Family Stories, Mothers Day edition

It's Mother's Day today, and after you all have given your mothers a brand new Kindle, rememeber that my book, “Blind Man's Bluff,” is specially priced for this special occasion. Plus, it's a good read for Mom.

Now that the pitch is out of the way, we can get to story. The subject today is, of course, Mother's Day. I debated telling you all about my Mom, but that would just be too depressing. She died nearly 16 years ago and not a day goes by that I don't think about her. We'll just leave it at that for now, and think about happier things; and hopefully a little more humorous. This is, after all, an edition of Family Stories. So I'll tell you two stories about when my two sons were born. They are stories that are told often around the house, especially around Mother's Day.

Robin and I had been married about two years when we decided “what the heck, lets go off the birth control and see what happens.” Well, what happened was Robin got pregnant, and we were given a due date in the middle of August 1997.

It was a typical pregnancy, I suppose, with the usual scares and the usual hormonal fluctuations. We went to doctor appointments and birth classes. We saw the ultrasound showing a “bat and ball” and we knew when he was born his name would be Connor Michael. During the last trimester, Robin was in constant discomfort and had taken to sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor. She was ready when the due date came. She was ready a week after the due date. She was ready when annother week past the due date came and passed. After the third week, the obstetrician made the call – this birth was going to have to be induced.

So on September 4, a Thursday, we had an appointment at 9 a.m. to go have a child. I remember as if it was yesterday when we were leaving the house that morning. The bags were packed with everything we needed, and before we opened the door to leave, Robin looked at me. It struck us that when we next came back through that door, we would be a family instead of just a couple. We got a little weepy – we're both a little sappy that way.

What followed was a long, boring day with an exciting 15 minutes near the end.

The first thing the docs asked Robin before setting up the I.V. was whether she wanted an epidural block. “I think I'll wait and see how bad it gets before deciding,” Robin said.

I'm not sure if the medical staff laughed at us or not; knowing what I know now the answer should have been, “Yes, please.” The inducing drugs were administered and … we waited. Then more was given and … we watched television. Suddenly, the show started. Contractions coming faster and faster. I became fascinated with the equipment that was monitoring the contractions. I'm not sure what the numbers on it meant, but they would start to increase and then the contraction would come.

Robin was in a lot of pain and determined, that yes, it was time for an epidural. Unfortunately, it was too late for the procedure, she was dilated too far, or something like that. The only thing that could be done was to add Demerol to her I.V., which pretty much accomplished making her a little loopy.

For about three hours we went through this pattern: every three minutes or so, the number would spike and Robin would writhe in agony while squeezing my hand with bone crushing strength. Once the pain subsided, she would fall asleep and me and the nurse would watch music videos on VH-1. Finally, it was time for the earnest pushing but my poor wife wasn't really up to it – she was already exhausted.

“Robin. Sweetie. We need you to push now,” the midwife would say. “Can you push?”

“I guess,” she'd answer in a stoned haze.

Two hours this went on and things weren't moving along like they were supposed to – Connor, true to his nature, was being a bit stubborn. So a doctor came in and consulted and the decision was made to pull the boy out. To do this, a suction cup about the size of the dice shaker in a game of Yatzee and equipped with a handled was fastened to the top of Connor's head. Once the suction was applied, Robin would push and the doctor would pull.

Apparently, this procedure had not been done at the hospital in some time, because our small room was soon crowded with “observers” wearing scrubs, lab coats and other various medical attire. The doctor attached the suction cup and waited for the next contraction. Robin pushed and he pulled and the suction cup lost its grip on Connor's head. The doctor went flying back and was caught by several nurses before he fell. If it hadn't been so serious in there, I would have laughed, because even the next day it was pretty funny.

Another attempt was made and this time beautiful baby boy was welcomed into the world. The medical staff did the right thing, they handed Connor to me and made me stand over him at the machine that I affectionately call the “fry warmer.” It was a large machine with heat lamps that babies are placed under just after birth. It kept making a beeping noise like the fryers at McDonalds when a batch of fries are done.

The reason it was a good idea to keep me over there was because everyone else was working on Robin. I'll try not to be too graphic, but the problem was that something large came out of her and there was a lot of tearing. There was a lot of screaming and a lot of blood and in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, that's all I'm going to say about that. But everything worked out and everything was fine, although I will admit that it wasn't pleasant to see Robin that pale.

