About two weeks ago, Carly discovered that she had some grody discharge coming from her hoo-hah. All the materials said that such a thing could be perfectly normal for someone in the early third trimester, or it could be a sign of DOOM. So, she calls the doctor and goes in for a checkup. She has a yeast infection, it turns out, and the doc gives her a tube of goop to set off the other goop and tells her to go home and have a nice day--wait, no, how about while you're here we just run a few ultrasounds? Yeah, okay, now you can go home.
The next day, she gets a phone call telling her that her cervix is slightly dilated and thinned out a bit, meaning, she's now high risk and should immediately go to bed rest. The cervicular problem is a sign of early progression that could lead to early labor, and while many many people never have problems with their pregnancies with this kind of advancement, the doctor says, best not risk it. Go to bed.
Carly was bummed. A textbook pregnancy up to that point, it kind of took the wind out of her sails. So, she begrudgingly decided to take to bed rest the next Monday, after she cleaned some stuff up at work. She tried to get the right to work from home, but her agency denied the request on some really obtuse technical grounds, so off she went. Bed rest, to her, was more like house arrest, and she took every opportunity to sneak out and get snacks when I wasn't looking. Not far--just across the street for Baked Doritos, but still.
We went to a childbirth class that next weekend, and had a great old time. The pediatrician who hosted the thing told us to try not to worry about it, relax, and listen to our doctors.
The following Sunday, Carly and I went for a walk around noon--just to get out of the house. It was hot and humid, but there was a good breeze, so it wasn't uncomfortable. But Carly was. We only went about 4 blocks, but she was straining and huffing, so we moseyed back home. Carly was having some mild contractions, but they went away after an hour or two after she re-hydrated and stretched out a little. I insisted that she really take the bed rest seriously at that point, and the next day, Monday, July 1, she did just that. I'm pretty sure she didn't get out of bed at all until I got home from work. Then she just moved to the couch while I made dinner and then we watched some Sopranos. Carly noted that the Wolf responded positively to the opening theme of the show, which is the Jersey montage to the sound of A3's "Woke Up This Morning," which I have been listening to since 1996 and NO, I did NOT discover it through this show like the rest of you. I complimented Wolf's taste in music and we laughed and went to bed.
On Tuesday morning, Carly woke up with some cramping and back pains. She usually does. But she usually just gets up, gets some water, takes a dump or two, and goes about her day. On Tuesday, she was showing signs of distress. I asked if she was having contractions, she said yes, "every 10 or 12 minutes." I told her to get some water and keep counting while I walk the dogs, and we'll see what happens. When I got back about 20 minutes later, she was fully clothed and put her hair up. She called the doctor and they told her to go to the hospital with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
We got on the road and marveled at the lack of traffic, as we were going opposite the flow of commuters. We were fine until we got off the highway and got stuck behind some idiot who wanted to take a leisurely fucking drive in his goddamned fucking Hyundai on a Tuesday morning, going about 17mph in a 35 zone. IN JERSEY, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! 45 in a 35 is the legal limit. We know that. During the drive she was stressed out, and Carly grunted out that her contractions were closer to 5 or 6 minutes now.
We got to the hospital around 8:20 and they admitted Carly pretty quickly. I texted some people at work to let them know I was going to be out, and we waited a few minutes for a nurse to take us to an exam room. The nurse asked a bunch of questions about Carly's medical history and so on, and was soon joined by a resident. The resident asked the same questions all over again and then took a look at Carly, jamming a speculum up there and having a look-see. Immediately, the young doctor said, "you're not going home today, this is happening."
We were kind of confused by that statement. What was happening? Surely, you don't mean the baby is coming! It's way too early for that, don't you know? But then she said that Carly was 6cm dilated and ... well, that's all it took. She was in labor already.
Quickly, Carly was taken to a labor and delivery room and the nurses went through the same battery of questions. This was about 9:20. Carly was getting more uncomfortable and the contractions were getting worse and closer together, so she asked for an epidural. That was about 10:00AM. A NICU doctor came in to give us an idea of what to expect while the anesthesiologist got everything ready. He spoke in riddles, but basically told us that we had to worry about with a 33-week old baby.
1. Lungs. The kid's lungs won't be fully developed. So, he might need to be on some kind of a breathing machine or tubes to keep him going. He might need to be in a 100% oxygen environment, or he could be OK on normal oxygen. We'll see how it goes.
2. Infections. Babies' immune systems are already weak, but premature kids are even worse off. The body simply hasn't begun the process of learning how to fight off illness, so he'll be on some massive antibiotics from the minute he's born.
3. Weight. The kid hasn't started to build his fat layers, so he'll need to be kept warm. Any energy he spends keeping warm means he won't use it to build fat, and if he doesn't have some meat on him, he'll never survive in an open crib. So he needs to gain weight.
Then, the doctors tell me I have to leave while they do the epidural. I'm not sure why this happened, but I resolved to just listen to the doctors and do what I'm told. They told me to go get some food in the cafeteria and come back up in about half an hour. So I did.
In the cafeteria, I got a waffle, some sausage, a bowl of fruit, a muffin, a big bottle of water, and a big cup of coffee. I sat down and called Carly's mother and called my mom. I stuffed one big bite of waffle in my mouth and swallowed, then started to cut another piece off. Then my phone rang and there was a weird number. I answered it. It was Carly's voice. "Come up here, now." I said, "OK," and hung up. I looked sadly at my waffle and sausage, untouched, picked up my water and coffee and other easily movable foods, and went back upstairs to her room. That was 10:18 AM.
When I got there, there were about 8 doctors and nurses in the room. "I'm here!" I said, "What do you want me to do?" Carly waved me over, and the doctor said, "Dad's here? Good. Get him out of here and get scrubs on. The baby is crashing, we're going now." I looked at Carly, she was clearly in the middle of pushing and ... giving birth? She had an oxygen mask. What the fuck happened while I was gone? I went outside and a nurse frantically dug through cabinets and threw various disposable scrubs pieces at me. I methodically put them on. They told me to do it, I wasn't going to do it half-assed. While I was doing that, they rolled Carly into the operating room. As soon as I had my scrubs on, I followed. That was about 10:23.
I sat down in a chair next to Carly's head. She was bewildered. They were pulling on her, there was a sheet by her neck. "That really burns!" she said. I glanced over, they were pulling out her uterus. I squeezed her hand and said it will all be all right, it's going to be uncomfortable, but just breathe and hang on. I'll be there. A few seconds later, a doctor says, "I have an arm!" About 20 seconds later, I hear, "It's a boy!" and then silence.
One beat.
Two beats.
Three.
Then,
WWWAAAH! WAH! WAAAH! WAAAHHH, AH, AH, WAH!
Carly and I both just erupted into tears. That was the best sound I'd heard all day. It was 10:28 AM.
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