She lay in my lap, every inch of her 5-foot frame tensed. You have to keep pushing, I said. You have to get him out now, she said.
After a relatively quick 7 hour labor, here we sat. Her body stuck into my lap on the bathroom floor. The midwives sitting at the other end, waiting for the baby to arrive. Our baby, still an abstract thought to me, becoming more real with every second. His head was halfway out but now stuck in the canal.
We need you to push harder than before, we sang in unison. A chorus of sirens beckoning her towards the rocks. I can’t, I can’t, she said as she pushed harder than before.
The quick labor was followed by an unbelievably tough delivery.
It turns out the baby was asynclitic transverse with a nuchal arm. Basically that means his body was in a super fucked up position with a elbow curled up next to his face. My wife was trying to push out the Tasmanian Devil from those old Looney Toons cartoons.
And then she did it. With a ferocity and strength I’d never seen in anyone before, she just kept pushing. And pushing and pushing. And, in what seemed like one slippery second, that abstract thought turned into my son. And she held him in her arms.
Despite her mussed up hair and weary body, she was more beautiful to me in that moment than any moment before. The sweat glistened on her face like a soldier fresh from the field. She was, and still is, a warrior mother that went through battle to bring our baby into the world.
And then the best laid plans and all of that nonsense. Everything changed in an instant. My wife suffered a few tears and the bleeding wouldn’t stop (not life threatening, but still a bit serious), so I took our son in my arms while she got the attention she needed.
I took our son in my arms and cried like, well, a baby. More so even. I cried way more than he did. I stared into his beautiful battered face and knew nothing would be the same, all the while his mother lay in my lap, bleeding.
I stared into his face and experienced the happiest and scariest moments of my life all at once. Plus, I had to take a shit.
***
Our chunky newborn sat in her arms nuzzling up to her breasts. The light bruises on his face recalled the fight, but he was just happy to cuddle his momma.
Immediately following the birth, the midwives decided that a hospital transfer was necessary to take care of a few tears our little bear’s elbows caused on my wife during the delivery. They weren’t life threatening, but she has a tendency to bleed a lot (a lesson we learned during her wisdom tooth operation last year) and we decided to be better safe than sorry.
That whirlwind of activity resulted in me sitting in my living room with my new son, all alone. All I could think about was how much I wanted, how much I needed, his mother to be with me. I had no idea how to be a father. She was the one I was going to count on.
About an hour later I cleaned him up with the help of my sister-in-law and took him to the hospital to see his momma. By this time, she was all fixed up and feeling the pain meds they administered. She even talked shit on me for trying to feed her yogurt ("I hate yogurt!") to give her energy before the final pushing session.
In addition to two lacerations, she suffered a broken tailbone during what our midwife called one of the most intense deliveries she had ever been a part of. That statement underscored what I knew I saw the night before; my wife transform into something she had really always been deep down, a powerful force capable of bringing lighting and life and ferocity into the world.
Even though I knew she was okay, those first few hours were the scariest of my life. I sat with a baby I didn’t know how to nurture while my wife was in a hospital room miles away. I felt scared and alone.
And then I had to shit. I initially had the feeling at 4 am during the labor, but I didn’t want to leave my wife’s side. The small, clumsy massages I gave her seemed to ease the pain. So, I clenched it and forgot about the pressure in my bowls.
I manage to keep it under wraps until that moment with the baby. He had just let loose a meconium poop and it made me realize how much I needed to shit. But, I couldn’t, so I held it in.
I felt so ridiculous for even focusing on that for a moment while my wife was being stitched up miles away after forcing a twisted up 8 lbs 10 oz baby out of hervagine vagina. But, my bowels rumbled nonetheless.
So, I shoved the feeling down again and drove the baby to the hospital. It was the most terrifying drive of my life.
When we arrived, I rushed up to the room and set him on his mother’s chest. He didn’t want to feed. Instead, he just nuzzled up to her breast and cuddled. It was enough to make me start crying again.
I stared at my wife from across the hospital room. Despite suffering a broken tailbone and pushing a fat, crooked baby out her vagina, she never looked more beautiful to me
Despite that picturesque image and the powerful emotions hanging over the day, all I could focus on was the intense, heavy pain sitting in my stomach.
“I have to take a shit,” I said. Every one in the room, my wife and her mother and my sisters-in-law looked at me with contorted faces, and I realized how bizarre that phrase must have sounded. Without another word, I walked into the hospital room bathroom and finally exhaled.
