Leaping Into Fatherhood

Happy father's day, Mi Gente...

I wanted to revisit how I became a dad. I hope if there's any soon-to-be dad, or new dad out there, this can help him carry on. Enjoy!

Before the adventure

It was April of 2009. The elation and the joy of finding out my wife was pregnant was followed by that dual anxiety that causes one to want the baby to arrive as soon as possible and at the same time being afraid of such an arrival. These feelings were ever present despite all that time in which one is supposed to engage in preparations for the coming of the baby. Such preparations included a “Third Trimester” class at the hospital, which included real-life videos of births and other situations that instead of making one feel more confident, ended up exacerbating the pre-baby neurosis.

The nine months were fulfilled, and the due date came and passed, adding exponentially to the intensity of my anxious state. Nevertheless, in the midst of my mental commotion and inability to remain calm at the sight of me changing a single diaper, from southern skies came one of those beings with superior knowledge and skills in the arts of welcoming a new life into earth.

Help from above, actually from Georgia

It came with the specific mission to help these two less evolved humans' (my beloved wife and yours truly) transition into this new stage of our existence. Yes, it was my mother-in-law, whose knees I was tempted to hug in an act of pleading and despair at the first moment I saw her at the airport, like wanting to say:

“Thank heavens you’re here, please tell me what to do, you sure know what to do, please tell me”. All that accompanied by irrational and uncontrollable sobbing.

I can only imagine the great lack of confidence she would have felt in the moron that married her daughter, had I decided to portray such a scene. I repressed my impulses and went for the calm, warm and joy-filling?abrazo?(that means a hug) that us Latinos know how to give. She always appreciates those. (Note: we give better hugs).

Having my mother-in-law visit was very helpful. She came, she diagnosed, she prescribed, and she helped us tackle the many tasks that were involved in getting ready for the sweet arrival. She is the type of person that likes to tackle the problem, identify the solution, get it done, and then do everything in her power to help others dealing with similar problems. She descends, after all from a lineage of pioneers that crossed the plains and founded settlements around the Southwestern territories that are now part of the states of Arizona, California and Utah. Needless to say, My wife has inherited such attributes, and I admire her for that.

A Prayer in the night

The day of my mother-in-law’s departure was coming soon, and I started to pray that our baby would arrive before her grandma would finish her brief visit. The insecurities were still there along with the anxiety, but then something happened. In what is most surely an answer to my prayers: The negative feelings ceased, as if The Master had ordered the tempest inside this writer to be still. The only feeling that was left was the love, and the welcoming feeling of this new member of our family. I silently prayed again:

“Let her come, Father, let our baby girl come”.

My wife didn't know this, but maybe that was the reason why an hour and a half later her water broke. Soon we were on our way to the hospital.

Unfortunately, I did not pray for specifics, which meant that no contractions were there, and therefore, very minimal cervical dilation. She was hooked on Pitocin in a matter of minutes, and the not-so-sweet wait started.

Odyssey in the Healthcare Center

Contractions, contractions, and more contractions made their way into my wife’s womb, and discomfort was quite a nuisance by 6:30 am. The fact that three different nurses had handled my wife by then, and that she had been having contractions for three hours gave us the impression that we had waited enough and that and the baby’s arrival was at hand, but alas, by that time she had dilated only 3 cm. My wife’s expression of disappointment spoke volumes, and my intolerance for witnessing pain in others was starting to show given the intensity of the contractions. 9:00 am came and My wife’s pain had increased…a lot and my inability to just take it away was consuming me. This time we were sure the baby was about to pop-out…it just had to! C’mon!

Nevertheless, after checking, the nurse informed us that dilation was at 4.5 cm; in other words, we were not even halfway there. This put my wife in a tough spot. We had been planning on a natural birth despite the traumatizing and otherwise very censorable video on natural births they had shown us previously, but the pain was too much. Resigned, she turned to me and asked if I would object to the use of epidural. Object? I was not having those piercing contractions every minute and a half! “By all means, go for it baby!” and thus the anesthesiologist was summoned into our odyssey.

I have to give it to that practitioner. My wife barely felt a sting, thus erasing any sight of comparison between the dreaded contractions and the fore mentioned injection. My wife was able to finally get a break and her contractions stabilized; my mind was at ease again.

Six thirty arrived and with it a dilation of 9.5 cm. The obstetrician came into the room, calmed and observant, but with an attitude that communicated the question: “Y’all ready for this?” It was pushing time. The nurse asked me: “Dad…” (apparently the name Gonzalo does not stick very easily in these Anglo-Saxon communities, go figure) “Do you prefer waiting outside?’ I was informed that in the past they had to carry out soon-to-be fathers that had passed out.

