Dispatches from the Delivery Room, Part 2: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Labor Pain

Watching your wife go through labor is kind of like seeing the one you love turn into a werewolf. There is nothing you can do to stop the transformation; your wife possesses decreasing cognition of why she shouldn’t tear you apart; and the townspeople agree that you are not to be trusted to make the difficult decisions that might need to be made.

When my wife’s contractions were getting to be about five minutes apart, she could still speak to me as a friend. She very calmly made the arrangements for our three-year-old to be looked after. She put the house in order, and even accepted my comforting touch whenever her five minutes of peace expired. We got into the car and drove to hospital like married people.

Even though the contractions were only five minutes apart, the hospital wasn’t satisfied that she had made enough progress to be admitted. They made us walk the halls for an hour, after which they became convinced that we had no business there. They sent us home; we were welcome to come back when we were serious about having a baby.

A lot can go wrong when one finds himself alone in a car with a woman in labor. Even though we were heading home, I drove as though it were an emergency. I was sure that I would be pulled over for speeding at any moment. I imagined how I would explain myself to the cop. “My wife is in labor, Officer. So, naturally, we are driving away from the hospital as fast as we can.”

Back home, my wife’s contractions gained in intensity. There was no more quiet conversation in between. To make matters more frightfully confusing, those damned pains would not pace themselves at regular intervals like they do in all the training literature.

We tried every position, short of standing her on her head, to alleviate her agony. A warm bath helped for a few minutes, but soon became just another terror associated with the pain. All the while we debated the wisdom of returning to the hospital. What if all of our screaming and writhing were still not worthy of their hospitality? What if they sent us home a second time? That wouldn’t make us feel like social outcasts.

After three or four hours of this, my wife crossed an invisible line. I could no longer reach her. She had gone into werelabor. The transformation was manifest in her incongruous plea, “Help me! Help me! DON’T TOUCH ME!”

Her sister helped me load her into the car, for she was beyond the management of a single human. At the second stoplight, the cruel spirits of labor overcame her. “I can’t stand this!” she moaned. “I gotta get out of here!” Only my quick finger on the auto door lock kept her from laboring against traffic in a busy intersection and causing chaos in the streets.

Our son was nearly born in the middle of this intersection. Despite his mother’s fervent attempt to have it all out here, I stuck to my guns and insisted upon a hospital birth.

In the hospital again, the doctor did another cervix exam. She announced to us that it was four centimeters dilated, which was enough progress for us to earn a bed at their inn. I’m not sure if it were four centimeters or not. I truly believe that, having seen the wild light in my wife’s eyes, the doctor knew what answer she had better give before she pulled on her gloves.

Finally invited to give birth among polite society, my wife howled for pain medication.  The hospital staff insisted on observing certain formalities first. This only left my wife more desperate. I soon found myself caught between calculating civilization and the primal needs of raw nature, trying to forge a peace between two powers with which I held waning influence.

This was when I understood that they were both right. Raw nature had no good reason not to tear me apart. I was merely an annoying noise that brought relief no closer. At the same time, civilization could not trust me to make calculated decisions. The werewolf was too much a part of my heart.

In all fairness, my wife only turned werewolf under the most stressful conditions imaginable. I often turn into a Frankenstein while sitting around the house, without provocation. (Photo credit: my three-year-old son with his Fisher-Price camera.)

*****OFF TOPIC BONUS CONTENT: My book of short stories, A Smile Through a Tear is currently being featured on Sandy’s Spotlight. Sandy’s Spotlight is a blog that features authors discussing their books. Click here to see me looking all awkward on video as I talk about the book. I look a little Frankenstein-ish there too.

Dispatches from the Delivery Room, Part 1: It’s a Madhouse!

I’ve heard it said that there is a special provision of nature that allows a mother to forget the pain of childbirth. Without this special indulgence, it might be hard to imagine any family containing more than a single child. I have my own name for this natural phenomenon. I call it insanity.

Unfortunately, there is no magic wand to wipe a father’s memory clean. He is doomed to remember all of the many horrible hours in which a mother’s pain turned his wife into a stark raving lunatic. The height of her mental derangement comes in an otherwise very calm statement, when in a moment of seemingly stable reflection, the mother makes this declaration: “It wasn’t nearly this bad last time.”

The mother makes this laughable comparison as if to imply that at a similar point in her last labor, she was entertaining well-wishers with tea and scones. It was a nice little get-together in the delivery room, at the end of which a beautiful baby was delivered in a holiday basket garnished with fresh flowers and an assortment of candied fruit.

In 2008, this baby eased into the world as smoothly as strawberries and cream - according to contemporary lore.

Only the father recalls the piercing screams and tortured howls of the former occasion. Yet a sense of self-preservation makes him humor the mother’s madness. Only a fool would argue with bedlam.

The mother, in her delirium, feels betrayed by fate. How could such a pleasant occasion have been turned into such a nightmare on her? Surely, this injustice cannot last long. It’s not supposed to hurt like this. God knows, it never did before.

I’m not sure what God knows, but the father knows it hurt exactly like this before. He knows there is nothing he can do about it, and he knows that he will be scolded severely for whatever he does to help and whatever he doesn’t do to help. The contract has been signed, and the contract doesn’t mention scones or gift baskets. There’s no turning back now.

