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Sunday (well, some of Monday too) Normally a
Sunday is relatively bittersweet. You work the next day, but
you have the day off. Sometimes I’d push Sundays to
the edge and stay up way too late enjoying myself.
But this was not a typical Sunday night.
I come to bed, late, about 2 AM. I’m
wiped out and ready for bed when I notice Cynthia is still
awake. “Hun?” I ask.
She’s been having contractions for about
an hour. A pang of thoughts runs through me. Is this it? Is
it happening? Oh my god. But, it’s hard to say. Women
have contractions without going into labor. After consoling
with her for a few minutes she decides to go out into the
living room, armed with her touchscreen Contraction Timer
app, eager to see if this is the real deal.
I was eager to get to sleep. Either way, work
the next day or labor, I knew sleep would be necessary. What
I did not know is just how underscored that necessity truly
is …
Naturally, as it is for her, sleep is impossible for me. I’m
just laying there. I cannot think of anything but two things.
(1) My wife might be in labor. I might be able to meet our
first daughter, Clara, soon! (2) I feel like absolute shit.
Oh no …
As it turns out, ‘soon’ was not
exactly the right word to use, and I knew there was no way
I could let a silly upset stomach hinder such an important
moment. So I kept that little fact to myself.
My brother, Johnny, and I had patronized one
of our routine locations, BW3, and had a typical good time.
This typical good time usually involves at least two Long
Island Iced Teas, and since we’re regulars there, they
always come out good. Johnny wanted to ask out a girl he was
getting good vibes from, and that was the primary impetus
for that evening’s venture. What a double-edged sword!
He got the girls number, and I got myself a ball of greeb
rotating and writhing in my stomach now mixing within a solution
of anticipation and anxiety – making sleep a virtual
impossibility.
Darkness on my left, sunshine on my right.
Groans came from the living room. I could hear them clearly
as they wafted through the bedroom door I left purposefully
ajar. She was watching TV, but her groans were clearly distinguishable
from the droning of the television programming.
Several times I wander out into the living
room and ask how she is doing. I glance at the data captured
by the contraction timer and know instantly, this is labor.
I ask her what she thinks, and she is uncertain, but I knew,
and I think she did too.
She knew, but didn’t want to say it.
Proclaiming this was labor, for it to not be, would have been
a crushing moral defeat. The pregnancy was really bothering
her for the past week. She was frustrated. The other members
of our natural birthing class had all given birth already
– we were the last ones out of the gates.
I looked for the emotional signposts I, as the
coach, was trained to look for. In early labor – Excitement.
I didn’t see it. If she was excited, she was hiding
it or too tired to realize it. So, I brushed it off. Not a
big deal. I still think this is labor.
So I lay in my bed, desperate for sleep, and
willing something to happen. (1) This pit in my stomach, caused
by a nasty cocktail of habenero wing sauce and hard Iced Teas,
needs to go away – quickly, or (2) this can not be labor.
I cannot feel like this during my daughter’s birth!
I had no clue.
I sleep a few ragged hours, starting from about
6 AM to 8 AM. It feels great, and really puts some of the
ball of greeb in my stomach aside. Cynthia is still laboring,
so I examine the data and ask her opinion.
We’re looking for regular contractions
about one minute in duration and three to four minutes apart,
and this needed to be happening for about an hour before we
were to leave for the birthing center.
We were pretty far off the mark.
Finally, at 6 PM, Monday, after after 17 hours
of laboring at home, the last hour of which was remarkably
intense compared to the rest, we decided to send out the message
to the family, “We’re leaving for the birth center.”
Cynthia is extremely nervous to labor in the
car. I don’t blame her. I was not nervous, but in overdrive
hyper-perception mode. I saw every vehicle in slow motion.
I knew the color, make, and model of every vehicle, and the
attention level of every driver within a 200 yard moving radius
from our vehicle. Nothing would stop us now.
The roads were wet. As I pulled out of the
house earlier I noticed a daunting veil of dark, nasty, stormy
weather to the east. We were headed south. Maybe we’d
miss it, I thought.
But now, we’re almost there and to my left, in the East
sky, in front of a wicked darkness, and through a thin sheet
a rain, we can see a rainbow more vivid and full of sunlight
than any I have ever seen. It is not a partial rainbow either,
but extends a full 180 degrees from one part of the horizon
to the next. Remarkable, I thought to myself. I even got Cynthia
to look at it between contractions (I was pretty proud of
that achievement!).
To my right, I see the sun beginning its decent in the West,
and the skies are a rich and deep azure. The clouds are detailed
and limned with intense sunlight. In the middle, straight
ahead, between the darkness to the East and the azure sunshine
to the West, we were driving down a road that would change
our lives forever. It was wet, slippery, and intimidating,
but all around us we had such a wonderful tapestry of symbolism
to drawn from.
The darkness was completely out shined by the
brilliant rainbow. But, the rain was starting to filter in
and just as I thought we were going to get hammered by the
storm we turned right onto the road that would lead to the
birthing center. Also, quite symbolically, changing the left/right
dichotomy of darkness and light to one of driving into the
beautiful blue skies while leaving the dreary darkness behind.
But we left our mark, even on the darkest skies – a
full and bright rainbow.
The most intense thing I’ve ever done.
The birthing center, Breath of Life (Clearwater, FL) is a
fantastic facility. The Midwives there are absolutely experts
at what they do. Vicki, our midwife, lets us in. We are thrilled
to see her. Vicki and Cynthia had developed a wonderful rapport.
She’d impressed me greatly the few times we’d
met previously.
Vicki plays a pivotal role in the final stages of our pregnancy,
labor, and the birthing of our beautiful daughter..
We settle into our room, having no clue how
long we’d be there while Vicki gets to work on her initial
duties. She’s monitoring baby and Mom with her non-invasive
intermittent monitoring equipment and examines the data collected
by the contraction timer.
She knew that we were still quite a ways off the mark. She
knew little Clara was not coming out any time soon. She, being
the expert she is, did not tell us this but kept things positive
and encouraging.
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