TheMommyBlog

He Can’t be Dying, He Just Got Here

I caught them in the kitchen with the baby’s socks off. Who does that? I mean, if you’re going to pull off a newborn’s socks and examine his wittle toesies, wouldn’t you do it out in the open? Not my parents. They aren’t Wittle Toesies people. They’ll crack wise when you get a shoulder full of spit up. But if they’re intent on anatomy, something is double-plus un-good.

I confronted them. “What are you doing? Are you palming his socks?”

“Oh, we’re just looking at his feet. They seem… cold. A little purple.”

“Your mother’s concerned about his circulation.” If my step dad puts anything gently—or even worse—quietly, he’s worried about something. He’s a goddamned pathologist.

“Well, give it up. Should I be worried?” I demanded.

They glanced at one another. “Not yet.”

My mother and stepfather were visiting a few days after our second child was born. Second son, my first natural delivery. For once, no drama surrounded the birth. Dylan was born in the early hours of August 1, 2000, just after my folks celebrated my brother’s birthday. They called us in Labor and Delivery from a restaurant in Chicago late on July 31.

“Hurry up and have the kid so I don’t have to share a birthday!” My brother. Booming voice.

“If I could have this baby on demand, don’t you think I’d have done so already?”

“Yeah, well, here. Talk to Mom.”

My mother was over the moon. To be honest they were all a little drunk. And excited. “Let me remind you that August first is an auspicious day in our family. It was Grandpa Bernie Leonidas’ birthday as well as Chris’. But still—hurry up if you can.”

I started pushing thirty minutes later and was holding my son twelve minutes after that. It was that easy. Too easy. I pushed for just ten minutes and my hair still looked good. O Drama, where art thou?

Mom flew in the next day. She said he looked like a c-section baby, so pretty and perfect. He didn’t have that squishy Bataan Womb March look most babies get after spending hours in the birth canal. He had auburn hair, just like I did. My hair’s been every shade from auburn to white-blond to honey to dirty dishwater. What’s up with that? As a child I had silky blond-blond hair, and with each pregnancy more and more of my mother’s genes asserted themselves. Now my hair is dark blonde—if you squint—and curly. I did not order curly. And curly only in the back of your head? Is not chic.

For the first day or so, Dylan nursed and pooped and slept and did everything by the book. It was almost boring after the mayhem of his older brother’s birth—the one that was everything a first-time mom doesn’t want to happen to her. I had been dressing for a friend’s wedding when I went into full, bucking labor. By the time my husband was out of the shower, I was chanting, “We have to go now. We have to go now.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’d been up since three a.m. timing contractions and phoning the nurses at the hospital who were momumentally unimpressed with the sound of my voice. They assured me that I was way too calm to be in real labor. Something in the back of my mind told me that maybe I hadn’t been peeing myself the last couple of days, that I was in fact leaking amniotic fluid. The on-call doctor agreed and we went to the hospital. So much for my friend’s wedding. I was admitted and prepped for c-section forty minutes later. My doctor was worried. There were a few unexpected complications. You don’t want to know.

My doctor was a tall, quiet man—handsome in the cruel-irony sense that dictates OBGYNs NOT be attractive—and had a laugh that made him look much younger than his forty-odd years. During one of my office visits he told me a story about his wife peeing her chair all through a dinner party only to discover the next morning that her water had broken.

“Ha!” I exclaimed, “How do you not notice that?”

Ha, indeed. When he finally arrived at Loabor and Delivery I teased him. “You do realize that I was in the stirrups just the other day and mentioned that story because I thought I may be doing the same thing. And remember how we laughed?”

The laughs continued all through the surgery. I lay on the gurney in the operating room, practically stark naked, as my hospital gown was carelessly slung over one shoulder for a more casual look. I started to giggle. “I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and gay…” Six people bustling around the OR stopped to stare at the woman belting out show tunes while simultaneously being catheterized and prepped for an epidural.

And on it went. My doctor told one joke, and then his partner told another joke, and then it was my turn.

“Oh, God. Um, a piece of string walks into a bar. The bartender stops him before he takes a seat and informs him that they do NOT serve string. The string went outside, thought a while, grabbed the top of his head, shredded the strands and tied them into an elaborate turban before walking back into the bar.

The bartender eyed him suspiciously. ‘Hey, you’re that piece of string, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m a frayed knot.’”

My Doctor looked up from stitching my insides. “That’s it?” He sighed. “We’re putting him back in.”