The Nine Lessons (21 page)
One minute you’re bleeding. The next minute you’re hemorrhaging. The next minute you’re painting the Mona Lisa.
—Mac O’Grady, describing a typical round of golf
H
ospital elevators
are notoriously slow. In an environment where seconds matter, where life-threatening emergencies happen daily, one would think that a hospital would have fast elevators. One would think.
I was descending in a particularly slow elevator from the fourth floor, on my way down to the main lobby, when a new announcement came over the hospital’s intercom system. I could hear it loud and clear from where I stood, because the speaker was just a few inches above my head. “Dr. Augusta Witte, please make your way to the Maternity Ward. Dr. Witte to the Maternity Ward, please.” I recognized the receptionist’s nasal voice.
I quickly hit the button for floor number three, but it was too late—we’d already passed it. So I punched the button for floor number two. When the elevator stopped it felt like forever before the doors opened. A crowd of people were waiting outside to get on, so I pushed my way through. A nurse was standing near the back of the group and I asked her where the stairs were. “Just around the corner,” she said, “but they’re for emergencies only.”
“You mean—?”
“You need to take the elevator, sir.”
To me, the fact that my name had just been called for everyone in the hospital to hear was emergency enough to warrant not using that blasted slow elevator to get me back to the floor I’d just left. “It’s an emergency,” I blurted out, and rushed off.
I was out of breath by the time I reached the Maternity Ward at the south end of the building, but I didn’t care—I probably beat that dumb elevator by four or five minutes. “I’m—August—Witte,” I told the first nurse I could find, gasping for air. “They—called—my—name.”
“Oh, hello Mr. Witte. Dr. Olds will be with you in a minute. If you’ll just have a seat right over there I’ll let her know that you’ve arrived.” She pointed to a narrow bench along the wall.
“Thank—you.”
Dr. Olds appeared about the same time that my breathing returned to normal. Of course, my blood pressure and heart rate still remained elevated because I was so worried that the news I was about to get concerning Erin and the baby might be bad. I hoped for the best, but was preparing for the worst. The doctor looked weary as she approached.
“Is she—? Are they—okay?” I asked nervously.
“Mr. Witte, your wife lost a fair amount of blood. But someone must’ve been watching out for her, because she pulled through marvelously. She’s still asleep, but she should be waking up very soon. We wanted you up here when she does.”
“Oh, thank heavens,” I sighed. “And the baby?”
“Well,” she replied softly, “there’s something I need to show you.” I followed her a third of the way down the hallway to a dimly lit room with a large tinted window. She tapped on the glass to get the attention of a male nurse who was listening through a stethoscope to a tiny baby’s chest. The man smiled and stepped aside. “Can you read the sign?”
I peered closer. A blue placard was affixed to the baby’s tiny crib. “Baby boy Witte!” I screamed. “It’s a boy? It’s a boy! Is he okay?”
“A few weeks early, but otherwise perfectly healthy.” She grinned. “He was born not long after I last spoke with you. We did a quick C-section to get him out quickly, and then we started working on Mom. She took a little bit longer than we expected, but the little guy has been doing fine here in the nursery the whole time.”
A wave of relief swept through me. I was a dad. My wife was okay. And I’d never felt happier in my whole life.
After spending some time holding my son, I helped Dr. Olds wheel the baby in his rolling crib to Erin’s room farther down the hallway. The noise of the door closing was enough to pull her from the drug-induced slumber. She rubbed at her eyes wearily.
“Your sutures are still pretty fresh, so you need to take it very easy for the next couple of days,” counseled Dr. Olds. “Okay?”
Erin nodded that she understood. She rubbed her foggy eyes once more and looked at me, as if to say, “How is our baby?” But before she could give voice to the thought, out of the corner of her eye she spotted the small crib that we’d rolled up beside her bed. Erin’s hands slowly moved to her mouth, covering up one long breath of astonishment. Then she began to cry openly.
