New life
August 15, 2007 - 9:41am — JYork
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep – the fetal monitor sounded off in a quick rhythm that seemed too fast. I watched the computer screen out of the corner of my eye, and the digital display ranged from 125 to 143 beats per minute. I kept telling myself to relax.
Our “soon to be a Mom” daughter, her husband, my wife, and the hospital personnel all seemed calm, cool, and collected. They were chatting like a group of people waiting for their table at a restaurant.
Not me, I was tighter than a snare drum and getting more stressed by the minute.
Then it happened, the rhythm changed and the display number dropped. A whirl of personnel entered the room, curtains were pulled, and my wife and I were ushered out to the waiting room. No one explained. No time for that. They just acted.
As we stood in the waiting room, our daughter’s OBGYN rushed past us through the doorway and into the delivery wing. My wife and I were left alone to wonder, worry, and wait. We went to the Lord in prayer and trusted in Him. I Peter 5:7; Proverbs 3:5, 6
Within minutes that seemed like hours all was back to “normal.” We were invited back into the room. The doctor and nurses discussed what had happened and why, and everyone went back to chatting about this and that.
I thought becoming a parent was stressful, but waiting to be a grandparent stretched my “stress” muscle beyond tight.
Every life lesson you experience makes you relive previous ones.
New “baby stress” comes to parents when we are young, strong, and durable. Unfortunately, at that point in our life, my wife and I lacked the past experience that could have provided us some relief.
When our first daughter was born, my assignments were straightforward – provide transportation for my wife to the hospital, be present in the labor room, standby in the waiting room, and do the standard----- post delivery toe and finger count.
My wife did the 18-hours of labor. Need I say more?
Daughter number two for me was much the same.
On the due date for our second child, my wife went with me to my office just in case the snowy January weather got worse. It did – 6” inches of snow by evening.
Labor for daughter number two was shorter. My wife delivered during my lunch break, and just in time to get to her hospital lunch tray before they took it away.
On both occasions, I worried about my wife and we worried about the baby’s health; but being young and inexperienced made it bearable. Ignorance is bliss.
Another type of new baby stress comes to the aged and wise grandparents who can draw on life’s experiences to calm their own spirit and provide comfort to other family members as God blesses us with the new life.
Fast forward 28 years. We are in Tennessee at Women’s Baptist Hospital anticipating the arrival of our first grandchild. We are no longer young and inexperienced. That “bliss” thing is long gone. We are older and worried about nearly everything imaginable. My wife did little to calm our nerves because she, like most mothers, wrote the book on worry and is always willing to share “what-ifs” with anyone willing to listen.
So early in the evening of August 2nd, my son-in-law, daughter/soon to be mom, my wife and I sat in the hospital delivery room watching high tech monitors as nurses came and went about the task related to “inducing labor”. The “porch swing” chit-chat between us was occasionally interrupted by the sound of a computerized machine taking my daughter’s blood pressure and transmitting the data to the print-out at the nurse’s station.
The baby was “wired” with fetal monitors and we could hear the beeping sound that tracked her little heartbeat. As I said at the beginning, I made the mistake of watching the digital read-out and worrying about the rate. We prayed to God to bless and protect my daughter and her baby.
After hours of induced labor, my daughter’s doctor and a colleague discussed the status of the delivery process, and debated the need for a Caesarean birth verses natural delivery. They opted to give the natural process more time. We were glad.
My stress level jumped a few notches when a computer upgrade started to mess with the monitoring read-outs and the head nurse told us that the system was re-booting to correct itself. Soon after that I noticed the baby heart beats dropped from a rapid beep to a much slower pace. Seconds later the room was a blur of medical personnel, and my wife, and I spent 20 minutes living through the terrible “what if.”
Finally at 9:30 p.m., my wife and I left the delivery room because, the swimming pool that Chloe had called home for nine months sprung a leak, and labor took on a new painful meaning.
My wife and I got the news minutes later that Chloe Abigail discovered America at 10:26 p.m. on August 2, 2007 and was placed into the arms of her exhausted mother and beaming father.
A short time later when all the necessary post delivery things were accomplished, we went to the delivery room to meet our granddaughter. She was 19½ inches, 7 pounds 10 ounces of pure joy. Praise the Lord.
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Comments
SaaaaaWeeeeet! (as the kids say)
Great story, Jack. Congratulations, and thanks for reminding us about what really matters.
Thanks Z
She is a precious gift from God.
Congrats Gramps!
How wonderful. Congrats.
Your perspective made me think of a story: My mom always said when she had us, she never wanted Daddy (my dad) to know how much it hurt, so she never screamed or cried or any of that, so as not to scare him. I always thought that was total BS, and that my future husband would be fully aware of what 'he had done to me." HAHAHA. Fast forward to being in labor with Eve, and there was my dad and my hubby and my mom sitting there with me thru contractions, watching the monitor and me. And suddenly I stifled myself and thought..I can't really cry or Daddy and Al will really be scared. WHAT????? hahaha.
I hope you enjoy Chloe and all the wonderfulness she will bring to your life.
Thanks Jess
Chloe has taken her place in our family and our hearts.
And a special thank you to all women who somehow seem to rise above their circumstances to minister to others.
congratulations!
my best to you, your family and especially Chloe!
Thank you
My wife and I are on top of the world. Becoming a grandparent completes us.