Meredith’s Musings

Baby Mine

article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

My second pregnancy experience in less than two years far exceeded the first. I’m not sure if it was simply knowing what to expect or not being plagued with crippling carpal tunnel, but the relatively minor inconveniences this time were welcome. We had a scheduled C-section, a day before my beloved OB/GYN left town, and all the family present. The nurses and even Doc seemed more mellow in the operating room, or perhaps they could sense my calm. The spinal tap resulted in nausea, but I didn’t throw up thanks to alcohol wipes strategically placed under my nostrils. It’s odd being behind the curtain, you know they’re hacking you open less than a foot away, but not being able to see makes it easier to pretend it’s happening to someone else. Even my husband refuses to watch; he’s just as squeamish as I am. My teeth chattered incessantly, despite my body feeling warm in the cold room. Within 45 minutes, Doc had stitched me back up, and this tiny bundle was resting in my husband’s arms. She had Wilder’s face, the spitting image of her sister.

A new hospital policy prevented my husband from the walk down the hall with the newborn in his arms. The waiting room full of people were disappointed, but were permitted to come back to see me two-by-two. Funny, the women always barrel in with huge smiles, knowingly comfortable in the environment of tubes and blood and “fresh out the wombness.” The men always hover in the corner, barely inside the curtain door, as if their very presence might disrupt the natural order of things. The women go straight for the baby; the men respectfully inquire about my well-being. It says a lot about gender and expectations and how men see themselves in an experience where their presence is expected, but not necessarily needed for a successful birth.

I was wheeled to room 447. My husband immediately looked out the window and noticed the chapel and courtyard below, the same view from two years prior. We were in the same room. It seemed kismet for our daughters, born two years apart, within ten minutes of one another. My first of four nurses introduced herself, making it known my care was her primary concern. I called the nurses at St. Francis my angels during my first birth, and Sarah, Ashley, Brooke, Sonya, and April again brought the light to what can be a scary, exhausting, and hormone-induced experience. I thank them for their patience with an impatient patient like myself.

The next two days were a blur of visitors and newborn cuddles and the added bonus of watching our two-year-old meet her little sister for the first time. I had been telling Wilder for months as my stomach grew that a baby was in there. Once she laid her little head against my stomach and attempted to peep through my belly button, to catch a glimpse of the imaginary baby mommy kept talking about, but she wasn’t convinced. That day when Nana and Papa brought her in the room, she leaned in close to the newborn’s face and marveled. Her smile was slow to spread across her cheeks, as if all the preparation and promises were culminating in one moment. She triumphantly exclaimed, “She out! She out!”

We went home on a Friday morning. My husband went to get the car while I waited on my wheelchair. I sat alone on the bed, my belongings in an old baseball backpack my husband had received at a tournament. It wasn’t a fancy bag; it wasn’t even mine. It was just practical in size and shape and it reminded me how women packed up babies inside these rooms every day. Some were new mothers; some seasoned, but all leaving with a new life cradled in their arms, their bodies still recovering from the tremendous stress and endurance of childbirth. It was a big day for me, but just an ordinary day in the intersecting halls of the maternity ward. As the young red-haired boy wheeled me out of my room, I glanced back down the hall, past the coffee station and nursery, toward the hall leading to the NICU. In the last two days, as I was trudging up and down the halls to enhance my mobility, I ventured to the back hall. In lieu of fancy Etsy-esque wreaths, many of these doors had the generic baby blue or pink options from the hospital gift shop, signaling unexpected early births. The documented weights were 3 lbs and 2 lbs. One dated back two months. I would sometimes see the NICU parents, the tiredness in their eyes as they made their way to the door that held their newborn babies, many fighting for their little lives. I cradled my daughter even closer as the boy wheeled us to the elevator.

The ride home was euphoric in that I was so happy to see the sunshine after three days indoors. Even the warmth of the 90 plus degree day is a welcomed alternative to the hospital cold. We navigated the twenty-minute drive across town, my husband and I catching up as couples do once life returns to normalcy. I glanced in the back seat and was surprised when I remembered the little one in tow. Her sister always makes her presence known; I wasn’t used to the quiet from a rear-facing car seat. As we pulled into the carport, a familiar little face was peeking through the blinds, lit up with excitement that her parents were coming home. For the next several days, she would wake up, rush to whomever was holding her sister and insist, “Baby, mine.” She knows without fully understanding that they belong together. Big sister senses the power of family before she can even say the word.