Dr. Olds left us alone so we could enjoy the splendor of our new arrival. For the next hour we just sat and watched the baby sleeping. I handed him to Erin and she held him close, gently kissing his wrinkled forehead. He was so peaceful and beautiful. As near as we could tell, he had my recessive chin, but had been graced with his mother’s high cheeks and a straight version of her crooked nose.
Through whispers we came to a decision on a name for the boy. I favored Cooper and Hunter, but Erin thought those were better suited for a dog. She liked more traditional names such as Aaron and Matthew. In the end, we agreed to endow him with my infrequently spoken middle name, Nicklaus. “Nicklaus Witte,” she said aloud. “I like the sound of it. Nick for short. Sounds like a good golf name, if you ask me,” she teased.
Her comment about golf took my thoughts immediately back to Maggie. In the excitement over everything else, I’d completely forgotten about the teenager on the other end of the building who was struggling with labor pains in the solitude of her delivery room. My conversation with her came flooding back. I pulled the scorecards from my pocket and held them up. “Erin,” I said, “we need to talk.” She heard the seriousness in my voice and pulled her gaze away from baby Nick.
When she saw the cards, a look of confusion filled her face. “How—where did you get those? I thought I’d lost them.”
“Your purse.” I quickly explained about running into the Teenage Drama Queen in the hallway downstairs, and how I was called up to her room a little while later. I told her I’d read the cards, and that she needed to read them, too.
“Read them? Dear, I
wrote
them.”
“Not all of them. Trust me, Schatzi, you need to read them. And then we really need to talk.”
She handed me Nick, and started to read.
June 29, 2001—Dear August, I know you’ve been getting these funny little stacks of scorecards from your father the past few months. I’ve been reading them when you’re not around. Don’t be mad! I was just curious. I think they’re precious. Actually, I’m embarrassed that someone like him was thoughtful enough to record his past so thoroughly; meanwhile our own undocumented present is slipping away each day. I know you’re not a huge fan of golf, but I think your dad’s quirky little journal is a great idea, and I’d like to replicate it. Who knows, maybe future generations of Wittes will carry on the tradition as well.
So I’m starting today with this first entry, and I hope to write as often as possible. I stopped by the golf course on the way home from work this week and picked up some cards. They’re free! Cool, huh? My plan is to write solo throughout the pregnancy, just so I don’t forget the womanly side of this whole experience. Once I’ve got a critical mass for you to read, I’ll gladly share them with you. Then after the baby is born perhaps we can take turns writing them… just a thought. But one way or another, I want to make sure that from this point forward we don’t let time pass without writing about all of our beautiful experiences together. The fact that you now have the opportunity to learn so much about your father and mother is pretty amazing, and should the circumstances ever arise, I’d want the same thing for our own children.
I know this pregnancy has been a shock for you. You probably won’t ever believe me, but I never did do anything to tamper with or undermine your very careful regimen of “family planning.” Truly, this baby came about without my meddling (well, aside from the wonderful “meddling” that involved you!). So in many ways, I’m just as shocked as you are… but I’m also very happy.
I’m happy that I married you. I’m happy that you’re the father of my child, and hopefully many more children to come. (No, I haven’t yet defined what “many” means to me, but certainly more than one.) Above all, I’m happy that you love me, and that even though you’re openly scared right now about being a dad, you are willing to stick by me and see this thing through.
My heart is yours forever, and I’m so happy to be your “treasure.”
Erin “Schatzi” Witte
July 8, 2001—When all of this morning sickness ends, I hope we both remember one thing: You did this to me, August Witte! You! The vomiting, the constant nausea, the heightened sense of smell. It’s your fault! And… I’m so thankful for it. No, I can’t stand your odor right now, but even when I have to plug my nose around you, I can honestly tell myself that I’m glad to be going through it. Maybe I’m weird. Is the sickness fun? No way. Would I rather not be throwing up? Of course! But I’m so glad to be pregnant that if this is what it takes to have a baby, then so be it. That doesn’t mean I won’t continue to complain about it—a lot—it just means that I’m okay going through it for this short period, because I know the long-term reward will SO be worth it. Who knows, maybe morning sickness is just God’s way of reminding me that He’s given me everything I’ve ever asked for.
Erin W.