The Experience

It is Thursday evening. You are dead-tired, feeling under-the-weather, and inundated with little TO DO lists for work items that need to be completed (everything from watering those two pathetic little plants you keep in your office window whose mortality you test on a weekly basis with your poor horticulture skills, to checking your email, to writing that report -- or 5 that you've been meaning to get done for the last month). Concomitantly your mind is flooded by HONEY DO lists, and additional manly projects like mowing the lawn, installing a shed, scooping your dog's poop, and pathetically trying to convince your wife that the items you noted on the most recent episode of your favorite home improvement show are more important priorities in the budget than food, gas, or the mortgage. While these thoughts haphazardly fly through your head the way black flies swarm around a trash can at the beach, you look at your watch and realize with relief that tomorrow is Friday. Yet, you are also struck with the stressful reality that this leaves only one more workday to get done the bazillion things you feel like you have to do. You and your wife go to bed.



An hour later your wife wakes you up as she pulls her body from the bed, telling you she cannot sleep due to a contraction. You shoot up in bed (not the way heroin addicts do, but rather the way you do when you just remembered that you left your keys in the ignition of the 7-series BMW you just bought). Man I wish I had a BMW...actually no I don't. Moving right along, you dart out of bed rushing to your wife's aid. Heck, YOU'RE not the one who is about to have her insides dredged from both ends in the name of childbirth, SHE IS. So you give every effort you've got to really feel her pain. But the problem is you can't. You're kind of left mentally deliberating over the most critical decision you've recently made: "do I follow her around as she paces uncomfortably? or do I dig into that left-over cheddar and olive-loaf sandwich sitting in my fridge?" No, actually, you are quite sure that you will be willingly and closely shadowing her through the next few minutes as she tries to cope with the reality that her insides are practicing their upcoming attempt to squeeze something the size of a watermelon through something the size of a Zip-Loc bag. You have never felt a contraction, unless having a churning stomach that results in explosive diarrhea counts. But let's be honest, it doesn't count. You have no idea what she is experiencing. What you do know, is that pacing back and forth seems to help these pass more tolerably. So you immediately follow by her side. Your litte labrador puppy also gets the message she should be helping, so she clings to your heels as you pace. This is also comforting in some strange way. It is as if she is also willing to support your wife's difficult moment.

You and your wife return to bed after a few moments only to be jolted from your sleep again several minutes later. You think to yourself "man, this pregnancy thing is tough. She can't even get any sleep." You three repeat your pacing ritual. As you slip back beneath your sheets you peek at the clock and realize that it has only been 10 minutes since your wife's first little episode of the evening. Thankfully, you think to yourself, it is only 11:00. There is plenty of sleep left to be conquered in Linen Land. Lying back down you doze off just long enough to begin dreaming about that European vacation you've been deaming about ever since returning from your honeymoon with your wife in Italy during June 2005. At this point, the cycle repeats itself again. You are now certain that something is happening with your unborn child and your wife's baby-den. You begin tracking the timing of the episodes before facing the ambivlent reality that it is gametime! GAMETIME?!! You are both thrilled and nervous, wrought with anticipation of an amazing event that will be sandwiched between excruciating pain, and sleepless nights. You shrug it off and proceed tracking these episodes before rifling through every pregnancy book you've got. Finding solutions for managing these periods would be ideal at this moment, as would winning a guest shot on the gameshow Deal or No Deal. But some miniscule inkling in the very back of your mind tips you off that the latter - though ideal, is highly unlikely.

Four AM rolls around and you've both been counting for hours. Two hours later you call your doctor to consult about these symptoms. They have remained the same: intense sharp cramping that precipitates every 10 minutes lasting a duration of 30-40 seconds, abating gradually and detectable as they begin. That sounds very clinical, but who's kidding who, your doctor already knows exactly what's going on with you. It is the "latent phase" of labor. So, she asks you to walk into the Labor and Delivery (L&D) clinic around 7ish. You throw the bags ino your car that you packed 3 weeks ago in preparation for this moment to alleviate any added pressure that would ensure by having to think logically.

On the way to the hopspital you call your commanding officer (your immediate boss for those who are not familiar with the military lingo) to inform him you are not coming in today due to your wife going into labor. While you say this calmly, respectfully, and clearly, he hears this: "Sir, you are going to have to attend that 1300 meeting of all the commanders (top executives) on base in order to brief (present to) them on the program I have been managing. I cannot brief them due to a family emergency." He hesitated with his words, but recovered skillfully -- likely because he is a supportive commander. You discuss it no further with him except to try to reassure him that he has looked at your slides previously, and he knows the info. just as well as you do. This seems to do little in the way of quelling any panic you detected in his voice. Nonetheless, you hang up the phone and 20 minutes later you and your wife arrive at the hospital.

You have spent the last 9 hours with your wife helping her through short bouts of pain every 10 minutes. The nurse is friendly and bright and fills you in on what is about to happen. Your wife's doctor enters the room and as you were informed, she checks your wife. Four days before your wife described her uterus as "Fort Knox" due to her not being dialated or effaced. At this examination, however, the doctor states that she is 50% effaced and 3 cm dialated. She recommends that your wife labor at home, as it oculd be several hours before she is ready to actually begin pushing.

While the doctor leaves to consult with the treatment team you receive a voicemail informing you that the briefing is actually at 0900 -- not 1300. So even if your wife goes into "active labor" you'd still have ample time to do the briefing. This was not your commander leaving you this voicemail, but a friend who intuited that you had mixed up the times. It is now 0830. You have to be across base in 15 minutes dressed in my uniform. Suprisingly, your designer blue jeans, sneakers, and Kelly-green Greg Norman T-Shirt would not be appropriate for work...nor for a meeting with the highest ranking officers on the installation.

You tell your wife you'll meet her in your office where she has agreed to wait until you return from your briefing. You bolt to the car to do a superman-like switcharoo of your clothes. You zip across base and arrive 10 min early to your briefing. Since the room is very warm, they hand you a towel at the door and greet you "Welcome to the sauna." OKay, so they don't really do this, but you are acutely aware of how warm and stuffy the room is. And it is only half full so far.

You finish the briefings unscathed and jump back into the car intending to fly back across the flightline to the hospital where your patient wife has likely been laboring without you. When you enter the stifling hot car (remember it's July in Florida) you are suddenly reminded of the kind of childhood days when there was an ice cream truck jingling down the summer block. As you paid for your tasty little quarter frozen treat, you found yourself racing; you competed with the sun to finish the snack before it could melt it in your hands. However, in this moment the ice cream was my brow, and the sweat was my brow melting. Yes it is dramatic, but cut me a FRICK-ING break here. I am working with what I've got here -- a blog.

You crank the air conditioning and check your voicemail, as you see your wife has called while you were stumbling your way through a presentation in the Air Force hammam -- uh, I mean meeting. Sorry. Anyway, the voicemail indicates that your wife is actually going to be admitted at that moment due to the complicating factor of having slightly high blood pressure. Hmmm, okay. Don't panic, just think: I will meet my first child tonight. Excellent. I can live with all of this pageantry if the result is meeting that sweet Stella Lynn. High-tailing it like Charlton Heston pursues Bambi, you proceed to return to the hospital just in time to join your wife in her hospital room in L&D. When you arrive there she tells you what the doctors have shared with her regarding her progress and what can be expected over the next several hours. You are relieved, yet pumped to begin this adventure - though others like sayyyyy, your wife (but not mine) might describe it as torture. And so it begins...

I HAVE TO CHANGE DIAPERS. TO BE CONTINUED...