After a relatively quick 7 hour labor, here we sat. Her body stuck into my lap on the bathroom floor. The midwives sitting at the other end, waiting for the baby to arrive. Our baby, still an abstract thought to me, becoming more real with every second. His head was halfway out but now stuck in the canal.
We need you to push harder than before, we sang in unison. A chorus of sirens beckoning her towards the rocks. I can’t, I can’t, she said as she pushed harder than before.
The quick labor was followed by an unbelievably tough delivery.
It turns out the baby was asynclitic transverse with a nuchal arm. Basically that means his body was in a super fucked up position with a elbow curled up next to his face. My wife was trying to push out the Tasmanian Devil from those old Looney Toons cartoons.
And then she did it. With a ferocity and strength I’d never seen in anyone before, she just kept pushing. And pushing and pushing. And, in what seemed like one slippery second, that abstract thought turned into my son. And she held him in her arms.
Despite her mussed up hair and weary body, she was more beautiful to me in that moment than any moment before. The sweat glistened on her face like a soldier fresh from the field. She was, and still is, a warrior mother that went through battle to bring our baby into the world.
And then the best laid plans and all of that nonsense. Everything changed in an instant. My wife suffered a few tears and the bleeding wouldn’t stop (not life threatening, but still a bit serious), so I took our son in my arms while she got the attention she needed.
I took our son in my arms and cried like, well, a baby. More so even. I cried way more than he did. I stared into his beautiful battered face and knew nothing would be the same, all the while his mother lay in my lap, bleeding.
I stared into his face and experienced the happiest and scariest moments of my life all at once. Plus, I had to take a shit.
***
Our chunky newborn sat in her arms nuzzling up to her breasts. The light bruises on his face recalled the fight, but he was just happy to cuddle his momma.
Immediately following the birth, the midwives decided that a hospital transfer was necessary to take care of a few tears our little bear’s elbows caused on my wife during the delivery. They weren’t life threatening, but she has a tendency to bleed a lot (a lesson we learned during her wisdom tooth operation last year) and we decided to be better safe than sorry.
That whirlwind of activity resulted in me sitting in my living room with my new son, all alone. All I could think about was how much I wanted, how much I needed, his mother to be with me. I had no idea how to be a father. She was the one I was going to count on.
About an hour later I cleaned him up with the help of my sister-in-law and took him to the hospital to see his momma. By this time, she was all fixed up and feeling the pain meds they administered. She even talked shit on me for trying to feed her yogurt ("I hate yogurt!") to give her energy before the final pushing session.
In addition to two lacerations, she suffered a broken tailbone during what our midwife called one of the most intense deliveries she had ever been a part of. That statement underscored what I knew I saw the night before; my wife transform into something she had really always been deep down, a powerful force capable of bringing lighting and life and ferocity into the world.
Even though I knew she was okay, those first few hours were the scariest of my life. I sat with a baby I didn’t know how to nurture while my wife was in a hospital room miles away. I felt scared and alone.
And then I had to shit. I initially had the feeling at 4 am during the labor, but I didn’t want to leave my wife’s side. The small, clumsy massages I gave her seemed to ease the pain. So, I clenched it and forgot about the pressure in my bowls.
I manage to keep it under wraps until that moment with the baby. He had just let loose a meconium poop and it made me realize how much I needed to shit. But, I couldn’t, so I held it in.
I felt so ridiculous for even focusing on that for a moment while my wife was being stitched up miles away after forcing a twisted up 8 lbs 10 oz baby out of her
So, I shoved the feeling down again and drove the baby to the hospital. It was the most terrifying drive of my life.
When we arrived, I rushed up to the room and set him on his mother’s chest. He didn’t want to feed. Instead, he just nuzzled up to her breast and cuddled. It was enough to make me start crying again.
I stared at my wife from across the hospital room. Despite suffering a broken tailbone and pushing a fat, crooked baby out her vagina, she never looked more beautiful to me
Despite that picturesque image and the powerful emotions hanging over the day, all I could focus on was the intense, heavy pain sitting in my stomach.
“I have to take a shit,” I said. Every one in the room, my wife and her mother and my sisters-in-law looked at me with contorted faces, and I realized how bizarre that phrase must have sounded. Without another word, I walked into the hospital room bathroom and finally exhaled.
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