It was a typical sunny day in the
desert, and the weather man promised excessive heat for the next four days. I
was thirty-eight weeks pregnant, and like every other day of the past nine
months my stomach dictated what I wanted to eat. That’s what brought me to the
base’s Starbucks at 1107. Before I’d reached the door I could taste the
delicious brownie I had my heart set on.
Then my water broke.
In front of six Marines who barely
looked old enough to shave.
If things happened the way
Hollywood portrayed them, those Marines would have had a story to tell their
buddies when they got back to work. Luckily for me, when my water broke, nature
took its course and the water was more of a trickle than a gush.
Knowing what was important, I still got my brownie.
The drive to the hospital took six
minutes--an eternity when every bump and stop caused a fresh gush of fluid to
escape. When my sister and I secured a coveted ‘expectant mother’ parking spot
we hustled, or in my case, waddled with a sense of urgency, to the labor and
delivery floor.
Labor and delivery at the base
hospital is a lot like any other place in the military. A lot of hurry up and
wait. Once I was secured into a room and strapped into an uncomfortable bed
with monitors and IVs, the real fun started.
By fun, I mean the lying around
waiting for the contractions to actually start doing something.
Five hours after I arrived, the
doctor pushed Pitocin into my IV, in an attempt to move my labor along. Every
hour a nurse came in and upped the amount of the drug dripping into my body,
and every hour was the same. A lot of waiting without change.
It wasn’t until nine hours and half
a season of Veronica Mars later, something finally happened. My contractions
stopped playing nice and sent a pain through my body so intense the world went
black. It felt like something had broken. The Marine later told me it was probably his wrist cracking when I put him in a wrist lock.
I rode the pain of each
contraction, silently for the next hour. Veronica Mars was still playing on the
television, but I couldn’t focus on what was happening. I no longer cared
whether she was with Logan or some other guy. With each contraction, the pain escalated.
By the time I was ready to give up on the idea of a pain medication free birth,
the doctor informed me I was too far along. My son would arrive within the next
two hours.
For those of you who have never
experienced child birth, two hours is an interminable amount of time. It might
as well be nine months. I didn’t want to contemplate another two hours of my
insides being torn apart by Edward Scissorhands or my own personal torturer--Freddy
from Nightmare on Elm Street.
As it turns out, Boy Wonder wasn’t
interested in hanging out that long either.
Thirty minutes later I demanded, to
the room at large, to get the doctor, because the baby was coming. I’m not sure who
went for the doctor, or hit the call button, because at that moment I was
hoping to go numb from the waist down. Blacking out would have been okay too.
Within moments the room was packed
like a frat house on a Friday night after finals. Aside from my three person
morale team that included the Marine, my sister, and my dear friend (and work
husband), Corpsman K, there was a fleet of medical personnel: A doctor, a
nurse, and three Navy Corpsmen. The perfect beginning to a joke.
It was a regular party, and I was
the girl on the table.
I pushed for thirty minutes, and
during that time I realized some very important things.
I’m stronger than I
gave myself credit for.
It is possible to silence an entire delivery room with
a single look directed at Corpsman K when he made a comment about his arms
being sore from fanning me off with a clipboard.
The song Ring of Fire has
a whole new meaning to me now.
At 2215 on June 6, 2013 Boy Wonder
came into the world. Six hours shy of nine years to the day his brother was born an angel. On
the anniversary of D-Day. To the sound of Taps playing across the base.
For the third time in my life, I
experienced love at first sight.
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