Little Johnny's story

My wife had been in the hospital for quite a while. Preeclampsia (aka toxemia) had been complicating her pregnancy for months prior to her being hospitalized, and the doctors were concerned enough about her wellbeing to hospitalize her for the duration of her pregnancy.

I went to see her almost every day, but being the breadwinner and trying to play Mommy and Daddy to our little girls and hospital visits kept me away three times during her 35 day stay.

My lovely lady handled the drama well. She was on total bed rest, only allowed to get to her feet to use the restroom, shower, and get herself a drink from the "nourishment room" twenty feet away. Any further travels required a wheelchair ride. I can not imagine how hard it must have been to be locked up in a hospital room for so long away from family and the comforts of home. I did my best to make sure she always had the things she needed.

Initially, the doctor told us that he hoped he could forestall the birth until she had reached the magical 32 week mark in her pregnancy, but through God's grace, she made it nearly to 34 weeks. The night of his birth, while my wife was being monitored profusely, the baby's heart rate was decelerating and then climbing again, a sign that something might be going wrong in the womb. The doctor moved my wife to Labor and Delivery and got ready for a delivery.

After we had been moved to Labor and Delivery, a nurse told us that there would be no way the doctor was going to deliver the baby that night, so my wife sent me out to get Burger King. Approximately three seconds after my wife had taken her last bite, a nurse swooped in like a panicked orangutan, arms waving wildly, and asked if my wife had eaten yet. We both looked at her like "yeah, psycho", and we were then informed that the doctor had opted to deliver immediately.

The nurse said she would call the doctor and continued her panicked orangutan walk out of the room.

Moments later, an anesthesiologist blasted through the door like a storm trooper and told my wife to open up the back of her gown to allow for her epidural. This man was later referred to by the delivering doctors as "a rogue fighter pilot anesthesiologist who laughs in the face of recent meals". Apparently that twelve hour waiting period before surgery is pretty vital to most people in his profession, but he likes to live dangerously.

Dr. Wilkes (whom we like very much) then came in wearing black jeans, what appeared to be a rock concert T-shirt, and a leather jacket much like one you might see adorning the back of someone on a Harley. His smile was genuine, and he seemed truly excited to be present for the birth of our baby. His tone of speech was reassuring to say the least.

The nurse arrived with some paper scrubs for me, and the doctor took one look at them and said "Those won't fit you. Nurse, get this man some hospital scrubs." (I'm an inordinately large man with broad shoulders, a size 19 neck, and a size 52 jacket size. More on the scrubs later.)

Once the doctors were all suited and scrubbed, we headed into the C-Section room. I soon learned that the operating room is the most terrifying place in existence. The institutional white lighting and the operating table were reminiscent of something I once saw in the movie "Saw", and the assortment of cutting tools, clamps, and tubes at the disposal of people I had only just met was monstrous.

"We're going to do some sensitivity tests now to see what you can feel," they said to my wife. "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah, you're touching my toe," she replied.

"Okay, how about this?"

"Yeah, I feel a little pressure on my belly."

"Hmm," the doctor said, feigning surprise. "How about this?"

"Yeah, that feels pretty tight."

Two minutes of these "sensitivity tests" later, I heard the voice of my son for the first time. The doctors had warned us beforehand that premature babies typically are not very vocal and are generally slack armed and weak. On the contrary, however, our little guy screamed bloody murder as he balled up his fists in what appeared to be an attempt to crush the face of the nurse who he was handed to directly from the womb. He was perfect.

As the nurse walked the baby towards the table where they clean and wrap him up, little Johnny spurted a face full of urine into the visage of one of the nurses. It soaked through her surgical mask, and in a sign of professionalism I have never before witnessed, she not only did not flinch, but simply removed the mask and put on another one. I was appalled and impressed at the same time.

The nurses shooed me away as they did their host of checks and balances, and I went to sit next to my wife as they sewed her back up. In full doctor's scrubs, I was telling my wife what the baby looks like and how he was doing, and she looks at me and says "Oh, good, are you the pediatrician?"

"No, I'm your husband," I replied.

She looked at me and squinted for a few seconds and then said "Oh, sorry, honey."

They weighed the baby (3 pounds, 7 ounces...he was tiny) and wrapped him up in a blanket. The let us see him and hold him for a few seconds before they whisked him away to the level III intensive care unit for observation.

Everything had gone as well as could be expected. I could go on, but my wife has pretty much filled you in on everything since then. Right now he is lying next to me screaming his head off as he awaits the next bottle or breast, and I need to get him fed and show him some attention.

(P.S. After the baby was born and everything had settled down, I headed down to the cafeteria to get a snack and an energy drink. Once I had everything on my plate I wanted, I walked up to the cashier and said "How much do I owe you?" He looks at me like I'm crazy and says "nothing sir". I thought this odd, but I thought maybe he could just see how tired I was and felt sorry for me. The elevators were always shut down after 9 pm, and I had been there so much that I had learned that as long as you don't look suspicious, you can sneak onto the "authorized personnel elevators" and no one will say anything to you. I made my way up to the third floor where my wife was, and was greeted by a security who violently asked me what "practice" I worked for. In my stupor, I looked at him and said "what the hell are you talking about? My wife just had a baby." I thought he was going to beat me with his nightstick, but instead he asked what room my wife was in and what her name was. He also asked for my id, but it was in my pants in the hospital room. Once I checked out and was walking towards the room, one of the nurses stopped me and said "You really shouldn't be wearing those scrubs." Apparently I could have been arrested for impersonating a physician...but no one told me!)