Charles McKeithan

It was not like that........

It was not like that.

I really have no clue what that is exactly like. But this was not it.

At 10:30 the doctor's assistant popped into the room catching me in the
middle of a karate form. I was stuck on move number twenty six. Twenty seven
is a bitch to remember.
As a two time veteran of c section husbandry, I was cool. Collected. Strode
into the operating room like I bloody well belonged there. Making witty
charming remarks to the surgeons as they huddled over the hump of flesh
hiding my daughter to be.
Yes thanks for the chair, no point in trying to convince you people that
blood and guts is part of nature and sceince and life, I'm cool with it.
I've taken the fifty cent tour of my wifes internal organs and can do it any
day you ask without so much as a woozy feeling..
Surely I was not the type of father to drop at the first sign of red?

Not I

Holding her hand and playing peek a boo behind the sterile blue curtain, I
shifted between gazing reasuridly at my wife, and catching glimpses of the
tugging and cutting and pulling of three professionals as they mined their
way through layers of My dearheart.

The camera sat on my knee and kept shutting down to save batteries as I
timed my pattern down. Look, shift, gaze adoringly, shift back. Camera
ready, shift, smile, shift.

The bickering started. An order was barked as if the Forman had not been
heard the first time. What an awful lot of tugging.

And oh my dear yes blood. Rorshack patterns on the pretty sterile blue
doctor gowns.

I need a vacuum. NOW.
Thank you

I'm not getting any suction.
Well it won't work if it gets fluid in it.

GET me another ONE then.

She's not coming out.

More tugging.

Time really does slow down. For hours and hours they tugged and pulled. Mel
Gibson in his Scottish best had nothing on the pushme pull me war that the
three inquisitors were playing with Lauryn to be.

If you've ever baked a chicken past the point of proper baking, to where it
is melting off the bone. And then you reach in and grab the greasy knuckle
of the legbone and pull but get only bone and no meat, Insert that sound
here.

"Okay, forget about the head; let's just get her out." Calm again, the
mechanic has to roll back under the chassis and try from another side. It is
after all a big transmission.

Metal instruments that look much like perverted salad tossers are stretching
wide with tense muscle action. The abdominal wall is strong, but the three
are stronger.
Dear god, was that a 6 once strawberry jell cup that just spattered the
operating floor?

Two blue legs sprout from her belly and with a firm grip, the doctor gains
to the knees, camera up. I Breath again. Time starts again.

The legs thwarp like an angry frog and disappear into the dark. Babies can't
read, but they can tell time. It's early damn it, I'm not even dressed and
the party has started.

With another grunt, the firm grip regained, and out comes baby as Dearheart's
stomach wall flutters and collapses in on nine months of expansion in a
moment's beat.

Now the camera flies, the digital wav of a shutter sound flitters and
clicks. Next, the baby will scream that note of rock and roll rage and
announce to the world that the show starts now and it doesn't stop rocking.

God she's big!

As if on air the baby glides across three sets of hands to the waiting arms
of Nurse #1 whose suction vacuum doesn1t work when you get fluid in it. She
levitates to the GE model 6 million and two baby warm-o-mattic and deftly
slides the body into home plate.
Shift, grin, wink, shift.

The surgeons are working hard still on the sutures and the veins and the
blood. Nurse 2 is counting to 27 as she lines up bloody rags on a mat on the
floor. (yes let1s not leave any inside the patient)
27?
And all soaked with red.

Nurse 2 slips on the jello pile and it leaves an angry smear across the
pristine tile.
Make that 28.

Why is it so silent? Everyone is working fast and moving fast and busy busy
busy.
Were is waldo? I glance back to the warm-o-matic.
Nurse one has called out the double doors for a Pediatrician not STAT but
"now please" in the way that when someone steps on your hand you ask them to
remove their foot NOW PLEASE.

It's very quiet. Nurse 39 has an oxygen pump mask and someone is saying in
the gentlest sweetest voice"come on now sweety, breath, you can do it" It
might be me, but it's not ,because I'm giving the wife that Oscar winning half
smile that says,"Gosh those wacky zaney doctors and there ways huh?"I get up
and head for the warm-0=o-matic. She is dark blue and so very big and so
very quiet, and
So

Very

Still.

Hey there God, not this please. I am the least worthy of your subjects. We
haven't spoken in a long time and my wife, well the televangelists and the
fire and brimstone guys built a hell of a wall around her a long time
ago.but not this please. She is only two minutes old. It's not her fault
that I'm a ----. Not my place to ask but please, forget the whole laws of
science and nature and the free will of man thing,

I can't move. I turn and feel the world turn a half an inch behind me. I
stop but the world moves on an extra inch past me to see if I notice. It's
like a weird game of pickle. Blue sticky little daddy's bundle of joy on one
side and richly red wife of a decade being pieced back together on the other
side. I am useless.

As if from another room far away down the hall. The briefest whimper. It
could be from anywhere but the nervous release of air and laughter from the
warm-o-matic team pinpoints it to babies first sound.
Shift the curtain. Smile. "everything's just fine honey, happens
alllllllllthe time. What a teaser huh?
Over to the side of my new love, a tinge of pink around the edges of purple
and blue.
Nurse two says " She's a little Groggier than we'd like.
{APGAR 3}
Some might call that an attempt to make Dad feel less panicky about his
whole Universe being on the verge of implosion. Me? I'm an actor. I call it
Shitting the Bull. She gets an A for effort though, and don't call us, we'll
call you.
The tiniest tube is being inserted up babies tiniest of noses and a little
finger pump is clearing the passages. The most bizarre rubber hammer thingy
is being used to patter across her chest to perk her up. I'm ready to swing
a dead chicken over my head at midnight if it'll help.

Pinker than Blue.

Back to Mom

Spinning world, our hero has to sit again

Round three, the bell dings and it's : smiles behind the curtain and strokes
across the forehead. "The babies breathing fine" (oohh careful Mr. Olivia,
she almost didn't buy that one. More intention next time, internalize
internalize,
What's my motivation?
27 bloody rags on the floor, no 28.

She looks like a baby now. Pink

Crying

Ohhh thank God, she1s wailing.

Cry baby
Cry!!!!!
{APGAR 8}
Wrapped up and warm in my arms and heading for the room. The pediatrician of
doom is saying something about congratulations and is taking of his mask and
going away.

Go away. Thankyou and go away.

I can see nothing anymore but a chubby little face swaddled in blankets. I
can hear nothing but little sweet breaths.

It's 10:50 am the world is spinning with me. Time is in sync with nature.
God is off doing what ever it is God does after reminding a mortal of what
mortal means.

They are wheeling in my wife. She's pinker than she is blue. So is the
baby..

Posted by cmckeithan at November 13, 2003 12:39 PM