Month: August 2025

July 29 Cont’d…

5:35pm

I am slid into a bed in an ICU cubicle. I can see the sun is still shining brightly outside. I am now in the hands of efficient nurses who tell me the reason I am in some much pain is that they cannot give me painkillers because of my precarious condition.  However they will do the utmost to bring me comfort by positioning me. They rearrange the cubicle so they had complete access.  Just call them, they said. We will come running if the pain gets too unbearable. They shoo off your Dad, telling him he can come back in 2 to 3 hours which is perfect for him because he can go to Grandma’s birthday dinner. Then he could bring her back to the hospital to see you and me.

8:00pm

A couple of hours later, I open my eyes because I sensed I am not alone.  Your Dad was on one side of the bed, your Grandma on the other, both gripping the side bars that were up to prevent me from rolling out of bed or maybe just taking off…. I smile weakly as Grandma pronounced, “Quite Contrary, I do not want to hear of you having another baby.  We are lucky you lived through this one.  I could not bear going through this again.” 

My critical mind fleetingly wondered if this speech is partly to hide the guilt she may have felt for telling me she had no time to talk to me yesterday. After all, she was making donuts.  I would never broach the subject with her since it somehow shamed me as I maybe childishly thought she would never have said that to some of my other sisters – could I be the one lacking, not her?

Then again, what do I really know about motherhood and how challenging it can be – maybe it was because my hormones were in a flux but like an epiphany  suddenly my Virgo tendency to judge at that moment was replaced with compassion- aaahhh….what is that saying, “Judge not, that ye may not be judged?” – got to remember that one.  

I turned the conversation to my Wonder Baby and both Dad and Grandma  bubble as they told me you how beautiful , healthy you are. Great, no worries. Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!

July 30

12:Midnight

A real Florence Nightingale Nurse is assigned to me – the type who cared enough to read the particulars. The first thing she said to me was the same message my Mother had given me, “Do not have any more children. I looked at your chart, saw what you went through today. Also you had Placenta Previa and a Small to Date Baby. You are lucky both of you made it though.  You are a Mother now.  You have a responsibility to this baby born today.  Do not put him at risk to be motherless.”

Nurse Florence Nightingale gave me the confidence to tell her about my experience with Nurse Post Op Ratched, pounding on my incision to wake me up.  She could not believe that anyone who knew I could not have painkillers would jump start me in order to hasten the process.  Back she went to my charts and confirmed the method of revival had even been recorded in writing, now part of my permanent record. “It takes all kinds”, she commiserated, “It takes all kinds. Just take my advice and you won’t have to meet up with the likes of her again.”

July 29 Cont’d…

5:31pm

As my stretcher is trundled out of the dimness of the Post Op room, into the brightly lit hallway, I feel every rotation of the wheels bringing on more pain at my Caesarean incision.  Dr. D. and your Dad’s face swim in to view as they lean over me – is that relief I see on Dr. D.’s face, I wonder as I hear him chatter on that my son was born with the same scowl on my face that I am now presenting.  Within the next few days I would be fed the story in teaspoon by teaspoon… not everything at once… must not upset the applecart at this stage of the game or I may turn in to that  Screaming Pitcher.

Apparently your Dad went back to work after they brought you to him in the  Waiting Room for Dads.  He claims you were crying and stopped the instant he took you in his arms and cooed at you. 

Dr. D. went off to his office hours, content that you and I had made it. Much later your Dad goes back to the room I was suppose to return to but I wasn’t there. He went to the nurse’s station where they told him it was probably a backlog in post op.  He waited and paced, as other mothers who had delivered babies hours after you were born, returned to their room.  He went back to the nurse’s station to bug them.  Now even the staff were starting to question why you had not been returned and called Post Op.  All your Dad could hear of the conversation was, ”Oh, oh, I see.  Well, was someone going to tell her husband? Oh, you want me to do that… OK, OK, when will she be going… I see, OK, I’ll pass that on.” She must have been conversing with Nurse Post Op Ratched.  The phone was hung up, the nurse looked at your Dad like, “Where do I start?” and said, “There were some complications.  Your wife is going from Post Op to ICU (Intensive Care Unit). Did you know she had problems with anesthetic?

Dad’s response was, “Get me Dr. D on the phone.” As soon as Dr. D.’s receptionist answered the phone she patched your Dad through to Dr. D.  who was as thunderstruck as your Dad.  No one had let him know there were any complications.  He bolted out of his office at the speed of lightning, back down to the hospital to try to figure out what had happened. Why had he not been called? Soon enough he knew the answer – just our luck, it was Nurse Post Op Ratched – only-perform-the-minimum in charge.

