The home stretch

As the wheelchair hurtled down the corridor threatening to explode from the ponderous weight of its cargo (and the breakneck speed of its driver) I finished a barely legible to-do list for R. Once checked into ante-partum, I sent him off reassured with smiles and jokes to take care of the list and hurry his behind back. The minute he was out of sight they hooked me up to as many monitors, IVs and catheters as they could find, leaving me with the uneasy feeling of being a very large fly in a very strange web.

Most of that day is a hazy blur with a few moments that I remember with complete clarity: Dr. M. popping in to tell me he had an opening and he would deliver Jack BEFORE R returned. The ensuing panic to get R back in time and then ending up having to wait anyway. The nurse slipping me ice chips when no one was looking - bless her, she was my hero that day. Suddenly realizing I was in the OR and scared to death and Dr. P. holding my hand just as it all went to hell...

From the start I had a weird feeling and it was validated when there was a disagreement between Dr. P. and the head anasthesiologist about the type of block I should have. Dr. P and the attending gas man felt I needed a lesser dosage but Mr. Ego came down and said he would dose me himself. They tried five times to get that spinal to take... Mr. Ego accused me of faking...how the hell do you fake doing high kicks (to the horror of those on the other side of the room)??? He finally gave me a shot of something and I was numb...it was the strangest feeling.

R finally was allowed in.

Me: "Did he start yet?"
He: "Oh yeah, he's up to his elbows!"

Laughter then panic. I couldn't breathe. AT ALL. When they start they tell you if you have issues to snap your fingers so I did. (Later that night I had blisters from the amount of violent snapping I had apparently been doing.) Drama ensued, R is asked to leave and ended up being physically removed, I took a lovely nap and as far as we know the delivery went off without a hitch and Jack was delivered at 8:01pm 4/23/2001. I really wish though I could have heard his first scream and seen the look on the NICU stand-by teams faces when the low birth weight baby they were expecting was almost 10 pounds!! I am told I came to life in recovery long enough to sit straight up in bed and demand someone to "bring me my son!" much in the manner the Queen of Hearts demanded "Off with their heads". I was appeased with video and passed back out. It would be hours before I would finally hold my son.

Finally, I was sent to my room and after an eternity R went to the nursery and brought me our son. He was sleeping when he was handed to me and I fought the urge to poke him to wakefulness. Instead I devoured every inch of him, coal black hair, that crazy cowlick he still has, skin as soft as a peach, long graceful fingers and that new baby smell!! Just when I could no longer contain myself , I was rewarded with the opening of two very serious midnight blue eyes.

From the minute we met, Jack has always had a very definite sense of purpose. As if he has been given an assignment and is merely biding his time until it is to be handed in. He seemed an old soul and a disgusted old soul that night looking at me as if to ask, "What took you so long?".

What took *me* so long????

The remainder of the hospital was fairly uneventful.... well except for the time the nurse caught me trying to trim his hair with the manicure scissors when R fell asleep (*I* knew what I was doing, his hair was too long, they weren't sharp at all and I was off the morphine by then...) and the time I was on the phone with a friend and was hallucinating about singing bananas. Scared her so badly that she hung up on me and called the nurse's station LMAO! Suffice it to say, Morphine and I do not enjoy each other's company.

A few days later we went home and as we walked through the door our feet had been firmly, inextricably set on the path towards "here".