Growing Up…
I made this photo of Christine waaaaaaaay back on September 24, 2011 before we knew that Atticus was an Atticus and not an Atticette. I also realize that it’s out of order but maybe one day I’ll go back and reorganize this site in chronological order (but that day is not today!)
I think it is a perfect photo for a New Year’s Day as it has a distinct ‘reflecting on the future’ feel; is ‘preflection’ a word? Spell check says, “No” but I think it should be.
At about 3:00 AM, early, early Saturday morning on January 28th, Christine got up to use the bathroom when she started having contractions that felt different than the Braxton Hicks contractions that she’d been having the better part of that month. She suspected that she was in labor but she didn’t want to wake me up because everyone said that with the first pregnancy, you could be in labor for many hours so she wanted me to get as much sleep as possible.
At about 5:00 AM, she (finally) woke me up by quietly saying, “Dan… Dan… I think we’re having a baby.” I was immediately awake and with an OH SHOOT!! *, I shot straight up in bed. She told to relax and assured me that we had plenty of time. Christine wanted me to go ahead and shave and shower so I would be ready when we needed to leave for the hospital so that’s what I did. As soon as I turned off the water, though, I heard Christine on the phone with the hospital.
Apparently, her water didn’t really “break” but (not to be too gross) there was a discharge and it was greenish-brown rather than clear like it’s supposed to be. She had called the hospital and they said that we should go ahead and come on in just in case. The nurse said that we shouldn’t dilly-dally but there was no need to rush or anything. We got to the hospital at 7:00 AM and after a brief stop at triage to check Christine over, we were whisked up to one of the swanky birthing suites. Seriously, except for all of the medical equipment and the window looking out over industrial rooftops, the room looked and felt like a beach house!!
They checked Christine at 7:30 AM and she was dilated 4cm but she said the pain was only 4 or 5 on a 10 point scale, 10 being worst. We (as in, “the royal we,” i.e. primarily Christine) wanted to have a medicine-free birth.
The next couple of hours passed in a relatively uneventful blur; we tried to remain calm between contractions which occurred with increasing frequency and intensity. Around 10:00, Christine decided to try getting out of bed and sitting on an exercise ball (a technique that was talked about in a Lamaze class that we took) which, in theory, seemed like it would be helpful. In reality, however, by the time she got about 10 feet from the bed, she was on her knees on the floor, resting her elbows on the ball that we brought. The way it is really intended to be used is to sit on it and rock from side to side or back and forth but whatever works, right? Anyway, the nurse came in at 10:30 to check on our progress.
Christine told the nurse that the she couldn’t NOT push. I was thinking the same thing that you’re probably thinking, “That’s a double negative.” The nurse told her to try her best not to push yet (because pushing too soon increases the chance of tearing – I know, TMI) and she would check Christine’s dilation in 5 minutes.
Christine asked if she could just get back in bed and have the nurse check her out right then. So between contractions, we helped her back to the bed and when the nurse checked her, she was at 9cm!! “Oh my!,” the nurse exclaimed, “I better go ahead and let Dr. Miyazaki know.” She called the doctor and told him that it was show time.
After she made the call, she and another nurse came in and started wheeling monitors in and fiddling with the knobs and preparing trays of scary looking tools and other medical minutia. I looked down to comfort Christine through a contraction for just a matter of seconds and when I looked up, there was literally half a dozen or more people in scrubs semi-calmly rushing around!
Dr. Miyazaki came in and took control, speaking clearly and calmly. He reiterated the importance of Christine not pushing until she was dilated the full 10cm, which was still a couple contractions away. Now I would like to say that I did everything exactly right, without hesitation for those last several moments of Christine’s pregnancy but, unfortunately, I can lay no such claim. I wasn’t falling apart or hyperventilating or anything like that; I just kept forgetting to coach her across the finish line (Dr. Miyazaki helped to remind me to talk to Christine- sort of a coach coach.) In my defense, if you know Christine at all, you know how independent she is so it wouldn’t have been that surprising for her to have handled the actual birthing process plus the job of at least one of the nurses and potentially the job of the doctor too! I’m just saying my wife is a freaking dynamo! Am I going a little overboard with my justifications? Yeah, probably so…
Anyway, after only about 3 or 4 rounds of pushing, a small knob began to work its way out and, in all honesty, it kind of looked like a wet rat (I kept that to myself, of course). “I can see the head and there’s LOTS of hair!” (For months, Christine had been saying that she hoped the baby was born with a head full of hair.) One more push and I could see a wrinkled little face! Dr. Miyazaki quickly told me to get my camera ready and with another push or two, the baby exploded into life like a popped water balloon! In one fluid motion, Dr. Miyazaki held the baby up for Christine to see before handing him over. She burst into tears (of joy), “I knew you were a boy!”
At 10:51 AM, weighing in at 7 lbs 8 oz, Atticus became a fellow external American and Christine did it all drug-free!! Holy shoot! After a few minutes, the nurses whisked him across the room to the “warming table” (which sounds like something that you would be more likely to find at a fast food joint rather than a hospital) to clean him up and check to make sure everything was in working order. I followed them over and supervised to make sure that they did everything properly.
He cried a little but considering he was spread out, breathing air rather than being all snuggled up in a warm bag of amniotic fluid, he was adapting considerably well. As they wrapped him in a blanket, one of the nurses turned to me and asked if I wanted to hold him…
I don’t often worry about much but the thought of holding a baby (especially my own baby) had been causing me a bit of anxiety. I guess the nurses are probably used to nervous dads but I wasn’t just nervous about holding a newborn baby; I was legitimately concerned that my handicapped arm would go all gimpy and cause me to lose my grip or accidentally squeeze him too hard or who knows what. Before I had time to open my mouth, the nurse thrust him into my arms and instinct took over; my hands and arms immediately went to the right places and I found myself staring down into my son’s bleary eyes. He briefly closed his eyes and then opened the as wide as he could possibly in a fruitless attempt to focus on the voice he had heard the second most often for the last nine months. He cycled through the slow-blink-SUPER-wide-eye thing repeatedly; it reminded me of a pre-punk photo of John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon from the early 70’s that I had seen in a book several years earlier. I just stared back; neither of us said anything.
After a few minutes, I happened to look up and was greeted with scene worthy of a CSI rerun! Dr. Miyazaki was giving my inquisitive wife a scientific demonstration of how her placenta functioned… using her actual placenta! He had it all stretched out with both hands, Cat’s-in-the-Cradle-style. It was actually kinda gruesome, but they both seemed pretty interested. I don’t have any pictures of that.
After he finished sewing Christine up and that was pretty much that. Everyone left us to get to know our new baby boy. Christine told me to bring her baby over so she could hold him and we just looked at him. Since Christine didn’t use any medicine, she was up moving around in short order. She handed Atticus to me and started to straighten stuff but we decided that wasn’t really something that the new parents were expected to do so she took this shot (and I love it!)
could give him a more extensive scrub down and measure him and everything. We started getting antsy so I went back down there to check the progress. He was in a bassinet right up by the window and opened his eyes right when I was taking pictures. I’m sure he was looking at the big red blob (my red shirt) but it looks like he is peering straight at me!!
Later that day, Will and Jennifer came to the hospital to see us followed shortly by my dad and my uncle. We watched some cable TV (a few months earlier, Time Warner realized that they had inadvertently been giving us expanded cable free of charge for just over 4 years and subsequently cut it back to the basic service that we had been paying for) and called friends and family and even though Atticus had arrived before lunch, the rest of the day just passed in a blur.
*Expletive omitted to maintain a family-friendly rating