Sucks to be Nurse Ratched, but our Dr. D… he had connections… being Dr. Keep ‘Em Laughing in Emergency (I mean aren’t all the best comedians born in Ireland?)… so he knew a lot of staff and their Supervisors – including Nurse Post Op Ratcheds’ Supervisor.  She’d hear about it! He had a long memory – don’t all good self respecting Irish Catholics?

July 29… Cont’d

1:30PM

Lights out for me – Action for all, Break a Leg, Baby.  See you, like Real Soon.

1:33PM

Wonder Baby touches down. I am not awake to greet your miraculous arrival but that is the time recorded on your tiny bracelet put on your tiny ankle.

5:30pm

Waves of pain penetrate the thick fog I seem to be trapped in. Where am I? Who the heck is pounding on my belly and like, why?  I can hear disjointed voices, a female, who is perpetrating the pain and a younger masculine voice.  As I try to focus to bring them into my vision, I heard them talk, the female about it is way past her shift time and why the H_ll does the ICU not have a bed ready for me yet?  She has a good mind to leave (apparently deserting her patient) and let ICU take the blame if something goes haywire.  Meanwhile she (maybe aka Nurse Post Op Ratched…. was probably on active duty at Guantanamo Bay) continued to pound on me. OMG she was pounding on my incision, that is why I had so much pain.  I stirred despite the thick fog enveloping me and asked for confirmation, “Did I have a boy?”  She snipped back at me she has no idea, not in her pay scale apparently, way past her pay scale, it seems – getting me out of there so she can go home is her only duty. 

Finally, I am able to see the young doctor sitting on an empty stretcher beside me, stethoscope swinging on his chest.  Apparently I am in Post Op that is long, narrow room, with empty stretchers on each side of the room, lights all extinguished except for over my bed. The young doc cajoled the nurse, “Can’t you find out what she had and tell her?”  Without much enthusiasm she stomps away and comes back to tell me, “Yeah, you had a boy”.  No Florence Nightingale here, I tell ya. 

Finally, the phone rings, Praise God, ICU has sent a stretcher, they are ready for me. The Torture Tootsie can wash her hands of me – she is released from active duty  once the door swings closed behind me! God, I hate to say I told you so, BUT, hey, I told you so, I want to scream at the doctors, the nurses, whoever else was part of this end result –no, I wasn’t being a hypochondriac, I wasn’t lying or exaggerating to get attention – me and anesthetic, we don’t agree, big time.

July 29 cont’d…

1:00pm

We are on a stretcher, outside the Operating Room, waiting another Dr.OB/GYN who has had an emergency Tubal Ligation to attend to before we are up… I can only feel sorrow for the pain and suffering that unlucky mother is feeling…  Not like we are going anywhere soon and from the chatter I hear, that it is a lethal situation, from the hemorrhaging she is enduring. Lucky us, we somehow… probably more good luck than good management… avoided that, and knowing my contrary body, I may only have one kick at the can…. a one and done situation… I mean as a teenager, my endocrinologist had told me I probably would never get pregnant because of my lifelong struggle with my uncooperative thyroid… BUT they didn’t know you… they didn’t know me… you were proof in the pudding… Science can be challenged… and beat.

Although it is a very humid, hot hot hot day, I feel chilled to the bone, my teeth chattering.  My Angel Delivery Nurse brings toasty warm blankets to cover us from head to toe.  As I lay in waiting I thought my poor Dr. OB/GYN. Such a gentle soul, so busy, when does he eat… (of course, less food and he’ll fit better in that room… nay, a cubicle… I was assigned to when I first came in).

Just then the Operating Room swings door opens, the drug induced mother is wheeled out, followed by her Dr. OB/GYN.  Another OB/GYN passes by and offers to lend a hand but was told that the family doctor and Emergency Expert, Dr. D. is assisting.  If you can imagine, after what we have been through in the past ten+ months, Dr. D. had the nerve not only to take last weekend off, but to give you strict orders not to arrive in his absence.  Seems you cooperated.

1:20pm

We are wheeled in to the OR.  You father has finally returned and has been assigned a Waiting Room to crack his knuckles in.  Even back then, Dads routinely attended deliveries but since you were a bit tricky and no one really knew your condition since you appeared not to have thrived in utero. Therefore, it was decided better to have a team of experts rather than a family member herald your entry in to the world.

All of a sudden the OR is totally assaulted by the Anesthesiologist, a know everything Brit… (a lot of them out there), who is rightfully peeved about being assigned a patient who is on different medications for her thyroid and heart… who claims she has a problem with anesthetic.  Why had he not heard of this sooner? He delayed the surgery by calling the pharmacy for guidance, which would be the best cocktail to bring us safely to the other side.  Dr. OB/GYN and Dr. D., sheepishly stand back, feeling chastised as my Angel Delivery nurse fusses over me, trying to obliterate the tension around us.