Seven Red

Chekhov famously stated that if you introduce a gun in Act One, it must go off by Act Three. Similarly, if any non-extra woman in a sitcom or movie is seen to be preggo, she must deliver the baby before the close of the action, and preferably in some public spectacle, complete with an approving Greek chorus of onlookers, and either hissed curses or a hard squeezing of the testicles for the father. This is your fault! So, yes, a cinematic cliché. Now, you’ve all seen such scenes, maybe a hundred times. Us too. But it turns out that you can watch the proverbial taxi cab or elevator delivery a thousand times and never be quite prepared for it.

she, who had her last day of work for maternity leave on Thursday,  was probably in labor by 1pm Friday afternoon, while I was at yet another meeting on a seemingly intractable problem at Unnamed Employer Institution. I got home at 3:30 to find she and Ellie both asleep, napping. Some time later, they both got up, and maybe an hour after that, she told me that she was having mild contractions. At about six, we determined that these were probably real contractions, so I went looking for the stopwatch, which I didn’t find. Well, they have contraction timers online, she said, so I found this wonderful little site and started timing. Almost immediately, I noticed that the contractions were about 8 minutes apart, and lasting about 45 seconds.

Some context, then. Flashback warp, 2006. Ellie was delivered by natural childbirth, and she planned on doing that again. The last time, her labor started with mild contractions at about 3am, but she didn’t wake me up until about 7. We waited a little while, and started timing the contractions at about 8:30. Almost immediately, the contractions were 5 minutes apart lasting 45 seconds to a minute. That’s really when you’re supposed to go. However, not wanting to be sent home with false labor, we stayed at home through some fairly heavy contractions (mind you, I don’t know what is mild or heavy except from outward appearance); we called the doctor when they were 4 minutes apart and lasting what seemed to me an excruciating minute. He told us to stay home. Finally, at about 12:30pm, we headed in to Mount Nittany Medical Center, where she would be delivering. It turned out that she was only two-tenths of the way there, and they almost sent us away. The next four hours were brutal, and by 4:15, she was totally out of it, just wracked with contractions, delirious, non-responsive from pain. The doctor came in and said, casually, “Yeah, you’re at about 8, so let’s break your water and go.” She nodded yes. He broke her water, and she was in transition, which is about the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I noticed that they brought the table with all the instruments in, but then they left, probably because they didn’t want to be around for that.  After fifteen minutes of hell, she screamed “Where the fuck is everybody?” and all the medical staff came in calm as can be, ten minutes of pushing, and – ta-da – babygirl!

So that’s the last time, and there are a few upshots. First, we thought it would take much longer, even though everybody – and I mean everybody – told us it goes quicker the second time. Second, we were gun shy about going to the hospital early, especially since one of the midwives told us that they definitely send anyone under four-tenths ready right on home. If last time the labor was going on for 9 hours, and she was still only one-tenth ready, we figured we had at least that long this time. Third, for the worst of it last time, she was pretty much zoned out. This time, she was cogent and reasoning the whole way through, and I didn’t see anything that resembled the worst part of it before delivery. Nothing that we did last Friday makes much sense without the previous experience.

Flash forward. It’s about 6:15 last Friday, and I start timing the contractions. They are not at all regular, and vary from really small, ten second contractions, to about 45 seconds. They are four minutes, ten minutes, three minutes, seven minutes apart. Nothing regular. We know it’s the real thing, and probably going to be a long night. We hunker down.  I secretly predict an 11:20 delivery, and feel like I’m being optimistic about a short labor. But big problem. The people we have lined up to watch Ellie are incommunicado. I call their house, and nothing. Both cells, nothing. I call again, and again, and again. Nothing. she keeps yelling out “Starting!” when one kicks in, and I run to the computer to click the timer button. No answer on either cell, again. This goes on for about an hour. Starting! Stopping! Now they’re regular at 4 minutes apart, lasting a minute. Still no answer. she lays down on the bed, nesting, hugging a big stuffed dog. Ellie starts hugging on her and jumping on the bed, so I have to put on a video  to distract her. It’s 7:40. I tell she that I’m calling the midwives at 8:05.

Then our friends call. They’re out to dinner in Evanston, but now on their way. They arrive at about 8:25, and even go into the bedroom to see she, who is lying on our bed clutching one of Ellie’s stuffed animals. I get Ellie ready to go, and she says “Starting!,” so I ship Ellie off with the friend and run back into my office to click the start button. By now the contractions are pretty bad, lasting a minute to a minute and a half, but they’re still nowhere near (in terms of outward appearance) what I saw at Mount Nittany. Still, I think it’s time to go, so I tell she that I’m calling the midwifery service,  and telling the on-call person to get over to the hospital. No, she says. Not yet. So I wait. And she said I only get one “I told you so,” and I might have wasted that one at the hospital, but I’m suggesting it here. If I’d had my way, we would have left as soon as they picked Ellie up. But we waited. Here’s a screenshot of the Contraction Master (why is it a “master”?) times for the next next thirty minutes of this narrative:

So, at about ten to nine, I go into the bedroom, and notice that she’s been in the same position for about an hour. I vaguely recall from our Bradley class that maybe changing positions from time to time can help, so I suggest that she maybe turn the other way, or even get up. She gets up, and maybe lasts the 30 seconds it takes to get into the living room before a giant one hits, and she collapses near our couch. It’s time to go, for sure. I call the midwife service, and by the time she calls back, she’s having another bad one. “We have to come in right now,” I say. The midwife starts some routine questions, but I just cut her off. No. Now. OK, she says, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Immediately after the phone call, I go in and clock that 8:55 end-time. I won’t even go into the saga of getting she up, and down the stairs, and into the car. It seemed like an eternity to me, and I wasn’t the one having wave after wave of contractions. It was through sheer will that this kid wasn’t born on our front stoop, because by the time we got downstairs, she was definitely in transition. But the strange thing was the lucidity. She was bargaining with me, arguing for just one more minute before she had to get up, while I was by this time seriously concerned that we wouldn’t make it to the hospital, and, as the saying goes, I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies.

