Baby Love (19 page)

At the retreat, though joined by a common interest in Buddhism, we were in distinctly different camps. I was with a group of women practitioners who visited the retreat center regularly and had for many years. He had never been on the property and was there because his students, most of whom were men, had implored the head teachers to invite him. With a word, we breached the space between territories and created a whole new world, separate and distinct from both.

Are we reading too much into it? Perhaps. But I have yet to meet a couple that didn’t feel the echoes of destiny, fate, angels, or, as Buddhists call it, karma. Buddhists don’t believe in a god up in heaven moving people around like chess pieces across the universe. But we do believe in cause and effect: that each moment is very much the result of all the moments that came before.

In one cosmic moment, we stepped into the stream of our son’s potential for being. We decided to say hello, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Or Tenzin’s story.

I wrote the baby a note this morning, thinking he might need a little reassurance.

I feel as if we have all merged. Glen, the baby, and I have become one unit. I’ve gone from one to three.

Tonight I feel ready. I give. I surrender. I know it’s completely beyond my control.

There is nothing for me to do except let go and let it happen.

Do you hear me, little one? I’m waving the white flag. Do your thing.

I’ll be there.

He’s here!

But may I ask one small but very relevant question? Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me how much it was going to hurt? The only thing that could ease that pain was an
epidural,
and if I do this again, which at the moment I cannot imagine, I will demand one after the first contraction, if not before.

The whole thing was a miracle, but more on that later. At the moment I must document my newfound respect for every human being that has given birth, and I retract my judgment of every woman who has had or will have a scheduled C-section. Maybe I just have a low threshold for pain, but I don’t think so. It is
outrageous.
I remember screaming, somewhere in between the toilet, the birthing pool, the bed, and the shower, that I couldn’t believe every person on this earth got here this way. It just doesn’t seem possible.

But it is, and now, thirty hours after it all began, I have a little baby boy who is undeniably the most precious being I have ever seen.

I honestly don’t know if I can bear it.

His name is Tenzin Walker.

Suffice it to say, all is not peaches and cream. Tenzin is in the neonatal intensive care unit, but I am too exhausted to write the entire saga, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Entire Saga:

Yesterday at five o’clock I was so hungry I felt I could eat the headboard off my new bed. Glen brought me what I craved: quick, greasy take-out that I ate with abandon. A huge hamburger with onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese, a Greek salad, and two orders of french fries disappeared within minutes.

At seven, I was checking e-mail and noticed the vivid purple and red streaks of the sunset outside my window. I felt relieved that I had cleared all the writing assignments from my desktop. I went to the bathroom and saw a little blood, not a clot, but enough to think that something might be happening. I called Glen and then Sonam, who asked if there was a lot of fluid. I said no and she said it may be starting, but maybe not. She told me to breathe, stay calm, and keep in touch.

I made it to the bed before the first contraction hit. It was like the contractions I had been having except this one extended beyond my belly deep into my pelvis. It was slightly orgasmic, and I thought that if this was it I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to have an epidural. Then the contractions started coming every ten minutes or so, with growing intensity. After forty-five minutes, I could no longer sit still. I asked Glen if this was it, was it happening, and he said, Could be, but let’s just stay calm and wait and see.

He got a little pad out and started taking notes, and I got really upset. Of course, I was writing cryptic messages to myself in my tiny blue notebook, but him doing the same thing made me feel like an animal under observation. I got pissy and he said I was trying to control his experience. I had a flash of depression: Were we really going to have an argument as I was going into labor?

No.

Once he put the notebook away, labor took off like a rocket and I couldn’t hold on to any thoughts at all. The contractions started coming faster. There was a two- or three-minute break between them, but after the first minute, I dreaded the coming of the next one and began to clench in anticipation.

I called Sonam again and told her how fast they were coming. She said it sounded like I was in labor and she was going to pack her bag and come over. The pain started to get super-intense. I had a strong urge to take off all my clothes and lie in the bed with Glen until it was all over, but the only way I could survive the contractions was to keep getting up and sitting down. Then one of them hit and hurt so much that I fell to my knees. I spent the next two hours going from the floor of the bathroom to the toilet.

Sonam arrived and found me on all fours on the bathroom floor. She checked me and said that I was completely effaced and already a few centimeters dilated. She said we should get ready to go to the hospital. I didn’t think I could get to the front door, let alone the hospital, and I think I screamed that out, along with some other unsavory epithets.

Glen swung into high gear, getting the food bags and my hospital bag and my coat and blankets and pillows covered with garbage bags in case my water broke in the car. I kept calling for him and he kept coming back to the bathroom every few minutes to tell me he was getting everything ready and that now was the time to execute our plan, not rethink it. Which would have made more sense to me if I could have executed getting off the bathroom floor.

From somewhere far, far away, I think the living room, I heard Sonam call Natasha and tell her that we would be at the hospital within the hour and she should go over and start setting up the birthing pool. That sounded so reasonable, but it also sounded like Sonam and Glen were both completely out of touch with reality. In between contractions, I told them so in a conversation I had with them in my mind. In our little imaginary chat, I told them that there was no way I could leave the bathroom floor, and we should prepare to have the baby in the bathtub. I had plenty of towels and there was a toilet and a shower and they were both there and, well, what more could we possibly need?