There are still hours and hours to go. The mother is in pain like (to the best of her recollection) she’s never felt before. Also, she’s mightily pissed off because somebody has changed the whole process on her since last time. No one is feeding her bonbons . . . in the shade . . . beside a babbling brook . . . to while away the carefree hours of labor like they did last time. Insult to injury, that’s what that is.

In 2012, this child's birth caused much gnashing of teeth. A mother's love will soon rewrite history to show that it was all sunshine and lollipops.

The father sighs. There are still hours to go. And the only little task he needs to accomplish in all that time is to soothe the physical and emotional pains of a hurting, pissed off, delirious woman who suspects that he is the main conspirator in the cruel joke that is being played upon her.

He will remember this instance too, long after it has been whitewashed with rose pedals.

Conversations with my wife: Royal Deodorant

Wife: You know our William and Kate?

Me: Our William and Kate?

Wife: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Me: Oooooh. Our William and Kate! Yes, of course.

Wife: Do you think they make a special, stronger deodorant for them?

Me: Why?

Wife: They do a lot of formal events. You know how when you go on a job interview, you get nervous and start to sweat a lot?

Me: If you had three job interviews a day, every day, I guess you wouldn’t sweat as much at them.

Wife: They must sweat a lot, with all those showers they make them take.

Me: I’m really not sure how many showers they are required to take.

Wife: Well, they have to change into a new outfit for every event.

Me: I didn’t know they had to take a shower every time they changed clothes.

Wife: And then, they’re always meeting with important people, and that’s got to make them nervous. Especially Kate, because she’s a commoner and not used to that sort of thing.

Me: At some point, she met the future king. If she’d had big, smelly sweat balls under her arms, he probably wouldn’t have started dating her.

Wife: But what about when they’re late and they have to run to catch their plane?

Me: I think the king’s plane will wait for the king.

Wife: Yes, but they still have to make it to their events on time. What if they’re late and they have to run to the plane to make their event on time?

Me: How often do you find yourself running late for an appointment?

Wife: All the time.

Me: And how many times do you find yourself running half a mile to make up the time? I’m sure they get dropped off closer to their destination than that.

Wife: I bet they do have some kind of special deodorant.

If our George and Mary, with all their hot fur and other dry-clean-only regalia, didn't need heavy-duty deodorant, why would anyone need it now?

Quit making me laugh; I’m trying to be mad at you!

My son has reached the age when he wears his emotions on his sleeve. It’s not that he can’t control his emotions, or hide them if he wanted to, he just wants to make sure Mommy and Daddy notice the terrible effects that their horribly unfair actions are wreaking upon his tender psyche.

He turns his back and stomps off like an old pro. He has a flare for the dramatic that would make the Booth boys proud. His motivation to play the scene goes something like this: “When Daddy sees how his decision to not let me draw on the walls has turned me into a miserable wretch, he will be crippled by guilt. Then he will relent and let me deface whatever I want, and maybe even offer me some candy for good measure.”

John, Edwin, and Junius Booth. The first family of 19th century American drama.

My little pouter. The first boy of 21st century American drama.

So, he lowers that cross stare over his face, fold his arms tightly, and sits down hard upon some object that is not a chair. He roosts on a spot that is far enough away so that I can feel the emotional gulf that my unreasonable edicts have opened between us, but close enough so that there is no danger of me not seeing him. Thus begins my punishment. Sic semper tyrannis.

I have never been much for histrionics, and I don’t enjoy sitting in the radiation of waves of guilt powerful enough to cripple. I have to defend myself; I have found no better way to do this than by making the pouting little thespian laugh. This completely ruins his performance and saves me from becoming a man broken by guilt.

It is rare that I can make the boy laugh so hard as to forget all about his grudge, but I can often make him laugh just enough to make his grudge a burden to support. It is difficult to exude crushing guilt vibes when you are giggling.

Even though he can’t always keep himself from giggling, my son does not like it one bit when his grudge is thrown out of focus by laughter. As soon as he can stifle the giggle, he makes his face look meaner than ever and grunts his displeasure at me. I understand that, in the short term, I am doing little to soothe his anger. In the long term, maybe I am teaching him that the power of the pout, although seemingly immense, will almost never get him what he wants.

If little Johnny Booth had ever outgrown his pouting stage, he might have avoided breaking his leg during this ill-advised leap from the theater balcony. This is not the sort of dramatic personality I want my son to become.

Before anyone gets the idea that this method of attacking the scowl with laughter has given me the upper hand over the child, I should make it clear that he uses the same strategy on me. I’m sure other parents have experienced this: The kid does something naughty. You’re ready to give him a stern talking to and lay down the law. The problem is that the thing that was naughty is also hilarious, and you can’t even look at the child, let alone speak to him, without bursting.

This is an especially volatile situation if Mommy doesn’t think it’s funny, because then Daddy is implicated in the naughtiness. Mommies know how to punish daddies as well as children, and Daddy can’t make Mommy laugh away her cross face, no matter how funny his jokes are.

But, there are plenty of times when Mommy is laughing right alongside Daddy, and neither one of them can manage to turn a stern face toward the boy. My son uses humor to try to turn a dicey situation to his advantage quite regularly. It is a peculiar disposition of his. I don’t know where he gets it.