“I TOLD THEM IT WASN’T WORKING!”
I don’t mean to scream at my nurse, but seriously. I told the anesthesiologist the epidural shot too far to the left. He said in his hoity-toity-I’m-the-doc-so-I-know-more-than-you voice it looked straight from his angle. Never mind that I felt the medicine run to the left side. Oh no. I was wrong, even when my left side numbed, leaving my right side to feel everything. All the contractions. All the pain. All of it.
It probably wouldn’t be as bad if it was everywhere, but it is the strangest feeling to have one side of your body numb and the other side clearly embroiled in some sort of wrestling match with all my insides being used as a giant pincushion.
I tried to explain that to my fucking nurse. All she did was roll me to my right side because “Sometimes gravity will make the medicine work better.”
Snotty little bitch. Not only did it not work, now it’s too late to fix it because I’m nine-and-a-half centimeters dilated.
“I’m sorry, Greer,” my new, not so snotty, nurse says. “If I had known the epidural was only working on one side, I would have paged him hours ago.”
“I know you would have. Because you’re a good nurse.” I situate myself as I wait for the next contraction. They’re coming frequently now. “And you aren’t texting your fucking boyfriend while I’m dying!” I bellow as another contraction hits.
Ace grabs my hand again and tries to remind me to breathe. At least he does until I give him the dirtiest look I can muster. I must look like a cross between Beelzebub and Charles Manson because he shuts the hell up.
“She was texting?” my nurse asks in horror.
As soon as I can relax I respond. “Oh yeah. I was hoping it was a hospital app or something to keep track of patient information, but I’m going to say by the look on your face it wasn’t.”
She clears her throat and looks away. I didn’t mean to put her on the spot. I’m sure there’s nothing worse than hospital politics, and I don’t want to put her in the position of having to decide if she needs to turn her co-worker in or just ignore it. Well she doesn’t have to worry. I’ll be calling the patient advocate after this shit-show and letting them know all about it.
Assuming I still give a shit after the baby is born. Once the pain goes away, I might be on cloud nine and not care. Who knows. Right now, I’m going to use my anger to fuel this delivery.
The door flies open and Dr. Ruiz swaggers in again, still smiling, making me want to punch his lights out. “Greer! I hear it’s about time to push. Are you ready to meet your baby?”
“No,” I snip. “But if you could get both sides of my body working together that would be great.”
He looks over at my nurse, who’s name I never bothered to get because I don’t. fucking. care right now, and all she says is: “The epidural is only working on the left side.”
Understanding crosses his face and he nods as he finishes washing his hands and whatever the hell else he does while I’m writhing in pain again.
The really great part of the epidural experience, and by great, I mean shitty, is on top of still feeling the contractions, labor slowed down significantly, with almost no pain relief at all. I went from three centimeters dilated to six in thirty minutes. Five hours after they gave me half an epidural, I still haven’t slept a wink because of pain, but I’m finally ready to push.
I bet they’re going to charge me for the whole thing too. Bastards. I’ll never get another epidural in my life. Ever.
“Okay, let’s have a baby,” Dr. Ruiz says. Ace situates himself next to my head because who wants to see that? “Push, Greer.”
I bear down as hard as I can and push with all my might. When I finally stop, I look down at Dr. Ruiz who has the strangest expression on his face.
“Um, were you pushing?”
I cock my head. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” he responds, truly perplexed. “Well sometimes when an epidural only works partially it makes it hard for the muscles to work together.”
Fuck my life. Of course, this would happen to me.
“Let’s try it again. Here.”
The nurse rolls a huge mirror down to the edge of the bed and now Ace and I both can see me in all my glory.
Oh joy.
I’m never getting sex again after this. I just know it.
“Sometimes when you can see what you’re doing, the brain catches on better,” Dr. Ruiz explains. “Let’s push again, only this time watch the mirror, okay?”
“Don’t you dare look in that mirror,” I growl to my husband, who starts laughing.
“And miss watching my baby being born? Not on your life.”
Asshole.
Oddly, watching in the mirror seems to work and within minutes, I’m seeing hair between my legs. And not my own, thank goodness. No, this is my baby’s hair. How weird is that?
“There’s the baby!” Dr. Ruiz exclaims. “Would you like to touch your baby? Just reach right down there and feel your baby’s hair.” He shows me exactly what he’s talking about by doing it himself, which is possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Who ever expects to see some man reaching between your naked legs to pet your baby as it comes out?
And yet, I’m fascinated. So, I follow his advice and do exactly as he did. “Ace. Ace that’s our baby’s hair! It’s soft. Oh wow.”
The words are no more out of my mouth than another contraction happens and I have to bear down. This one feels different though.
“Oh shit!” I yell, eyes closed tightly. “There’s that ring of fire thing they always talk about!”
The room erupts in laughter, because my privates burning is so funny. But when I look down again, there is a head.
I think.
It’s so squished it actually looks more like a brain. My heart beats faster and my breathing catches.
“Oh god, is that my baby’s brain? Where is her head?”
Dr. Ruiz chuckles again and for a split second, I consider taking my leg out of the stirrups to kick him in the face. But that would squish my baby even more, so I don’t.
“It’s a very tight squeeze,” he reassures. “But I promise that’s the baby’s head right there.”
I relax at his words, although I’m still agitated for many, many other reasons. “Oh. Okay. As long as she’s okay.”
“You still think it’s a girl?” Ace asks, a chuckle in his voice.
I turn my head to look him right in the eyes. “A mother always knows.”
The next few minutes go so fast, I can barely keep up. One second, I feel like I have for the last several months and the next, all this pressure I didn’t realize was there is released from my lower half, and I’m pulling a baby to my chest.
