!” I backed out the door as quickly as I could and mumbled an apology.
I meekly waited in the hallway (no chairs to sit in, by the way) until everyone
came out another 30 or so minutes later, and I did what I was told the rest of
that hospital stay (and I was especially grateful none of the nurses felt the
need to further reprimand me; perhaps I was emanating an appropriate level of
contriteness). The surgical team didn’t want me to see an epidural being
administered, and I sure didn’t want to see one being administered. Whatever
the nurses or doctors tell you to do, just do it; they’re the experts, and you
cannot unsee certain things.
This entry will be continued in Part II: Challenges May Start Before Parenthood.
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