I'm not sure if it was while the doctor was fixing up Robin or soon afterward, but somewhere around that time, the woman who delivered dinner showed up with a nice plate of spaghetti. I'm not lying, that's what it was. Connor had arrived at about the same time as dinner. Things settled down a bit, family members got to hold the new child, including my mother.

Another child had made his way into the world, and seeing what Robin went through was the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed. I swore I wouldn't make her go through that again.

Part 2, Beckett Henry

If Connor was reluctant, Beck was the opposite. I'm not quite sure how the decision to have another child came about, but Robin blames me. I'm willing to take the fall for it, but again, Robin did most of the heavy lifting on this one. If that sounds vague, it shouldn't. He was planned and he was born almost exactly four years after Connor.

The pregnancy with Beck had its own challenges, foremost being that we moved about six months into it. I've never made hay about Robin sitting out most of the work with our move – I'd seen what childbirth looked like and was well aware not to make waves. Instead of a foam mattress, Robin insisted on getting a fouton on which to sleep. If there was a similarity, it was that the last trimester was again during the summer and fall. One thing she had decided from the moment she learned she was pregnant was that she was not going to deliver this baby without an epidural.

Beck was due in the middle of October and Robin swore that she would not carry that child longer than his due date. I'm not sure if we hit that date, and if he was late, it was only by a day or two. By this time, we were in the new house which was 40 miles away from the hospital. I wasn't worried, the first kid had to be pulled out, the second one wouldn't be born on the freeway. Right?

Well, he wasn't. But it was awful damn close.

It was a Tuesday and Robin had decided it was time, come hell or high water. She'd made a run to the drug store earlier and got a bottle of castor oil, having read that it was good for speeding things up. Why she decided to take it at nine in the evening, I'll never know; but by 10, she was having contractions. We made a phone call to the on-call nurse at the hospital who told Robin to take a bath and wait until the contractions came closer together. By 11:30, I was thinking it was getting close, but Robin called the nurse again who told us not to panic, just wait a little longer. We waited a bit, but the contractions kept getting faster and faster. Finally, I made the call, time to get going. It was about 12:35 in the morning when we got on the road. I'd called relatives, roused Connor from his slumber and got everything in the truck.

I generally try not to speed when I'm on the freeway, tbut the urgency in which Robin was squeezing my hand indicated that I best not dawdle. I'm surprised no cop stopped us, I was going in excess of 90 mph and when I exited the freeway, Robin gave me carte blache to run red lights. (That was totally cool, she'd always been on me about that. A guilty pleasure, I must admit to.)

The whole time, Robin was doing her deep, quick breathes and at one point we heard from the back seat Connor letting us know how he felt, “Will you cut that out, it's making me crazy.”

We made it to the hospital at 1 a.m., just at the in-laws had pulled in. I quickly shouted out directions to my father-in-law to watch Connor and hold Robin's hand while I ran in and got a help from the delivery room staff. The door to the delivery wing was locked to keep crazy people from wandering off with babies and it took a long time from someone to respond to my ringing on the buzzer.

“Yes,” a guy finally came on.

“I need a wheelchair and a little help,” I said, panic rising in my voice. “My wife's about to have a baby out here in the parking lot.

“Hang on,” the voice said with no sense of urgency. The door buzzed unlocked but no one came out. I went in and made my plea to the person behind the desk. Still, no urgency. My father-in-law had got her out of the truck and had made it to the door, which I opened. The staff was still noncholant, as if we were interupting their important sleep time. Things sped up, though, when they got Robing in a bed in a room and noticed that Beck was ready and the time was then.

Seven minutes after arriving at the hospital, Beckett Henry made his way into the world. I was there for that one as well; and again, Robin did not get her epidural. In fact, she didn't get any pain killers until it was over. The birth had been completely unaided and quick.

When I went to the waiting room to tell everyone that he had been born, there was general surprise. In fact, Robin's sister and brother-in-law had not even made it to the hospital in time. Once again, my sweet wife had done the most incredible thing – she baked a human. The next day, I made an appointment to get myself fixed so that she wouldn't get pregnant again – at least not by me. It was my early Mother's Day present to her.

I've witnessed two births and it's something all men should be required to see up close. Childbirth is not easy, but being a mother is not easy either. Every day, I see Robin being a mother and I admire her even more. There is a connection between a mother and her child, and there is good reason all Moms should have a day of their own.