“It’s a girl!” Dr. Ruiz shouts and continues doing whatever it is he does down there in my nether regions.
I look at my husband who has tears cascading down his face. “It’s a girl, Greer. We have a daughter.” He kisses me softly, then turns all his attention to her and rubbing his finger down her soft cheek.
I take this moment to look at her for the first time and really observe. Her face is squinched and she’s making the same scowl Oli makes when he’s mad. Her nose is a little too big for her face, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she was an old man.
Kissing the top of her head, I coo, “You are so stinking ugly. And I love you so, so much.”
At that exact moment, just as I predicted all those months ago, my heart explodes with the love I have for my little old woman baby.
“Hey, look at this!” Dr. Ruiz suddenly exclaims. “No wonder you looked like you were having twins. This is the best looking placenta I’ve ever seen!”
He holds it up to show us and sure enough it’s the same size as the baby I’m holding.
Looking back down at her, I add, “And I’m never, ever doing this again.”
~ ~ ~
There were a few scary moments after the baby was first born. Her APGAR scores seemed fine, but she wasn’t making any noise. I didn’t realize, until the NICU pediatrician walked in, how serious the situation was. But the second he put a stethoscope to her chest, she let out a wail to rival all the other babies on the floor.
It appears she got the same stubborn gene as my other kids, refusing to do what she’s supposed to until the last second.
Other than that, she was quickly deemed in good health. No distinct features of Down Syndrome or any other genetic abnormalities, and I reminded them multiple times to not write anything off. But nope. Despite my fears, it seems we’re in the clear, much to my relief.
Finally having a baby out of my body instead of inside it, is also a sweet victory. Seriously. Pregnancy at forty is not for the weak-minded.
“How are you feeling?” Ace asks, although I’m not sure he can really hear anything beyond the beating of his own heart. He’s been holding our daughter since the nurses cleaned her up and handed her over. He’s wrapped around her little finger already.
“Honestly, like I could run a marathon.”
He looks over at me from his perch at the edge of my bed and furrows his brow.
Well, lookie there. He actually is paying attention.
“What do you mean?”
I lean back on my bed slowly, trying to be mindful of the three stitches I have down below. I make a mental note to ask Brittany to make some of those icy maxi pads. I’d bet money she has a recipe for them.
“I knew I felt bad for the last few months, but I must have gotten used to it. Except for this whole thing,” I gesture to the lower half of my body, “I feel good. It’s almost like I had a low-grade fever and it’s finally gone. I really should take advantage of this energy and work a bit.”
Ace nixes that idea quickly. “Uh, no. You haven’t slept in weeks. You need to rest while you can.”
I open my mouth to argue, but a knock at the door stops me.
“Can we come in?” Brittany pops her head in the door, making sure the coast is clear.
I wave her in. “Did you bring the kids with you?”
She pushes the door open wider and sure enough, there is the rest of my family.
Wow. That’s surreal to say. In just a year’s time, our little family of three has increased to five, plus more extended family. I never ever saw that coming when I was packing the moving van in Kansas.
“Mom!” Oli yells and barrels toward the bed to give me a hug. I have to hand it to my boy—as defiant as he can be, the thing he hates more than anything is to see someone he loves in pain. I’m sure knowing I was in the hospital but not knowing if I was okay was hard on him.
“Hey buddy.” I kiss him on the top of the head. “Ooh. You smell good. Did Pedro let you borrow his Axe spray?”
Oli smiles up at me. “No. Phillip did. He said I needed to smell my best for the baby. Is it a boy or a girl?”
I chuckle at his candor. “It’s a girl. You have a sister.”
“Aw man.”
A look of disappointment crosses his face but is replaced by curiosity when he sees Ace sit down on the couch, still holding the tiny bundle. Julie sits on one side of him, stroking the baby’s cheek, staring at her new sister in awe.
Brittany approaches and hands me a bag. “Pedro wanted to come but I made him stay home. I convinced him Nio couldn’t be here, but really I was saving him from imminent death if he did something stupid.”
I can’t help but laugh. Brittany loves Pedro with everything in her, but she’s also no fool. She knows he’s a handful. Frankly, I think he plays it up sometimes because he likes getting her agitated. It’s their “thing.”
“Also, I found this recipe before Nio was born and swear by these things.”
Peeking my head in the bag, I squeal in delight. Sure enough, she brought me frozen maxi pads. “Yay! I was just thinking about needing these! Thank you! You really know how to please a girl.”
She laughs and gives me a hug. “If we’re going to live on this farm and survive with all these men, we’ve gotta have each other’s back.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Hey, Mom,” Oli calls, now sitting on the other side of Ace, touching the baby’s foot. I’ve never seen a look of amazement on his face quite like the one he’s sporting now. “What’s the baby’s name?”
Ace looks up at me and shrugs. We’ve been debating, but still haven’t come up with something that sounds right. We have a lot of names we like, but they don’t seem to fit.
“I don’t know, buddy. We haven’t decided yet.”
He looks back down at her and smiles. “I think you should call her Grace.”
My lips quirk up in a smile. “Yeah? How come?”
“My mom’s name is Greer and my dad’s name is Ace,” he explains. “When you put them together, it’s Grace.”
My eyes snap up to Ace’s.
Grace.
It seems to be the running theme in our family. Grace for our mistakes. Grace for our insecurities. Grace for our failures. Grace is what I give my brother when he’s a jerk. Grace is what Ace gives me when I shut down. Grace is what Julie gives Oli when he has a meltdown.
Grace is what keeps our family together.
And this little bundle is what cemented us together permanently.
Ace blinks a few times as he wraps his brain around this idea.
“Grace Whitman,” he breathes. “I think that’s just about right.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
She’s our little saving Grace. And she’s amazing.