Into the OR

Around 8:30 PM, Grace, the pixie nurse with dark plastic framed glasses who compliments expectant mothers to relax them, reappears with a wardrobe change for Rhett.  She says she'll return in a few minutes to walk us back to the OR.  I beg to pee.  She hesitates: they'll be inserting the catheter pretty much right after the spinal.  NOPE.  I REALLY HAVE TO PEE.  She obliges me while husband changes into his Stay Puft Marshmallow Suit.

One size fits all, I guess?  I think we were both expecting scrubs but this is pretty hilarious.  I am more nervous for Rhett than I am for myself, honestly, since I know all too well his Doc Martin aversion to blood.  Me?  I can't wait to see myself sliced open because when does that ever happen in life?  Yeah, I'm a weirdo.  I know.  But it's a rare opportunity to continue my lay medical education.

We have time for a final selfie of just the two of us before meeting our daughter.  Do we look thrilled or what?

Rhett meets up with us outside of the bathroom and we begin the quiet walk down the hall to the OR.  It's strangely quiet and serene in the recovery area where Rhett will wait until I'm on the table and they bring him back to OR 3.  The woman who just had her baby is in the bay catty corner from us but she appears to be asleep.   Dad must be in the nursery with the baby.  That will be us in an hour or so.

I kiss Rhett goodbye, say "I love you" and make some quip about "let's have a baby!"  This is nuts.  The next time I'm standing upright, I will be able to hold my daughter.

My adrenaline is really juicing now.  This is the lucky number 7 surgical procedure I've walked into on my own two legs in the past year-and-a-half.  It's always a heady experience, entering a stage-bright, pristinely antiseptic operating room.  I love surveying the scene.  This one is quite spacious with an intriguing collection of medical supplies behind glass and all kinds of baby equipment.  I spot the warmer, ask where they do the tests and they point everything out to me.  Clearly I am an anomaly of some kind but I like to take stock of my surroundings before the drugs kick in.  The operating table itself is tiny.  Like, so tiny I wonder what they do with larger women.  Can I even fit on this thing?  I will soon realize that the way they position you, your legs sort of hang off the side in froggy pose, allowing access to your cha-cha, should that be necessary.  Strangeness.

It's nice to be stone cold sober upon entry and engage in conversation and ask my questions like "so, I get anti-nausea meds now, right?  And how quickly does the spinal take effect?  What can I expect from referred shoulder pain?  When do you start the Mag Sulfate?"  Grace comments that I seem to be really interested in the medical stuff.  Do I have any training?  HA!  No, no I do not, I tell her.  I learned from my father and have an unnatural obsession with YouTube surgical videos.  She laughs.  We chat about her Crocs as Stieg Larsson preps my spinal.  There is soothing acoustic pop playing on the Sirius station like Jack Johnson and Alanis Morisette. 


I sit hunched over a pillow with my ass cheeks bare on the table.  It sure is chilly.  Soon I won't feel the frigid air as they will drape me in warm blankets during the procedure.  Grace stands in front of me, her hands on my shoulders, as she instructs me to keep my head down.  I ask about each step of the spinal and Stieg gladly narrates.  First it's iodine, then some plastic wrap and a numbing shot before the actual injection of medication.  (The needle on this sucker is about 9 inches long so yes, numbing is necessary.  Here's a helpful video if you're interested.)  It really isn't terrible at all.  Almost immediately I feel the warming sensation and am asked to quickly swing my legs around and hoist myself up onto the table.  What do they do with people who panic at this point?  My head is positioned just so and then my gown comes up and there I am, splayed out in all my naked glory.  They're positioning my thighs now and Garfinkel comes in, casually chatting over my still-pregnant torso.  More strangeness!  

Now I feel a hot surge of panic because I can still feel tingling in my legs as the surgical drape is going up.  It's like the worst case of pins and needles you've ever had or the phantom limb phenomenon that amputees describe.  I know my legs are there because I can sort of/kind of feel them.  It takes me a moment to swallow the internal scream and remind myself that it's the mind-body connection and probably just some nerve endings but that I am truly going to be numb from the waist down in a moment or two.  I remind the nearest disembodied voice that I'd like a mirror, please.  Garfinkel seems totally fine with this so we're good to go with my own private operating theater view.  I request it to be turned so I can see everything.

Suddenly, Rhett appears.  He is installed to the left of my head and instructed to look only at me,  just to be safe.  His back is to the mirror but he's got the camera ready to go.  I start to feel the morphine drowsiness take over and then I get nauseous.  Really nauseous as though I may spew at any second.  I croak to whoever can hear me, "I might vomit."  Stieg breezes in, so I'm told, and jacks up the happy juice.  Thank goodness.  I almost succeed in losing my calm because I don't want to miss a single minute of this or be so out of it or uncomfortable that I miss the actual birth. 

Before any cuts are made, Garfinkel does the pinch test.  I hear him ask "can you feel this?"  I don't feel a damn thing.  OK, here we go!  Oh hey, is that iodine?  Yes, yes it is and oh damn, they're cutting open my old incision already?  Show time.  

