Broken Promises

Chapter 4 - At the Hospital

 March 8, 1999

I was unbelievably worried about you. The doctor assured us this was all a "just to be safe" scenario. I was naïve. The emotional side of the brain said things were fine, and the rational worrying side chose to...well...worry. Classes were going well with school, and I could see my future possibilities of being a doctor in just a couple of years. I enjoyed planning for the future. They just were being cautious. I like being cautious with people I care about. And yet, I could not sleep the night before we went to the hospital for your induction.

I am not sure any man is ready for the call of "it's time" to go to the hospital. For many, it happens in the middle of the night. For others, while they are at work. You rush to get your family to the hospital so you can become a family. I have wondered how this experience feels. To have the woman you love nudge you in the middle of the night, telling you with both a smile and a crushing death grip that it is time for all your dreams to come true. Why do so many men take this moment and this experience for granted? Why do so many mothers go through this process alone without the adoration and love they deserve?

The trip to the hospital for your birth was scary and exhilarating. We checked in around midday if memory serves me. In a few short hours, I would be a daddy. I was terrified. Petrified. This was a fixed point in time and space for me. This was me becoming who I had always wanted to be. Everything was about to change. Everything I wanted in life was about to come true. I did not think life could be more perfect than it already was. I had no concept of just how horrific things could become, or how fast a universe could collapse on itself.

Before we left the house, I vomited. I have always processed my feelings through my GI tract. If my feelings are off, my gut is off. I was so worried for you. Fear, excitement, what-ifs. So much was going through my mind, and I could not process it all. I kept telling myself that there was nothing to worry about. Giving birth was a natural process that happens all the time, but your induction worried me. Maybe millions of people were having babies every day, but this was MY baby. This one mattered to me. This was YOU. Maybe it was foreshadowing, or maybe it was just normal father-to-be jitters. Either way, I threw up...a lot. Then I took your mom to the hospital.

Checking in at the hospital was a mixture of nerves and excitement. Both sets of grandparents and some other immediate family members were there as well or came by at some point. The details are all jumbled in my head. The nurses hooked up monitors so we could see your heart rate and prepare for the induction that would happen the next day. I watched the strip on your heart monitor. You were that strip. It represented everything you were and would soon be.

The induction would begin the following morning. So I waited to become a father.

March 9, 1999

They may have started the induction the day that they admitted your mom, but I do not believe so. They wanted you and her to sleep through the night so you would be well rested for the upcoming day. I did not sleep. There was a heart strip to watch.

In the morning, they started the Pitocin drip. That Pitocin was strong stuff. The nurse warned just how impactful it would be. A nurse told me it was "contractions on demand." Everything appeared to be starting just how the staff planned it. Intense is what it was. The contractions hit fast and hard. One step closer to being a dad. I did not envy your mom's part in this. It was rough.

Unfortunately, almost immediately there were concerns even though we did not understand them at first. Beginning with the first contraction, your heart rate would decelerate with each contraction. Then it would return to normal after the contraction stopped. They print this out on paper strips. A constant strip of your fetal heart rate. This was to become a visual record of your pain and slow death. I could see your tiny little heart on those stacks of papers. There were so many of them. They would replace one ream of paper with another and place it on the table. Stacks and stacks.