But then Glen and Sonam were helping me up and leading me to the car, and I was grabbing all kinds of random things like scarves and little bottles of massage oil and my favorite socks with the anti-skid patches on the bottom and several notebooks until Glen cut through it all and said, Rebecca, we have to go right now. And I thought,
Okay, got it. I can’t back out of this, I can’t procrastinate, I’ve got to just get with the program and get my ass in the car.
Then we were in the car and speeding along in the dark and I literally thought I was going to die. The contractions were coming in waves and the pain was so intense and unbearable I couldn’t do anything but scream and freak out and lose my mind when they hit.

Which is what I was doing when we drove up to the emergency room and a security guard offered to get me a wheelchair. I said no, thanks, and then he asked again, directing his question to Glen and I almost tore his head off. I don’t want a wheelchair, I screamed. Just open the door and tell me where to go.

I don’t remember being in the elevator but I do remember Natasha coming down and getting all of our bags and I remember getting to the room and throwing myself onto the futon. After a few minutes, the contractions forced me to my hands and knees and I started crawling around screaming that I couldn’t believe all human beings came here this way and that every single mother had to go through this.

Sonam and Natasha were calm and trying to help, but it was not at all like I thought it would be, with soft lights and my aromatherapy atomizer spritzing lavender-scented negative ions into the room and Natasha rubbing my back and Glen whispering in my ear and Sonam directing nurses and giving me visualizations. It was chaos and mayhem, and there was no room in the experience for anyone but me. I asked Natasha to rub my feet and arms and legs, and she tried for about forty seconds before I ran to the toilet and then decided that what I wanted—no,
desperately needed
—was to take a shower.

Glen turned the water on and stood with me while I gripped the safety rail, lay my head on the plastic wall, and wailed that I didn’t think I could make it. Then I got into the birthing pool, the thing I thought would be my salvation, and it was, for about ten minutes. Then it got too hot and I couldn’t move around enough so I had to get up and go back to the bathroom.

By this point it must have been one or two in the morning and we had been going since eight. I got up on the bed and hit the toilet a few more times and then Sonam checked me and said I was about four centimeters and we needed to get to eight, and that’s when I realized there was no way I could do it. I was exhausted and it hurt so fucking much and I just couldn’t believe that I had so much more to endure. I looked at Natasha, Sonam, and Glen standing respectfully at the periphery of my experience, in it with me, but only as far as they could be. Then I said, really loud,
I want an epidural.

The three of them looked at each other, not sure what to do. Looking into their blank faces, I reminded them that I asked them to get me an epidural if I wanted it. They started to deliberate, and then to try and talk me out of it. At which point I began to plead for the epidural. Please, you guys, don’t make me beg. Just get me the epidural. I have got to have the epidural. Please go get me the epidural.

The moment Sonam went to get the anesthesiologist, I started to feel better. It still hurt like bloody hell, but I knew it was going to end and that gave me a moment’s respite from the horrifying thought that I was going to be in this god-awful pain forever. The sun started to come up and the room got very still, punctuated by me screaming at anyone who entered the room: Are you the anesthesiologist? Get the anesthesiologist. When is the anesthesiologist coming? Where is the anesthesiologist?

I have never been as happy to see another human being as I was when the anesthesiologist walked over to my bed and told me to sit up so that she could insert the epidural. I was almost weeping with gratitude. She introduced herself and told me what to expect and I felt a stick and some jostling at the base of my spine and heard some tape being pulled from a tape dispenser. The nurses were talking to each other but I started to lose track of what they were saying, and slowly, slowly the pain began to lessen until I was relaxing in an extremely pleasant haze, and Glen was rubbing my forehead and telling me to take a break and get some rest.

That was lovely.

I floated in and out of consciousness for a while, and everyone took a breather because I was calm and not crawling around like a madwoman. Glen called my father and left messages for a few friends. Sonam got some juice. Natasha rubbed my feet and fluffed my pillows. The nurse had me breathe some extra oxygen and told me I was doing great. Then, just as I was really getting into it, and thinking I was finally going to be able to get some sleep, Sonam checked me and said that I was fully dilated and it was time to push. She said it might be hard to feel the contractions because of the epidural, but that I was going to have to really focus and try my best.

Even though I didn’t want to go back to work, I was game to push because I thought that meant I was almost done. After what I had just gone through, how hard could pushing be? I got up on my elbows and grabbed Glen’s hand and started giving it my all, bearing down and grunting and straining and making hideous faces, none of which had any effect whatsoever. I couldn’t feel anything below my waist. The baby wasn’t moving, but Sonam did see that he was posterior, turned around, which was going to make everything even harder.

Right around this time, when Sonam was telling me that a shot of Pitocin would intensify the contractions and make pushing easier, the nurse started getting adamant about the oxygen. The numbers coming out of her machine were not good, and suggested the baby was going into distress. His heart rate was down, which meant he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I could tell that she was a little concerned, but trying to make it sound totally normal so I wouldn’t fall apart. This was not effective. I believe I started to say “What is wrong with the baby?” over and over again and when they told me, I tried to take in the oxygen, but the mask was so awkward and uncomfortable that it was hard for me to push, worry, and breathe at the same time. The Pitocin started to kick in and so did the pain. I pushed and pushed until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then Sonam went to find the anesthesiologist to top off my epidural.

At that point, time began to be a major issue. The nurse’s machine was beeping and she kept putting the oxygen over my face and doctors started coming into the room to see what was going on and provide backup. I was making a little headway with the pushing, but not much. The baby would come out a little and then go back. He did that several times, until I was completely exhausted and didn’t think I could do any more. That was when I started saying, Just cut me open and get the baby.