Stepping up to the plate

I had seen the revolting birthing videos, I had heard the terrorizing stories, I had been witnessing my wife’s pain for hours, and for some uncanny reason, I knew I had to be there with her; so I declined. “Are you sure?’ replied both the doctor and the nurse, to which I told them that I would be man enough to leave the room should I not possess the stomach to go through the whole ordeal. I proceeded to chug the contains of the bag of potato sticks my wife had purchased for my sustenance, and then I became a man with a mission: I was going to make everything in my power and will to help my wife bring this new life and reduce the trauma of her doing so.

“Ok, Dad, grab her leg”, said the nurse while grabbing my wife's other leg. An awkward command, if must say so.

“Now pull it towards you, raise it and bend her knee towards her chest”

Ok, now this was beyond awkward.

“Now, Mom, I want you to give me a push while I count to 10. Here we go, One! Two...!”

Soon I became good at that. So good I was pushing both of my wife’s knees towards her chest (I can’t describe how weird it is to have written this line). I took so much ownership of this unbelievably embarrassing task that I started doing it in Spanish:

“Vamos, Reina” followed by ”?Un!, ?Dos!, ?Tres!”… , (you get the idea).

Two hours had passed on hard labor and the progress towards delivery had been minimal, my wife was exhausted. Apparently, the baby’s head was not quite there, so the debate was this time about going or not with a C-section. But before more could be said, deemed the doctor, a lot more pushing was to be done, and then a little more. Meanwhile, my family in Venezuela kept calling my cell to monitor the birth. After declining the fourth call I had to send them a clear message meant to appease them:

“We are pushing, there’s still a lot more pushing to be done, we’ll call you”. That did it.

The doctor decided to assess the situation. After each set pushing the baby’s heart rate was stabilizing, so he was going to try to turn the baby into the right position, while my wife pushed a little more. Meconium (that’s baby feces in the placenta, gross and disturbing) had been present, for which it was deemed necessary to bring the Newborn ICU personnel to make sure that the baby would not breathe any of it. They then brought another anesthesiologist, so when adding the nurse and myself, we were seven people in one room in some sort of delivery party while my wife laid in bed with both legs stretched out like the clock’s hands at four forty and half her body naked. The scene was simply surreal.

And then again:

“Aquí vamos, Reina…?Un!, ?Dos! ?Tres! “.

This time I could see the baby’s head.

The Arrival

“We’re almost there, one more time” … said the doctor again while reaching for forceps. I dared not watch how he used them, but after one more count, a tiny human head emerged from my wife’s womb, it was quite pale, and hairy, and elongated towards the back. It unavoidably looked like the head of a xenomorph. Immediately, from that tiny head came the sweetest moaning I had ever heard.

“Don’t push!", ordered the doctor and added after hearing the baby’s moaning, he said: “That’s a good sign”. Another move from the doc and the baby, our baby emerged in full giving another moan that signaled her official arrival to this world.

She was received at that very instant by the Newborn ICU personnel, who started taking care of the baby immediately. I went to my wife, and while embracing told her (in Spanish): "Ya está aqui, Reina, ya esta aqui." (“She’s here now, Reina, she’s here.”)

With tears in my eyes, I turn to the table where our baby was, and the male nurse of the party gave me a reassuring thumb up while saying, “We’re looking good here”. Seconds later in my arms I had the most moving and loving sight in front of me, the final result of my wife’s pregnancy and labor, the reason for feeling both hopeful and anxious, the very person that would alter our lives forever…our baby girl.

“Ya estás aqui” (“You’re here now”), I repeated to her, trying to reassure her and soothe her after the wild ride of her arrival. In my arms I was holding the most precious gift I could have received. My whole being was filled with joy, excitement, exhaustion, and that elusive feeling that gives meaning to our existence…love, simply love. I looked at my worn-out wife, who had that expression that crossfiters have after a regional tournament. And yet she managed to still look gorgeous despite the ordeal. She gave me a smile of comfort. I finally had good news to report to Venezuela.

So many experiences and emotions in one day. We had left my home as husband and pregnant wife. We returned as parents.

From here, after seventeen hours of labor, five different nurses in four different shifts, three NBICU nurses, two anesthesiologists, one obstetrician, and dozens of other personnel involved in my wife and daughter's wellbeing, I only need to give my salute and gratitude to the personnel of?Intermountain Medical Center?in Murray, Utah, and to all of you, whose prayers accompanied us during these moments. As I contemplate my life as a daddy, I really have to say…

Hooray for fatherhood!