I am a bit foggy but totally mesmerized by what I am seeing in the mirror.  It doesn't look like me but clearly, it is.  There's not as much tugging as I expected.  Rhett holds my hand, which is strapped down St. Andrew-on-the-Cross style so I don't flail around.  Once I see my belly flap peeled back like the skin of a ripe stone fruit, I know we're close.  There's the top swell of my uterus, all purply and slick.  Some more cutting.  I hear Dr. Garfinkel say "Now I'm rupturing the waters."  I am momentarily confused as to why that would be necessary before I realize duh, you can't get the baby without getting through the amniotic sack.  I wish I had a GoPro for an aerial view! 

Rhett is squeezing my hand at this point.  The suspense is killing me.  I hope it will last.  The stripped down version of Phillip Phillip's "Gone Gone Gone" is playing softly in the background.  In less than a minute we hear the resident say, "I have the baby's bottom."  Dr. Garfinkel mentions something about the head.  Rhett stands to snap a few shots.  I can see some kind of extraction happening in the mirror and ask excitedly to please lower the drape now!  In a few tugs which shake my entire body, there is a gurgling little creature being lifted out of me.  Then a soft but hearty cry that rumbles like distant thunder and Garfinkel says, "What a beautiful face!  She looks just like you, mom.  Same hair.  She just needs dark glasses."  Official time of birth is 9:27 PM.  There are murmurs of "happy birthday!" from around the room.  Rhett kisses me, I am staring at this little girl, this lovely baby we've created and I know she is perfect.

"What's her name?"

"Tempest." I say.

"Tempest," Garfinkel repeats, clearly chuffed that it's one he hasn't heard before.   

"A Shakespeare fan," Stieg chimes in. 

Tempest.  Tempest is our daughter's name.  Tempest Felicity Caldwell Austell.  Gorgeous, lilting pentameter, if not purely iambic.   Her name is a song of joy, of struggle rewarded. 

She is getting cleaned up while they deliver my placenta.  I am reassured that "all looks good in here" and that I will later be told that I was the easiest c-section of the night.  Go figure.   

Rhett is whisked to the other side of the curtain and I begin to comprehend that I have given birth.  I'm listening to Tempest's escalating cries.  They are powerful for a 36-weeker.  She has strong lungs which are currently being suctioned.  I begin to feel like a 2x4 was shoved into my right shoulder from the referred gas pain.  Ugh.  I watch them massage my uterus and begin to stitch me up as I listen for Tempest's vital stats.

7 lbs, 3 oz.  20.5 inches long.

What? A seven pound baby just came out of me?  And she was a month early?

Then a long pause where nothing is happening and I can't hear what they're saying about the baby.  Where is Rhett?

"What's her Apgar," I call out nervously.

8 and then 9.

Good.  I failed mine at birth so this is a vast improvement.  I thought I heard something muttered about the NICU a moment ago but she seems to have dodged that bullet because no one is telling me they're taking her.   

Suddenly, a Boy Wonder Resident  is standing where Rhett was previously seated and introduces himself before presenting Tempest.

"Here's your baby!"

Someone releases my arms as I turn my head to the left to greet my daughter.  She's a gurgling little burrito with a pirate eye winking at me.  I completely melt.  She just came out of me.  From my uterus.  She's a real person and she's finally here.  

There is seriously nothing on this earth that can prepare you mentally or emotionally for the moment when you realize that you are someone's mother.  It's a fleeting nanosecond of a thought but it will set you reeling.  That's my daughter.  She is mine.  She is ours.  We made her and the rest was up to chance.  She has defied the odds to be born and she truly is a felicity. 

Rhett is escorted back to me and instructed to sit.  The resident steps back.  He's dangling this baby in my face and I'm so awkwardly positioned that I want to reach out and grab her but I can't.  This is torture.

"Can you lay her on my chest?" I plead, already knowing the answer. 

"In recovery once she's cleared by the nursery.  You'll get to do skin to skin away."

They usher Rhett out with Tempest and the resident.  It will be another hour or so before I see them again.  At this point I am getting a bit delirious and it's hard to keep my eyes open.  I do hear Garfinkel gently instructing the resident as they are stitching me up, "I'd try it this way first."  I confirm that I'm absolutely clear to breastfeed with the IV medications.  They tell me I'm about to get my Mag Sulfate and list all of the possible (and unfortunate) side effects.  I can't really process it at this point so I feel like a marionette just bobbing my head in assent.  Hey, I just had a baby so bring it on.  (Wrong.  So wrong,)

I distictly recall Dr. Garfinkel asking me if I'm sure I have all my reproductive organs (he's making a joke) - and I say yeah, I know it's bad.  He tells me my ovaries are literally plastered behind my uterus and I say good thing we have frozen embryos.  He laughs in agreement before I drug-drunkenly thank everyone in the room, probably multiple times, and spiral into the blackout abyss of my spinal cocktail.