Month: July 2025

July 29

9:00am to 12:45pm

It seems we are going to be one of those cases everyone in the hospital hears about.  All and sundry  from doctors, nurses, even the cleaning staff… (I ended up with a spit and polish room), come and stick their head in the door, amazed and disbelieving that I am 42+ weeks pregnant since the size of my belly does not correlate with the time frame.

Meanwhile I have been assigned an angel for a delivery nurse, who had gone through this process only a year early so remembered well what and how a Mom-In-Waiting’s buttons could be pushed, shooing away the spectators to the best of her ability.  However, she had also been assigned the Mom (aka The Screaming Pitch the Dish) in the next room who was from a culture that if you yelled loud enough and long enough… as well as threw things during delivery, your baby would be blessed with a long and lusty life… I guess, I am not really up in my Scottish folk lore but according to my doctor (born and bred in Ireland), the Scottish are stoic and long suffering, with a worried look on their face, even when having fun. Dr. D should know… being born in Ireland, just across the North Channel where my ancestors were born and bred.

How do the staff, especially nurses, survive theses deliveries?  The Mom-In-Waiting screamed bloody murder for the medical staff to come.  Once they reached her door, she picked up puke trays (she must have stock piled them) and heaved them at the staff… they crashed off walls, clattering to the marble floor as she continued to wail about her pain and suffering. Once baby arrived, Mom cried copious tears and apologized but that does not in my estimation excuse the bad manners. Get a grip lady, get a grip!  You’re given your fellow Moms-In-Waiting a bad name… like we can’t take pain…I know, I know, it is not your fault that I am born with a DNA that does not participate in and or tolerate such antics. No one wanted to hear your terrorizing laments, especially if they too are facing labour and please, I beg of you, think of our babies hearing your screams, although muffled, still petrifying – on top of that, it seems you have all the puke trays… so what would we throw?

Dr. D. delivers a healthy baby boy to the Screaming Pitch the Dish in the next room.  He ducked in to tell me it is the first boy  in his last 12 deliveries, and oh, by the way, did I know that I was having a boy?  Finally a whisper, a confirmation of your sex.

July 29 Cont’d…

6:30am

I get up, feeling hung over and fuzzy… I take a shower to try to clear my head.  If all goes well, 24 hours from now,  you will be here with us, I pray.  I recheck my suitcase.  I go to your bedroom, check out your crib, blankets, bumper pad, mobile all set up and ready. Then I go to change table/wardrobe and baby supplies and vow that the next time I walked though this door, God willing, you would be in my arms.

7:00am

We left for the hospital, stepping outside to a blue sky and blindingly bright sun shine, me in a blur of fatigue, your father reassuringly positive.  However, he has just started his own business so will spend very little time with me once I am checked in.  I will be deserted, alone, no one to rant at or to get me ice chips.  Stiff upper lip, don’t you know.  Dr. D. says women born with Scottish and Vietnamese blood are his toughest mothers, who never voice complaints during the delivery process.  Let us trust my Scottish blood will live up to its’ reputation. I place my hands on my swollen belly, drawing comfort from your movement.  Are you aware, by hook or by crook, that you will be born today, Baby, I ask you silently?

7:30am

Right on the dot, as specified by the Medical Team, your Dad and I are in the Waiting Room , ready, willing and able for the first available room.  Not only is it Dr.OB/GYN’s day in Labour & Delivery but Dr. D. does ½ days in Emergency every Thursday so they will both be there to push and cheer us on, novices that we are.

8:10am

I am given a room that could only fit one Preggie lady, a slender nurse and 2 skinny doctors-in-training.  Hm, both of my actual doctors have girth, gained from years of good living.  Guess only one of them can come in at a time.

Dr. OB/GYN comes in and told me my hormone level has plummeted, you have lost more weight and no one knows why you did not grow in utero so the medical world believes the best plan of action is to avoid putting you through the stress of labour. Instead they are seeking permission to schedule a Caesarean Delivery.  I had no problem with surgery, it is just that the last time I was put to sleep, there was problems waking me up.  I mention it again to Dr. D. who flaps his hand at me dismissively as if to say, “Everyone has problem with anesthetic”… (proved to be wrong call on his part)….

So I decide “enough said”, I am the last person wanting to be labelled a “hypochondriac”… once we are alone I whisper to you… “Help is on its way Baby.  Hang in there!”

July 28

I got up and at it early.  This is my last day to feather my nest, so to speak… off I go to the pharmacies, department stores with a long list that has been checked at least three times and even bring home last minute groceries.  I see another Mom-In-Waiting in the check out line, so front heavy she might topple over, moving like a ninety year old and think to myself, in an uncharitable way, I must admit, “Like, what is that all about?” We exchange smiles, asks each others ETA, OMG she is not due for a month. Wow! Okay… stop being so judgmental…. I say to myself.

