Try, Mister: 28.8.11

(You people...are insatiable.)
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The Bloody Show
When I saw the red tissue, everything kicked into auto. You read something long enough and when time comes to act, you're halfway through doing what you should be doing before you realize you're doing it.

Hospital bag. Change t-shirt. Grab ATM card. BlackBerry charger.

Get the fuck out the door now.

The drive back to the hospital was a blur. I remember trying to keep below the speed limit. I think we stopped to load up on cash first.

The story I had heard that morning beat in my head like a drum and soured my mouth.
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If You Can, Scan
The methodical calmness in Hospitals...Jesus.
Naturally, the doctor on duty wasn't going to commit to anything till he knew why exactly we were bleeding. So we talked. He jotted. He used big medical words and Sirius characteristically forced him to break them down. I sat there, a picture of calm and composure while explosions went off in my brain.
Long story short, three things had to happen. One, we had to do a scan to be sure there wasn't a rupture. Two, we were going to be admitted. Three, in the eventuality that anything was amiss, well.

I tried not to think about that.

I had to wait three hours before driving to get the scan done. Then another forty minutes to get the scan done. During that time I made the video we'd always said we'd make, told jokes and tried not to think.

The scan showed everything was okay.

As night took hold on Lagos, I drove back to the hospital. I was wearing the same dull tee shirt, jeans and palms from the morning. I was unwashed, unrested and slightly jumpy.

I was also brewing a good case of Typhoid. But naturally, I wouldn't get to know that little nugget of information till later.
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The doctor looked over the result, nodded satisfactorily and told us we'd be monitored overnight. If nothing happened, fine. By morning, we'd reach a decision.
As I settled on the small chair for the night and she waddled into bed, we laughed with relief about how the day had gone and both tried to sleep. I felt curiously feverish and attributed it to stress. We both tried to sleep.

Nothing would prepare us for how the next day would go.
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This Pain Is Alive
The head doctor came in the morning, took a good look at the Blogger named Sirius, pressed down on her belly and broke her water with a pair of forceps ten minutes later.

We had talked about being Induced many months ago. Basically, in very crude terms, being induced is like pressing fast forward on your labour. It speeds everything up, ripens the cervix and dilated you at a faster clip than regular labour would. It's used when the body is already in gear to give birth...but still kind of sluggish.

The tradeoff is the Pain. It crashes a slow buildup

Back when we were dating, my then wife-to-be had told me how important it was for whoever she married to stand by her when the time came. She had been serious about it and I had been idealistic enough to say I could do it. My imagination had built a million scenarios and worst case scenarios and I didn't see how seeing my wife through labour would be a problem.

Not once did I imagine a scenario with me battling a mounting fever.

The first hour wasn't bad. We were still talking, watching the Oxytocin drip into her system. My kid sister arrived, and I was grateful for the company as we backed her up. The Nurses were...phenomenal.

The second hour, the pain ratcheted up. Third, it spiked.

By the forth hour, the room had gone surreal and the edge was beginning to bleed off reality.
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You Must Focus
Sirius wasn't talking anymore. Hot short breaths through her mouth punctuated the contractions that racked her system.

I remember taking off my wedding band the second time she squeezed my hand because she almost crushed my fingers.

By the end of the day, my left hand would be numb.

When she started throwing up, I moved to stand. The nurse held out a hand and smiled calmly to me.

'it's okay. Don't worry. Just leave me and her.'

I sat back down.

Once I dozed off. Other times I found myself head to head with her panting in time with hers. She had told me not to talk, or say 'sorry'.

'just keep telling me to breathe'.

It was the last fully coherent sentence she would make in a while.
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I'm trying not to drag this story.

My wife has never had a high threshold for pain. Sure, she's a tough bird, but pain? Naa. We'd made a deal before she went in - she didn't want to embarrass herself, so when she started screaming, I had to whisper and tell her to stop.

Hm.

She never screamed. She never shouted. The induction went on for seven mind bending hours. In the last hour she broke down and wept, shaking her head from side to side and begging for the pain to stop.

But she never screamed.
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This Is It
We moved to the delivery room at the peak of the 7th hour. I knew this was where it would all end, one way or the other. As her legs went up and my head came down down, I tried to remember how to pray.

I won't go into details. Delivery is...hard to explain. If you've never seen it before, it can be a little jarring. But it's certainly not mind-wracking if you steele yourself.

I did. She did. But then, the baby was too big.

I can't explain a vacuum machine to you well. It's a device that goes in, is hand-pumped on one end while the other end is used to forcefully pull the baby out.

Fear my friends...is seeing your baby's head emerging from your wife, being viscously twisted and yanked to gain clearance.

It was the only time in the hour I was there, that I closed my eyes and turned away.

At 6pm on the dot, my baby was pulled out, full, big, and covered in grime. Before I could voice the words screaming in my head, my wife's weak, confused voice spoke up.

'why...why isn't he breathing?'
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it took oxygen. A suction pipe and thirty seconds of eternity before I heard that cry. I had died a million deaths by then and gone numb.

As the nurses set on cleaning him and my wife's head dropped back to the pillow, I finally, finally felt myself smile.

Fuck it. That's my son.
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we just got home yesterday and the news has gone round the world already. CaramelD is probably still crying at the thought of being a Godmother after all the shopping Sirius made her do(...see her post on being a Baby shopping expert). Sirius is booty hopping in front of the mirror and I'm finally allowed to fall sick and get better. Soon. I hope.

There was a note CaramelD's mom sent in the baby swag cargo we ordered a few weeks back. Remember what I mentioned about that holiday?

The note said 'with love...from the house where it all started.'

Lol.

Oh, and The Boy? Well. I'll let you tell it.

Evolve and Live, people.

"All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel, all this and more... I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you, all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own. See my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father and the father, the son. This is all all I can send you, Kal-El."


- Marlon Brando, Superman I


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