Unprepared for Childbirth

by

Nancy Wilbur Woods

My daughter Holly's birth didn't turn out exactly as expected. When I walked into the hospital and told the admissions nurse I was having contractions, I assumed she would welcome me with open arms.

"Go home," she told me instead. "You aren't big enough. Go home and take a walk. Sometimes that helps. Come back in three hours."

Three hours? Take a walk? Had she looked outside recently? It was a dark night in December, and Portland, Oregon was in the grip of a winter storm. Every tree branch and porch step was encased in a sheet of ice. But my husband Dave and I did as we were told. We drove home carefully, then gingerly walked the icy sidewalks around our neighborhood.

Three hours later I was once again talking to the same nurse.

“Well…,” she said, after taking more measurements, "generally, we don't admit our mothers until...." She must have noticed a certain look on my face. "I guess I can bend the rules, just this once. You can stay."

If I could have, I would have jumped for joy. At last I was where I belonged, in a hospital, a well-equipped medical facility designed to deal with childbirth. At least that's what I thought until I saw my room. Only much later did I learn that the night I gave birth just happened to be one of the busiest nights the staff on that O.B. ward had ever seen. All the regular rooms were taken, so a frazzled nurse led Dave and me down a hall to a room tucked out of the way, back in a corner.

"Make yourselves comfortable," she said before walking out.

I took a seat on the bed then looked around. From the looks of things -- the shelves of paper products and glass bottles -- our hospital room was nothing more than a large supply close. It doesn't matter I told myself. What mattered was that I was in the competent hands of trained professionals, nurses and doctors -- people who'd delivered hundreds of babies. At least that's what I thought until my nurse walked in the room.

"Hi," she said as she hooked me up to a monitor. "My name's Sally and I'll be your nurse. But I have to warn you. I'm new at this. I usually work ped's. I'm only in O.B. tonight because they're short-staffed. So you'll have to bear with me."

It doesn't matter I told myself. My body will know what to do. Hadn't Dave told me that many times before?

"Women have been having babies for millions of years," he’d explained whenever I voiced concern about the birthing process. "There's nothing to it. Mother Nature kicks in and that's it." But that was before Sally checked the monitor. What she saw caused her to turn pale.

"Send someone in here! Now!" she barked into the intercom. In my case, it seemed, Mother Nature hadn't kicked hard enough, and the baby was stating to protest. The room suddenly filled with people including Dr. Wilcox, my family doctor, dressed in her overcoat and smelling of the cold. A fresh-faced man I'd never met before bent over me and said he'd be doing the C-section. A young woman in a pink apron shaved my stomach. Even Sally tried to help, but she only managed to make things worse by pushing me and my bed out of the room without bothering to unhook the I.V. lines, then pushing me the wrong way down the hall. Eventually someone untangled the lines and got me into the operating room.

I lay there, staring up at the huge circular light hanging from the ceiling. Dave's hot hand cupped my cold shoulder, feeling like fire on ice. Then, suddenly, without warning, I heard a human cry and realized a new life had burst forth.

Some time later, I was lying in a room by myself. Through the window, I could see the sun coming up on a new day. Outside, everything was veiled in a layer of fresh snow. A smiling nurse walked in, carrying something tiny wrapped in clean flannel.

       "Here's your daughter," she said, laying the bundle beside me before tiptoeing out.

And for the first time I got a clear look at my daughter. What I saw wasn't at all what I'd expected. Peering into her eyes, noticing her full, round cheeks, it didn't seem like I was seeing her for the first time. Quite the opposite -- it seemed as if I'd known her all my life, as if she'd been with me all along, waiting patiently in a nearby invisible room until just the right time to show her sweet face.

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