Once I am home, everything is put away, the house cleaned from top to bottom, bottom to top, so I decided to call your Grandma.  As soon as she answers the phone, I hear the, “Do Not Disturb” barrier in her tone.  It is not like I routinely call to discuss the choice of diapers, Pampers or Huggies, or the state of the union or even the sultry weather, with threatening clouds hanging low.  No, I just wanted to say to her that I will see her on the other side of delivery.  However, I hardly got my hello in when she informed me firmly that she is baking donuts and the phone clicked in my ear.  Now baking donuts is a finicky job, you have to stand over the pot of oil that is kept at an even temperature, flipping them with a fork as soon as they swell and turn golden.  Also, this is her sixth grandchild of her sixth child so it is up to me to be an adult and understand that although it is all new territory for me, it has to be “been there, done that for her”. Even so my sky rocking, then plummeting hormones make me feel you and I have somehow been rejected. 

I should know my mother by now.  She did not say she’d call back later when she was finished… no surprise she didn’t.  Cripes Katie, I have known her 31 years, how can I still worry about something I have no control over?

July 29– Early hours to just before dawn

There was no sleep last night.  First off, even though the house has air conditioning, the cool air never makes it completely up the vents to our bedroom on the second floor, at the opposite end of our basement.  It was a muggy, humid night during which your father snored righteously and religiously.  I went downstairs and stretched out on the couch, caressing my tummy, savoring our last hours together, fully realizing that outside influences will come in to play the very minute you touch down.  Still, being me, I find time to worry that the Medical World is not ready for us. Only time will reveal if I have a point.

July 16

As I am whiling away the hours, my OB/Gyn comes into my hospital room, late in the afternoon, coat tails flapping like a flag in the wind and says he is sending me home. Since I am overdue at this point, they have decided (who is they… undetermined by me), if I go home and rush around, cook, clean, visit my parents, interact with your dad and The Run Away Princess the process of going into labour will be kick started … works for me…come pick me up, daddy.

July 19

Baby Justin is born to Christine, my Prenatal Mom, with the Biker Dad.  Her Baby is a big boy and although the birthing process went without hitch, the next day trouble strikes.  Christine hemorrhages, needs a Hysterectomy…no brothers or sisters for Justin… (which is probably a good thing because of their living conditions, on the wrong side of the tracks) and Christine ends up in ICU because of the severe loss of blood.

Somehow, I was not surprised since Christine had medical problems known to her doctors (epilepsy, seizures) and yet she was not hospitalized beforehand, on the floor with the Mothers-In-Waiting Club.  Indeed her doctors and then the nurses she met up with once admitted, seem rather cavalier about her, exuding a rather “whatever” attitude.  Did Christine somehow, some way not pass the “smell test”? It scorched me to my soul to think she and her boyfriend were being judged  “white trash” because of their looks, their address and whatever else is thrown in as to conclude “you must be “…..” – you insert the word. 

When Christine and I had both gone through our separate ordeals and I visited her at home, silently, through observation, compared her mothering skills to all of the Mothers-In-Waiting I had met up with. I knew, if I died tomorrow and you, my Precious Baby had no daddy, no family, nor friends to care for you, she and Justin’s Biker Dad would be close to the  first choice of parents because of the skills at parenting they so effortlessly displayed… although they were day and night from me in work ethics, stress and laissez faire approach to life. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you judgmental professionals and yuppies of the greater universe! Of course, that would NEVER happen since if something happened to your father, three of my sisters would fight to the death for you…my baby).

July 21

Another family doctor appointment…no rest for the weary… Dr. D. sends me for another ultrasound which indicates something, somewhere is too high or too low. Dr. OB/GYN scheduled July 29 as your arrival date.  I wear my poker card face (practiced year after year as I sat down with employees investigating what they did, why they did it and the consequence of their actions), because it is your Grandma’s birthday, on July 29. I fear if I give it away that I am delighted for you to be born that day, they will tell me another day suits them better – like the following Thursday since that is the day assigned to my Dr. OB/GYN… week after week, month after month, year after year so all his Moms-In-Waiting that need prompting to get the party started came in on Thursdays.  Hmmm…Thursdays’ Child has miles to go…

I go home pumped, excitedly call your Grandma.  It wouldn’t surprise me to think as you stubbornly held on for dear life, tucked comfortably in my womb, that this was your hidden agenda all along. Eight days, Baby, just eight days till I hold you in my arms…God willing.