It was Thursday night, April 8th, 2010. Friday will be a day off for me. While I had not planned to take Friday off, something kept gnawing at me to so. Finally I just said I needed to be with Marie and left work. My to-do list is still long and we have two doctor visits one of which is my wife's pre-op at the hospital. The grass needs mowing and I needed to get groceries and cook a few things.
We go to bed at 11:00 pm. I slept upstairs in the master bedroom so that I could get up early and get Taylor ready for school. Marie slept in the guest room downstairs so that she could sleep in tomorrow. She thinks I snore.
At 11:30 pm Marie came upstairs and woke me up. She told me that she thought we might be having a baby. I picked up my Blackberry and showed her that she was wrong because it is scheduled for Monday and I laid back on the pillow. She quickly picked up my 3" thick book on steam locomotives and smacked me in the head with it.
"I don't think you understand. We may be having a baby."
"What do you mean maybe? Don't you know?"
"Well, I'm having some pain down below..."
"Guess we should not have had pizza like you wanted..."
"Scott, this pain is different."
"Ok, sweetie...let's go to the hospital!"
I called some friends of ours to see if we could drop Taylor off, but couldn't get them on the phone. They had drop in visitors and were probably still out and about. So I called our neighbors. They saw that it was me and picked up. Quickly they agreed to take Taylor for us.
I got dressed as quickly as I could and went to get Taylor ready. She had been asleep since about 7:30 pm. Marie was trying to get ready but was having water problems. I went back to the room to check her and she was on her third pair of panties and had a towel wedged between her legs.
"How do you feel sweetie?"
"I think we are having a baby."
"Darling, your water broke. We are definitely having a baby tonight."
I took Taylor across the street and made sure she was ok, then ran back to the house and loaded the car with our bags. It seemed like hours but we were out of the house before midnight. Marie threw towels all over the car seat and I put on my driving gloves and helmet. We would be at the hospital in record time.
The cool spring air felt good on me as I cracked the window and started the engine. I had a full tank and we were buckled in. Trying to be gentle and drive fast is tough. I did NOT want to have a baby in the SUV, that is for sure.
We hit the highway and I cranked it up to 85 miles per hour. While I wanted to get there fast, I did want to arrive alive. We passed one guy who did not have any rear lights. This is rural Georgia and many of the natives don't maintain their cars and drink a little to much in the evening.
We arrived safely at the hospital without being stopped by the police. That was God's handiwork because I would have been stopped twice any other time. I parked in the unloading zone only to find that they close the doors to the Women's Center at 9:00 pm. This would have been nice to know before hand. We entered through the emergency exit.
The Women's Center was quite busy. Apparently whenever there is a storm (which we had earlier in the day) the babies like to come out and see what is going on. We were the first C-section and Marie was dilated to 5 centimeters when we got to the prep room. Lucky for us Dr. Harris was already there and ready to go! Sometimes we get lucky and tonight seemed to be the night.
Marie was in severe pain now but was still not yelling. There were people everywhere and finally I found a small corner of the room to stand. They still kept shoving me here and there. All I wanted to do was to hold on to Marie and give her comfort but I couldn't get near her. They covered me in blue paper clothes and sat me in a chair in the hall.
I sat in the empty hall for almost an hour by myself. Occasionally a member of the cleaning staff would come by and say "first baby?" The fact that they all asked the same question meant that I must have been looking very nervous. I was nervous. Having a baby is one thing. Having Marie cut wide open to take it out is another. With my fingernails being gone I went looking for a drink of water, finally having to stick my head under a hand washing faucet. I was drenched in sweat.
Part 2 tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment