Birthing Relevant Outcomes: A Storied Analogy

“Come here, please! Here!” I yelled at the top of my voice combined with beckoning hand gestures to people nearby.

I had driven the car like a mad Formula 1 driver - navigated the heavy traffic on the road, faced the oncoming cars and meandered my way through dangerous bends. Thanks to the car’s ABS (Anti-lock braking system), as I have had to slam the car’s brake on several instances of over speeding to this hospital’s entrance.

You could see the bewilderment look on the people’s faces outside the hospital as I jetted out of the car immediately after arriving at the hospital’s entrance and made my way to the back seat in a rush. 

This unplanned drama had driven attention towards my direction. Two young men and a woman rushed towards the back seat of my car to offer help. So much was the adrenaline running through my body and the evident confusion on my face, as they helped carried my wife through the glass door of the hospital.

The hospital was unusually crowded but I couldn't care less. She held me tight, she was heavy and covered in sweat all over. Although her tummy was really protruded; the doctor had assured us that she wasn't due for delivery until another two weeks.

“Tosin!” She cried out as she squeezed my hand simultaneously. I was confused. Yes, I had a right to be. After all, it was our first child and all the seminars we attended and the watched videos did not fully explain in details of what to do when something like this happens.

“Please put her on the stretcher,” the nurse said, as she was gently placed on the stretcher by the men who had offered to help. While I was still trying to figure out the details in my head and the state of things...“ please stay here”, one of the nurses said, as she was wheeled into one of the Intensive Care Units.

Nine hours ago, we had planned an evening outing together once I’m back from a business appointment. We had scheduled three things; to watch the new blockbuster film at the cinema, have an assorted dinner in our favorite restaurant and attend the weekend Smooth Jazz Party to cap an eventful Friday evening outing.

She was already prepared for my arrival at the house. You could smell the flowery scents of her worn perfume as she hugged me on arrival. She was dressed up in a black and red laced colored overall dinner cloth, layered with thinly textured gray colored linings across her cloth in a zigzag pattern, and combined with a somewhat forest colored camouflage medium-heeled shoes.

If you weren’t informed earlier, you wouldn’t have noticed she was pregnant, as the dress did a great job in concealing her protruded tummy. She looked beautiful and elegant with the heart-shaped pendant around her neck and her pretty smile. You could see the anticipation on her face and the tone of excitement in her voice as it’s been a while we’ve been out together.

With a dash of water on my face, a dab of cologne on my pulse spots, a well-combed Afro hair, a white dinner shirt and a charcoal tuxedo donned, combined with an Oxford laced black shoes, a classic black bow tie around the neck and her smacked kiss on my lips; I was ready in a jiffy.

It was around Twenty-five minutes in the heavy traffic, with about fifteen more kilometers of distance to the Cinema place, that I noticed her continuing jolting and expression of discomfort as she slouched in the car seat.

“Is that a kick?” I asked her. She did not respond. “Are you OK?” “Road sickness?” “The babies?” I kept asking incoherent questions as I drove through the slowly moving traffic on the road. “Aaah! Wrrhh...” She clasped both her hands on her tummy and screamed deeply with her eyes closed, “...I think it’s happening”, she voiced out.

“Now?” I queried, as I started looking at both sides of the road through the side windows of the car in search of a nearby hospital, as our booked hospital is located in the north direction of our present place.

Via Google Search app on the car’s dashboard, I located a nearby hospital ten kilometers away. All this while, the road traffic had gotten worse with only three meters of possible movement at an interval of three to five minutes.

At this time, she had moved to the back seat. You could hear her breathing heavily and wriggling in pain. With concern and deep empathy for her and the unborn babies, I swerved from the normal right-hand side of driving on the road to the adjacent road on the left-hand side. A dangerous but an inventive attempt.

I faced the oncoming cars with the full headlight beam on, honked the car horn to alert oncoming cars in order for them to give way and maneuvered my way through the opposite road in contrast to the traffic rules.

Back at the hospital waiting room – where the nurse had said I should stay. I paced up and down along the passageway in the waiting room with my arms placed across my chest. As at this time, my dinner shirt looked ruffled, the first three top buttons of my shirt were unbuttoned, while the bow tie was loosely hanging and dangling around my neck and untied. I cared less, as I kept looking at the door of the Intensive Care Unit where my wife had been wheeled into.

You could hear the repetitive ticking sound of the wall clock on the adjacent wall of the room to where I was standing. I watched the seconds of the ticking wall clock grew into minutes, and the minutes strolled sluggishly into longer minutes.

Just as I have read in one of the articles earlier in my teenage years that you don’t know the value of time units until you’ve found yourself in a situation like this. Situations that are time tied.

Ask a race sprinter or a competitive sports person, or a military sniper, or ask a life-saving medical person or any other related people, you'll be informed on the importance and value placed on different units of time. Their successes are tied to these units of time - microseconds, milliseconds, seconds and minutes units of time. Either in winning a race competition, or saving a patient, or securing a scene, every jot units of the time matters. The same as in this labor room.

At this time, I observed other patients suffering from one sickness and other forms of emergency concerns along with the people who had accompanied them. If you were there, you’d perceived the familiar and distinctive hospital smell which isn't too pleasant in every sensory judgment of mine.

“Please come quickly”, requested one of the midwives, as she came out of the Intensive Care Unit room. “Your wife wants you beside her during labor”, she added. I had pictured this day a thousand and one times and we had joked about it a couple of times. I had always told her that I would find a reason not to be in the labor room with her but there I was,...what can I say?

“Tosin! You did this!” she shouted and gave me a stern look as I entered the labor room. I thought to myself, “That was definitely not part of our rehearsal and prep...” Anyway, I was dumb quiet like an accused person who had just been declared guilty by the judge.

One of the midwives touched my shoulder, she looked very calm and unshaken and asked, “is this your first experience?” I nodded in acknowledgment. “Don't worry, everything will be all right, do your best to comfort your wife”, the midwife stated. Standing by her side, I echoed the words of the midwives, “Push! Push! You can do it”. She became weaker with each push. “Tosin! I am tired, I can't push anymore”, she yelled.

“What about a Cesarean Section,” I asked the doctor in charge. “It’s complicated for her condition”, the doctor replied. I really wanted a Cesarean Section for her as it would have shortened the delivery process. 

I became more anxious by the ticking of the time and seeing her sweaty swollen face, and her weakened outlook, I shouted at the doctor, “I demand a Cesarean section for my wife now!” The doctor and the midwives were stunned at my reaction and could not believe a posh person could react in such a crazy way, but to me, it was for my wife and my unborn babies' interests.

As they weren't responding to my request, I reached for my phone, dialed my lawyer’s phone to report the refusal of the request for a Cesarean Section. While still on the phone in conversation with my lawyer, the doctor gently patted me on the back and said in a calm voice, “should a Cesarean section be performed, your wife could be affected and the babies could be impaired, as her anatomy and the babies’ positions are quite exclusive”.

Looking at my wife’s face, and how much I loved her and the unborn babies, I could not afford to make a rash decision. My impatience and action could have harmed what I was intending to protect and fast track in time.

Hearing this quieted me; I realized how foolish I had acted, and I further asked for their advice.

One of the midwives whispered to my ear, “you can’t keep doing the same thing with the same intensity of effort and expect a different result; you’ve got to add more intensity”. Also, the doctor came close to me and said, “connect with your wife, stay calm, and encourage her to try harder for the babies' sake”, he advised.

Looking at her again, from the full strands of hairs on her head, and remembering how we fell in love for the first time, our troubled moments, our ups and down, and how we’ve weathered the storm together, I lit up with a renewed energy and radiance.

Now, with passion in my voice and teary eyes, I held her hand and whispered into her ear, “I love you and I know you will give birth to our babies, please push one last time...” I pleaded with an expressive sound and gestures.

Fifteen seconds afterward, she squeezed my left hand and almost stopped the flow of blood through my veins. She took a deep breath, gave a long push, and screamed louder than anything I have heard in my life.

“It is coming”, called out one of the midwives “it’s a girl!” reported another midwife. “This one is a boy”. ”Twins!” reported by the other midwife.

My wife who was in pain a couple of minutes earlier was now smiling as she held the two babies. I could not contain my joy as I had tears in my eyes as I watched the creation of a new life.

Standing there and watching my wife and the babies we had brought to life, it was at that point I recalled an article I had read earlier. It explained that the human body was designed to take about 45 dels of pain but that during childbirth, a laboring woman experience about 76 dels of pain (equivalent to about 20 bones breaking at the same time).

ANALOGICAL BREAKDOWN:

This story bears resemblance to the birthing of any significant or desired outcomes in life, business and related issues of concern. i.e:

1. The wife represents our "mind", where the impregnation of goals, ideas, aspirations and dreams takes place. It is the conception and nurturing seat-place of intellectual, emotional and mental exertion.
2. The unborn babies represent the ideas, aspirations, and goals that are yet to be accomplished.
3. The babies represent the eventful outcomes & accomplishments of the conceived goals, aspirations and ideas.
4. The Midwives, Doctor, and Nurses represent the diverse sets of valued-people and resources that are essential to the birthing of such outcome. It could be in forms of strategic provision, requisite skills, experiences, encouragements, and overall "help" in the eventful delivery.
5. The husband is “You”. The impregnator of the goals and worthwhile ideas, the driver of the "wife" (conceived goals & dreams) and the initiative-taker. You ("the husband") are the ultimate determining factor in the birthing process leading to the birthing of dreams and fulfillment of conceived ideas and desires.
6. The laboring process represents the time-period for grit and grind. A period of hard work, intense effort, persistence and sometimes painful exertion. I term this as the “pushing period". A deciding phase of whether such goals or aspiration would see the light of the day.

Of course, each goal and aspirations are unique and different, so are the birthing processes (analogous to real life child birth, ask a mother if you're ever in doubt).

Without a doubt, the pain period is typically temporary. It will soon pass and the joy of your desired accomplishments far outweighs your present pain of birthing the desired outcomes you have envisioned. 

Strategically engage your "wife" and connect with your "midwives, nurses & doctors" to birthing your "babies" - your relevant & desired outcomes.

What are you going to do to birthing worthwhile outcomes & aspirations starting from today?

FACT NOTE: This story is a product of my imagination with application to life, business and related issues where strategic engagements and efforts are needful to birthing desired and relevant outcomes.

Author: Twitter | Stories & Poems