So we drive the (literally) three minute drive to the hospital, and she remembers something about entering for maternity through a bridge from the parking garage. I vaguely remember the same from our tour. Of course, what you’re probably saying is “Why in fuck’s name were you – the guy NOT having friggin ‘ contractions – taking direction from her?” Twenty-twenty hindsight, friends. But really, massive personal failing. I don’t pay attention to household logistical stuff. I don’t know why. I try, sometimes. It’s she‘s biggest complaint about me. She’ll be telling me something important that’s going to happen in a week, and then when it happens I get all agitated, like What’s this now? Well, she says, it’s the thing I spent twenty minutes telling you about at dinner last week. No memory of the conversation at all. Don’t even ask me about insurance and stuff like that; if I don’t find something interesting, I’ll usually tune out. And yes, of course this is a feminist issue, as she is happy to remind me. But back to our story.

We park the car about 25 yards from the entrance ramp to the bridge, but she now can’t get out of the car. You have to get up. We have to go. Wait until this one ends. Starting. Not stopping. Finally, she gets up, and we get maybe 15 yards. Starting. She screams. I see a family leaving, and they call out “Is everything OK?” “NO!,” I reply. “She’s having a baby. Right now.” I pretty much carry her Rambo style to the bridge, then run to the door, which is, of course, locked. It’s 9:10. After hours. Why we thought this door would be open is a mystery. Locked. Now I freak right the fuck out. I ring the bell for security, and nobody comes over the intercom, which is strange, since I probably waited a whole eight-tenths of a second for a response. she collapses on the ramp, screaming. I kick the door. I can’t leave her alone, so how do I go get help? The hospital is literally on the other side of this locked door. Then the woman from the family in the garage comes running in, saying “I’m a nurse.” She runs over to where she is writhing on the ramp. “It’s coming right now!” says my wife. “Has your water broken yet?” asks the Nurse. Yes, just now. I see that it has, and I’m like OH fuck. Since the Nurse is staying with she I take off down the stairs, heading for the front door. I run in, and take the elevator to maternity, which is, of course, also locked. But when I pick up the phone for the buzz-in, I see a team inside scrambling to get equipment, and heading my way. They open the door, and I say, “My wife is having a baby.” Yeah, on the ramp, they say, and take off running. I follow.

When we get back to the ramp, the Nurse is cradling she‘s head. The resident in charge of the delivery team says, from our view, “I think we can move her to delivery.” Then she crosses over to get a better look, and says “Oh, no, we’ll be having this baby right here.” Even I could see that. The family that saw us in the garage is there, the Nurse is still cradling she’s head, there are security guards and various staff gathered around. Where’s the film crew? Then some odd doctor-looking guy comes over and says, really casually, “Eh, one push and the kid’s out. Give it a good push.” He then disappears, never to be seen by us again.The midwife, who heard offhand in an elevator “Some woman’s delivering a baby on the bridge,” arrives at about that point. It’s been maybe 25 minutes since I spoke with her on the phone. She says later that she didn’t even really push. The kid came on out. There was no clapping. Just the efficient work of a medical crew, fiddling with instruments, wiping the kid down with a roll of paper towels. They put the baby on she’s chest, and I remember just grabbing the Nurse and saying “Thank you!” Just grabbing her whole body, it felt like. Some stranger.

But here’s the story. Usually, if somebody runs up to you in a hospital parking garage saying “I’m a nurse,” you’ll probably assume that he or she works in that hospital. But our nurse was just a civilian. She was there visiting her gravely ill father, and the family was comprised of the Nurse, her husband, her mother, and three kids who got to hear me yelling “Open this fucking door!” a couple of dozen times in 20 seconds or so. (That was my master plan before the nurse arrived…) So, she didn’t work at the hospital. Just there, in the throes of family loss, no doubt suffering their own pain and anguish, just walking through a parking garage. Will my father, my husband, my grandfather live through the night? Was that the last time our eyes will meet? They were leaving, and were pretty much at their car by the time we got to the ramp. They could have gotten in their car and left. I mean, fuck it, right? These people with the baby are at the hospital. Somebody’ll help them. But they didn’t leave. They came and helped us at just the moment we needed help. This woman cradled she‘s head while she delivered our child. Strangers. You can walk away or you can stand, but you can’t really walk away. In my business, people come up with a lot of pretty complicated concepts for ethics and community, and that’s good, since these terms are complicated. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re simple. You can walk away, or you can stand. Some stranger.

The doctors clocked the time of delivery at 9:20pm Central Daylight Time. As you can see from the Contraction Master screenshot, we were still at home and timing contractions at 8:55. Twenty-five minutes. It’s a sitcom after all…

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