Second Son

Our second son, Dean, was born on a Saturday in the evening. I was out mowing the lawn earlier that afternoon, about five hours before. I was halfway through when my wife ran out in the front yard, in a bathrobe, informing me her water broke. I couldn’t hear her at first with my headphones in, and I wondered what she had to say was so important that she couldn’t put some clothes on. I took my headphones off and heard the word. Uh oh. Here we go again.

You would think because I’ve been through this before, there would be much less panic in my voice. Like babies and firework shows—you’ve seen one of ‘em, you’ve seen ‘em all.

I swiped the last row of grass in my front yard that I could justify swiping before delaying too long, leaving it behind like a beard half-shaven, and I hurried the lawnmower into the garage. I took the coldest, fastest shower of my life—no time for the water to heat up. (For myself I wanted to note here the universe’s synchronicity that when we returned home from the hospital a couple days later, our water heater crapped out the same day.)

With the lawn half-mowed and myself half-showered, I wake my firstborn up, Jack, who is in the middle of a nap, and put him in the carseat. He stays asleep, thankfully. Brooke and I throw our travel bags in the car. That I had a travel bag packed and ready to go is a credit to Brooke. In it there were at least two changes of clothes, always more underwear and socks than I will use given the fact that I will ride out a pair of underwear for another day if I must. Add some toiletries, a book, and a magazine. (I looked at that magazine and book once, and that was before the baby.)

The time spent at the hospital consisted of waiting on Dean to arrive, watching TV that I can’t hear because the TV speaker on the baby-delivery floor is embedded in the hospital bed (dad discrimination), and walking around the cold hospital, inside and outside, to thaw out. I crossed a major thoroughfare a quarter mile from the hospital just to get some coffee and break free of the cold and closed space.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Though we arrive to the hospital that afternoon, Dean himself doesn’t arrive for another five hours. In the meantime, the nurses, as usual, could not have been more supportive. One in particular, named Kay, who will never read this and whose name has been changed because I cannot remember her real one, was altogether lovely, and supportive, good-humored but serious about her work, methodically getting the various bags and tools and straps and tape ready.

How did they deliver babies before hospitals? Was it a progression or did it go straight from a manger to something akin to an NFL training and equipment room about one hour before kickoff. Nonetheless, I’d rather be full on taped up and rubbed down than the opposite. IVs and cooling gels and painkillers, let’s spread it all out and take what we need.

Brooke was dilated at two centimeters upon arriving at the hospital. What dilated means I have no idea. Does it mean her hoohah is permanently open at two centimeters because the baby’s head is beginning to protrude out? I could Google what such dilation means, but (a) I don’t want to see that, and (b) I use this laptop for work. Let’s just guess that it means certain parts are opening up, making way, widening for what’s about to shoot through. A couple hours later she was dilated to a five. Then an hour after that she was at a ten. Then four pushes (sounds like MMMPPPPHHHHHAUUUGHHUUUHHPH when you’re in there) and baby Dean was here, in our world.

The one thing you find out about a baby when they are born in a hospital and you’re there for it is just how durable a baby actually is. When Dean came out, same as Jack, I didn’t want to hold him, for fear of dropping such a precious artifact. If I do hold him, I want to hold him like he’s Mother Goose’s golden egg, or he’s the Mona Lisa, where any false move might lead to permanent destruction and imprisonment. So it is startling indeed when you first see how a doctor and the nurses handle a newborn human body.

They passed Dean around like bread at a soup kitchen, wiped the gunk off of him like he was a frying pan with a stubborn smear of grease that needed a Brillo pad. They hung him upside down like a monkey in a tree in the case that the doctor, in a position not unlike a catcher or a shortstop, was able to field a “bad hop” out of the utero. There was no bad hop here. Brooke hit a smooth ground ball, as it were, and between all the healthcare professionals, the runner was out at first.