A Catalyst for Change

“Oh, where is mom,” Sarah asked behind clenched teeth.

“I don’t know, baby. Maybe she’s stuck in traffic.”

“Shut up! I wasn’t talking to you.”

Sarah crawled out of bed and started shuffling across the hospital room floor, belly in hand. She was doing her breathing just like the leman's teacher showed us, hee hee hoo, hee hee hoo!

“Is there something I can do to help.”

“Shh! I do not want to hear your voice,” she growled.

I watched Sarah as she paced the room, her little fanny hanging out the gown, all sense of decency out the window. She was so cute, even in her miserable state. Blonde hair, blue eyes, round face, button nose, looking all natural without a hint of make-up, hair tied back tight with a scrunchy, oily with sweat.

“Baby, would you like some ice chips?”

“No, Jason, I would like you to shut – the hell – up!”

Sarah was normally the sweetest little thing you would ever meet. She was studying to be an occupational therapist at the time because she wanted to help enrich people’s lives and help them live to their fullest potential. She has always had a bleeding heart for all things helpless, rescuing animals hand-over-fist and draining her paycheck to feed every homeless person she encountered. She has always been a dork too. Her sense of humor is quirky, outlandish, and sometimes just plain old stupid, but her laugh is so infectious that you would swear she was the funniest person in the world.

She started to slow her breathing, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. With big doe eyes and quivering lips, she said, “Ice chips would be great, sweetie. Thank you.”

I headed out to the nurse's station to get the ice and to see about getting the doctor in there. Her contractions were only a couple minutes apart. I had heard that there is controversy over which was worse, labor or being kicked in the nuts. From what I was seeing, she was getting kicked in the nuts every two minutes. So… yeah.

“Here are the ice chips. I talked to the doctor. He will be in in about five, ten minutes,” the nurse said with a smile. She was a friendly nurse, but no older than I was. I doubted she ever had a child at the time. I liked the older nurses that looked like moms who were sympathetic and dragged doctors around by their earlobes.

I returned to the room and Sarah was back out of bed. She was leaning on it, doing her breathing hard and heavy. I set the ice on the table and massaged her back. She swatted me away.

“Jesus, Jason, where’d you go, Iceland?”

“I had the nurse talk to the doctor to see when he could get in here.”

“Uh, I hope it’s soon. I want this thing out of me,” she said as she climbed back into bed.

“Five, ten minutes,” I told her as I went into the bathroom to wet a washcloth.

I wiped down her forehead and neck. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt helpless and useless. I could kill a spider or catch a mouse. I could stand up for her or fight off her attackers. I could care for her when she’s sick. But this was different. All I could do was sit and watch her suffer.

There was a knock at the door, and it clicked open. A doctor who was not our doctor walked in.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Rosenbalm. I’ll be performing your delivery.”

“What happened to Dr, Turner? I specifically chose Dr. Turner,” my angry wife demanded of the new doctor.

“We are on a rotation. It’s okay, I promise you are in good hands. So, the nurse tells me those contractions are coming every couple minutes or so. Let’s see where you’re dilated at.”

The doctor took a look and told us that Sarah was only dilated six centimeters. He recommended inducing labor, which we did. The doctor left, saying it would be a couple more hours. I looked at Sarah sympathetically. She returned my look with a glare similar to a tiger locking onto its prey. I felt like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Fifteen minutes later another knock came at the door. This time it was Mrs. Harris, Sarah’s mom. My angry, snarling wife melted into a child at the sight of her mother and cried with relief. If I had been kicked in the nuts every two minutes for what had been three hours, I would want my mommy too.

“I’m so sorry sweetie. There was a wreck on the freeway. The traffic wasn’t moving, and I was losing my mind trying to get here. How are you,” Mrs. Harris asked.

Sarah grimaced as another contraction began before she could answer. Her mom took her hand and let her squeeze as she used the other hand to stroke her hair. “I know baby. You’re strong. You will get through this. When you see that baby, it will make it all worth it. You are doing so good,” she told her with a soothing voice.

The contraction subsided and Sarah looked at her mom adoringly with the sweetest, purest smile of appreciation.

“Jason, I have this for a little while. Why don’t you take a break. Get something to eat,” Mrs. Harris told me.

I looked at Sarah. I didn’t feel like I should leave. I felt like I needed to be there, but with a gentle nod of her head and a faint smile she gave me the okay.

I went to the cafeteria and got some chicken fingers and fries with Mountain Dew. I didn’t realize how hungry I was or how much I needed the caffeine. Once I ate, I felt a ton of stress released. I didn’t know why I was stressed; Sarah was the one doing everything, but the tension in my shoulders released like untying a knot. The game was playing on the monitor, so I stayed until I finished my soda before going back upstairs.

I returned to the room as they were wheeling Sarah out. A nurse greeted me. “Are you dad?”

“Yes, what’s going on?”

“The baby is breach, and the doctor cannot get her turned. He is going to do a C-section to get the baby out. Here, put these on,” she said, handing me some scrubs, “and join them in the operating room through that door.”

“Is my wife okay? Is the baby okay?”

“They’ll be fine. Hurry up now.”

I threw the scrubs on and hurried into the operating room. They had already started. The aesthetician waved me over and showed me where to stand. Sarah was awake so I asked her how she was doing. She was groggy and calm, but said she was fine, that she could feel them cutting into her, but it didn’t hurt. I looked over the curtain they placed in front of Sarah’s face just as they were removing her intestines and laying them on her chest. I quickly looked away.

“Are you going to vomit,” the aesthetician asked.

I shook my head no.

“Faint?”

“No, I’m good,” I said as I regained my composure.

“It’s a girl,” I heard the doctor exclaim, followed by a tiny cry. “Dad, do you want to cut the umbilical cord.”

They handed me a large pair of scissors. I thought they would cut straight through the cord, but it was rough, leathery, and I had to chew my way through with the scissors. The doctor tied it off. I watched as they measured her and weighed her. They wrapped her up in a blanket and handed her to me.

She was so little, and I was so scared I was going to break her, but I cradled her as the most precious thing ever handed to me. “Hi, baby,” I said with the gentlest voice I could muster.

She opened her beautiful blue eyes and they fluttered against the brightness of the lights overhead. “She looked at you. That means she recognizes your voice,” a nurse told me.

Sarah called from the operating table as they were stitching her up. “Let me see!”

I made my way to Sarah, slowly rocking the baby as I went. Sarah said hello and took one look into those eyes and started to cry.

“What are you going to name her,” a nurse asked.

“Marshmallow,” my drug induced wife answered.

I laughed. “We agreed on Rachel. Rachel Lynn Palmer.”

“We need to take Rachel and run some tests to make sure she’s healthy and your wife needs to go to recovery. Come back tomorrow and you can see them both.”

I went back to the hospital the next day. I entered Sarah’s room and saw her in bed, upright, breastfeeding Rachel. At that moment, on the twenty-second day of July, I started thinking about all the times that I had thought that I had grown up in my life. When I hit puberty, when I started to drive, the first time I had sex, graduating high school, turning twenty-one, my first place. Looking at them there snuggled together I realized that growing up wasn’t a milestone or even a rite of passage – it was a decision. Even though I was twenty-four, I was the type of guy who called into work because he drank too much the night before or wanted to go fishing because it was a nice day. I squandered money on expensive toys just because I had the money to spare rather than investing it or saving it. I never thought about the future, only living for today. And on that twenty-second day of July, I made the decision to change all that. I made the decision to grow up.