When I was in the hospital with Lis this past week, I kept coming back to this post. How I could compose something to be true to myself, to my child, and to those reading this (the three of you). How could the emotions, the scenes, and the changing scenery of our lives be pulled together into a single post on an all but forgotten blog in the corner of the internet. Honesty. I will try my best to focus the metaphors and keep things concise. I know when this goes live, I will feel as though I had not done it all justice, but I hope I can glean something from doing so. Enjoy.
We walked in, together to the hospital knowing, that we were going in for some time, but we didn’t have any idea. The bright hallways and dimming sunlight outside played lightly against the worry and stress of the unknown ahead. It would have been a whole ‘nother thing if Lis and I rushed in, like in the movies, with her wailing and doctors swishing around and me yelling to push! Push! But this didn’t happen. It was a build up of quiet stress like turning a screw too far into a plank. Little else did we know, that the 2nd floor of the east wing of Maine Medical – the birthing center – was filling up, and fast.
Very quickly after checking in we found ourselves at the bottom of the totem pole of ‘need’ in our little section on heaven. There was a lot of waiting; a lot of sleep, and an ever-thinning of our middle-of-the-night interruptions. They had stuck Lis for an IV but never did anything with the hollow needle. I didn’t help much by reeling from the stab stab of the nurse missing the vein, or my shocked “ew don’t look Lis!” A good start to our time in lock-up. It was here that I made a mental note to buck-up and really ‘be there’ for her. This isn’t a game anymore – it’s not about you.
I crunched up on a glorified couch that happened to be long enough for them to call a ‘bed’ and waited. It was all I could do. There were, of course, punctuated moments of walking to the ‘kitchen’ for a water fill or feeding and cleaning the cats.
But when the times came when Lis was really in the throes of the pitocin when pain, worldly pain bore itself into her and the mask of comfort she tried to carry fell. It was humbling. I have seen her in pain before – bashing a toe or cutting finger – but this tore down anything she thought she was and this made everything melt away and become very real. In these moments sprung a newfound respect for her and this strange new love that I had never anticipated. I am not sure if is exactly ‘mother of my child’ so much as ;she’s MUCH tougher than me.’
That previous love though – that showed up right when I saw our baby being yanked out of the cut drawn across her hips. I welled up inside me, bringing me near tears when she said “he’s so cute” as I held our son above her letting her see him for the first time. May be my favorite moment in quite some time.
Then the waiting game started. Joan and I called people to announce the big-headed baby’s arrival. Lis recovered, the baby got poked some more, Lis got poked at and they rolled her upstairs with me in-toe. Not before a ‘code pink’ was set off by us trying to ride the elevator up (nurse’s fault).
The first nights were eerie and strange with a nurse who could barely combine two english words kept grilling Lis about her pain/incision. The days were chopped up with visits from her mother, and her bother later on. We didn’t watch much television, and we tried to keep the room as mute as possible – after the madness we needed to decompress.
I had heard the “they are letting me take this home” feeling comes as you drive away, but after the six says, we we’re ready to bust out.
