Where Do I Begin?

An interesting title if I consider it for a moment. As those of you who know me well will understand, the question should be "Where do I finish?" Getting talking so rarely is the problem with me. Shutting me up is a different story.

The rune for today is Perth. Initiation. Attributed to awakening of psychic powers; reception of unforseen knowledge from afar; inspiration. I haven't been doing my rune for the day the last two days because I had more important things on my mind. Now that I am home, I decided to pull the next one and see what it would say. Once again, I can tie it into my thoughts for the day. For those of you familiar with the runes, tarot cards, the bible, or any similar concept, this shouldn't surprise you. They always speak to you a different way, and always in a manner that ties into your life.

Inspiration. That is definitely what I have. I have been staring at my new inspiration every moment that I have had to do so for the last two days. I knew, of course, that I was prepared for this. Just as obviously, I was wrong. Let's step back a bit, though, and I will fill you folks in a little on what happened. (Don't worry, I am only backpedaling a couple of days. No lurid details of how it all started. I am sure you folks took biology and know the basics.)

At 5:30am on Tuesday, August 23, I left my wife to go to work. I asked how she was doing, and she informed me that all was pretty much the same. Minor contractions that were fairly regular, but nothing to be worried about. She would call if anything changed.

I was sitting in the bullpen at work (a cordoned off area where the supervisors sit to monitor the room and be easily accessible to the employees) when Mike gave me a wierd look while I was on a call. Nothing new, since he had been doing so all morning, and any other day we have worked together. My minor concern was that this was the look of me having caught him doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Since I didn't know what that was, I was a little bothered.

When I finished the call I was on, he asked me "What's your wife's birthdate?" Glancing at his screen I saw the message he had just taken awaiting dispatch. Martha Graves, having contractions. Other details were filled in as well. All but two lines: her birthdate and her due date. He informed me when I filled in the blanks and he paged it out that he had just let her get off the phone because she was breathing heavy and he didn't want to make her talk when I could fill in the blanks.

Paranoid father and husband that I am, I immediately picked up the account again to make sure it had gone out ok. As it turned out, it hadn't. The on call had changed during the two minutes that he took the message and I filled it out, so it go paged to the wrong person. I fixed this and sent it on it's way.

Minutes later the call came for me from my mother. She was taking my wife in, and after they had been dropped off, my father would come back around and get me. It was eight o'clock, and knowing how long it would take for them to do this, I stayed in for another half an hour and then clocked out. My timing was so perfect that when I stepped out the door the van was just pulling up.

The page error should have been my first warning that this was the real thing, as should other signs, but at the time I didn't notice. I was just eager to get to my wife. My father missed the exit he intended to take so he had to circle around slightly to get us to the hospital, delaying us by maybe three minutes. Nothing major. Then we parked and walked all the way across the garage before turning back to get Martha's bag from the van. Then we walked across the parking garage a second time only to turn and go halfway back to get in range to remotely lock the van.

We got in the hospital, and my father remembered we needed the green elevators, while I remembered we needed the third floor. Since neither of us remembered both components, we waited for a couple of minutes for our turn at the information desk to find out where to go. First we needed to give her my wife's name and address. Easy, right? I got the name part right. After three attempts to recall where I lived, I checked my license, even showing it to the lady. You know she actually guessed I was the dad. Go figure.

Following her directions, we found the green elevators. Most of you may not be familiar with the fact that two out of four of the green elevators won't stop on the third floor. For those of you who aren't familiar with this fact, there are bright yellow signs that say "this elevator doesn't go to the third floor." Guess who didn't read the signs and kept pressing the third floor button (who puts a button on an elevator to a floor it doesn't go to?) until someone got in and we rode to the sixth floor with her. Then we got out, found the other elevators and went where we belonged.

All of this to get to my wife where I could stay by her side except for the occasional trip out to fill in the families on what's going on. "The contractions are continuing. They took a bunch of blood and their waiting on the labs to figure out what they will do next." (By the way, did you know that watching a tech screw up with a heplock, resulting in an expectant father seeing a geyser of blood shoot out of his wife's wrist is dangerous to his sanity?) Where were we? Oh, yes, "No news yet, she just went to the bathroom, we're still waiting on the bloodwork." "Nothing big, I just overheard the midwife swearing at a lab tech demanding to know what the holdup is." "Do you suppose 'What the hell do you mean they lost the samples?' is a bad thing?"

I promise the last was true, but fortunately was the result of a miscommunication. After an eternity (approximately four hours) we had a doctor show up and examine Martha and explain that we would be going from Triage to the labor floor. A great sign from the standpoint that things were moving along, not so great with them throwing around phrases like "mild pre-eclampsia." Nevertheless, we were moving on. Then came the fun of being surrounded by doctors who were constantly doing something, watching something. All of the medications for infections and etc... Then the breaking of her water that was supposed to speed things up. Then inducing labor because she was getting so tired. Toward the end of this, I realized that a father has some pains that the mother is spared. Like the fact that Martha couldn't see the midwife in lengthy conversation with three other doctors outside of the room. She doesn't have the fun of speculating on what this means.

Then they tell you. The baby's head is too big. You're too small. We don't know which is the case, but it isn't a fit. The contractions would be doing there job if they could, but instead they are pushing on the baby's head because it has nowhere to go. Then all of the explanations of c-sections and what they will do and how it will work, while I speculate on how pointless my life will be when they don't make it. Then my mother asked me if I was going to be okay to be the one to sit with Martha during this. Me, who calmly watched a man bleeding to death at my feet while we waited for paramedics to show up, who interned with a funeral home. The same man who can watch just about anything, as long as it doesn't involve my wife bleeding. I said yes. I had no choice.

I kept asking Martha through it all, "How are we doing?" She was calm about it, and everything went remarkably well. Including the points after I noticed that the sheet that kept her from seeing what was going on, didn't in fact impede me from seeing what was going on. So while I made sure she was okay, I watched what they were doing. Quite a freaky experience. Yet, we both did okay. All three of us did. Ever see "Alien"? Let me tell you, my baby cried when just her head was out. Special, and definitely unique.

But then there were some stitches, some staples, and off to recovery. Just my wife, myself, and the most beautiful baby girl that there has ever been. She's got my eyes, and looks nothing else like me. Both bonuses. Since that time I have spent my entire time watching her, or holding her, or both. Sleep wasn't even really an option. In fact, now that I am home, (and should be sleeping since I work at five am) I am really missing that little one that was born a whopping forty seven hours and thirty minutes ago.

I would love to give you more details, but this has already taken way too long, since I should be pretending I am capable of sleep. If you are still with me, there you have it. The details of the beginning of a brand new life, or something close to it. Goodnight.