My niece is going to have a baby any day now. Last night I was told she's taking Le Mans classes in preparation. I think it's awesome that even though she's in a delicate condition, she still finds time to practice for a 24 hour auto endurance race. I still don't see how it helps the kid, but it's cool.
Yeah, those childbirth classes are something else... I went with my wife to humor her...
They start talking about all this stuff WE GUYS are supposed to do to "help" our wife give birth...
I'm like, "I learned the basics in the police academy-- if I wanted to "help" my wife give birth I'd just "help" her give birth in a barn, trapped in an elevator, or in a broken down car on the side of the road and save the $20,000 bucks you guys charge for me "helping" her do this in the hospital...
My wife starts talking on the ride home about what I'm supposed to do in the delivery room... I'm like "back the truck up... I'm not going to BE in the delivery room-- if God had wanted husbands in the delivery room, he wouldn't have made that nice waiting room just down the hall with the TV and comfy couches!" After enduring a stony stare, we "discussed" the matter. I truly argued the case well that it's tradition; men stay in the waiting room, pacing and nervous (or eating, watching TV, or asleep on the couches, but I left out that part!) waiting for news of the birth, upon receiving said news to hand out cigars and shake hands with the assembled strangers waiting patiently for their own news. It would be breaking tradition, er,
impossible, um...
darn near SACRILEGE for me, a male, to be present in the delivery room! Alas, my argument fell on deaf ears... As Dr. McCoy once put it, "in short, Captain Sir,
they drafted me!"
So, the momentous day arrives... So, after she was induced and she laid around half the day, gradually getting worse and worse and finally laying in bed crying while singing church hymns to her ipod, I went searching for a nurse to administer more drugs... (to her preferably, but either one of us would do-- one or the other of us had to have some relief!) After hornswoggling a nurse in the hallway and extracting a promise that she'd deliver more drugs (how much am I paying for this lousy service again-- I mean, heck, even at the Chinese restaurant, the waiter comes around a couple times during the day to ask if I need more tea... seems like the nurses would check in more than at 10 and 2... ) the nurse finally arrives after a half hour and injects something into said victim (oh, sorry, my wife) and glances at some monitory-pulsey type stuff and splits... the doctor decides on a C-section an hour later...
So, now Jeff gets the deluxe tour-- including the operating room! (Oh boy, like I really wanted to see
that!) So, after a search for some scrubs that would actually fit a 6-1 350 pound fatboy like me, (well, they SAID they fit-- THEY LIED!!!!) I help push the wifey into surgery (how much is this costing again??). Now, I've helped critically injured and dying folks at accidents; I've been hurt on the farm myself a few times and usually so long as it doesn't involve looking for detached body parts, I usually just wrap something around it and keep on working-- the best band-aids are made from shop towels and electrical tape doncha know... but I don't do well as a spectator at such things... when you're "doing something" the adrenaline kicks in and you just do what needs doing. Standing there watching, though, is another matter-- like when we had a "film night" in the academy after a week or so of first aid training-- guess who nearly passed out?? Yet I've helped people who were in their final moments (or nearly so) and not been freaked out...
So, I get the front row seat while they cut away on my wife... I turn my back to the table, stand by her head patting her head and holding her hand while they do their thing... shortly the Doctor asks "Would you like to cut the cord??" and I reply curtly, "no thank you;
that's what YOU guys are getting paid for!". After a short clean-up and check out, they hand me a wiggling 10 pound 4 ounce baby girl, whom momma wants to see, so I lean down a bit so she can see. I kid you not, the baby turns her head and nearly lifts her head off my arm to look at momma, and then the baby is whisked away by the nurses to the nursery to do all that medical mumbo-jumbo they do to newborns... I stay with my wife (who is finished being sown up and looks rather like a deflated balloon laying on the gurney) as we're escorted to recovery...
Later, in the hallway, looking in the nursery window with my brother, we can hear Keira screaming and crying LOUDLY on the other side of the glass-- I comment that 'she has a good set of lungs'... my brother said, "man, she is MAD about something!--she takes after YOU!" That sinks in a minute, and I facepalm myself and go, "oh, s#!t... what have I got myself into??"
It's been all uphill from there...
Best wishes to your family Don...
OL JR