The Birth of Gavin James MacDonald

The Birth of Gavin James MacDonald

Your birth story starts in the early hours on Saturday July 29th, 2017, sometime after midnight movies and long before sunrise. I woke up with a sharp pain, cramping the hung low on my body and surged for a moment before evaporating. It wasn’t what people had told me contractions felt like. I dismissed it. Contractions, they claimed debilitated you, the hugged your abdomen in a tight clenching grip releasing for only a while before wrapping around you again. You won’t be able to walk, they told me. When I woke up again, a few hours later, I decided to track them on my phone. I woke up your father, the first time, at 4 or 5 am. He was upset, first time moms often have Braxton-hicks contractions he told me. They were nothing to worry about. Go back to bed he told me. I tried. I woke and dozed off for hours, I’d feel nauseous with each passing wave, but never in real pain. Finally, around 7am the waves were hitting fast and they were lingering longer, there were tints of blood when I used the restroom – which I had to do after each one passed. I packed the car, I packed your “going home” outfit (which I didn’t realize wouldn’t fit you for months), I packed my hospital bag, and I woke your father up one last time. There had been blood, bright red, fresh blood. I didn’t know it, but you were well on your way.

We left the house around 8:30am. Your father dropped me off at the front doors to the hospital; the main entrance was closed, so we entered through the emergency room doors. I tried to wait for him, he was parking. I chatted to the security guards, I couldn’t wait any longer. I’m going to Labor and Delivery, I told them. Let my husband know, he’s tall, and has a long brown pony tail, he’s young, like me. I tried not to be afraid, I tried to be hopeful. I went up the elevator, 4 long flights, no one joined me. I was happy to be alone. When I got to the doors to the Labor rooms I didn’t have to tell them why I was there.  I was lucky, our doctor walked in the doors behind me. When the nurse asked who my doctor was, I only had to point at him. He seemed to be caught off guard. He asked what I was doing there, and I tried to explain. The nurses hooked me to monitors, and laid me down on a narrow table. She was a little smug when she explained to your father that yes, I was having “Real” contractions, that this was the real deal, and not some false alarm. I closed my eyes as each contraction passed over me, hot and intense, but not painful, not in the way I had been told.

It was 9:15, the nurses checked me, I was at what they called a “6” they were talking about epidurals and I reaffirmed I wanted one. They couldn’t feel your head. I could hear the tension in their voices as they found an ultra sound machine, the curse checked twice. She called for her supervisor; they told me you were breech. They told me I’d have to get a C-section, that is, where they surgically remove a baby from the mother. I was terrified. I was distraught that your grandmother wasn’t here from California; I had told her not to come yet, that you’d take your time. Your father talked to her, as I sobbed in the background.

It was 9:30. The doctor checked me again, I was at a “9’ he said. I was in full labor, there was no time for a csection, there was no time for an epidural, or IV pain medication. If they waited any longer, and my water broke you’d be coming anyways. There was no stopping you.
They wheeled me into the surgery room, “just in case” they told me. Doors opened and closed as we passed them. “What’s the baby’s name?” they asked me. I didn’t know. I thought I had more time. There were no hospital gowns, no stirrups to hold my feet I was left in the shirt I came in with pulled up high around my chest. They told me to breathe, I cried.
Your father walked with me, dressed in powder blue hospital scrubs, his shoes covered with funny socks. They stopped him, and made him stay behind a window. I stared at him. I asked when they did a breech delivery last – 10 years, they told me. The women held my legs, breathe they said, push with the pain, they told me. Act like you’re underwater a younger one directed me, I didn’t understand.

Your father came to be with me I tried to hold his hand. That’s how it’s done, in the movies. They broke my water; it was hot, and rushed up my back on the table. It felt relaxing compared to the cold of the hospital room. Breathe, they reminded me. I couldn’t I had to bend up, like a crescent, wrapping myself around you. I grabbed a nurse’s arm to help hold myself up. Trying to focus, all I could hear was your father’s voice talking to the doctor, not the words, only the sounds. I lashed out at him I just wanted silence. I wanted to focus, I wanted so badly to do well, to protect the creature I had spent months guarding. I felt like I was being tested, but there was so much more at stake than a bad grade. These moments, in my mind, would define forever my motherhood, my status as woman.

I pushed hard bracing myself against bodies and being pulled in so many directions I wasn’t sure where my own body ended. Your father told me I could do it, I told him I had to. I felt your body slip it, like a squid, or some multi limbed Hindu god you flailed against me. You were stuck. The doctor cut me, and I saw the fear in your father’s eyes. The nurses shoved their balled up fists into my abdomen, trying to shove your head out from me. Your heart rate was dropping, I gasped for air. Through all this the doctor was calm. There was no space between now, only pain and pushing and gasping. He pulled on you, as the nurses and I pushed with all our force against you. Finally, you broke free and I collapsed back onto the table.

I was shaking they told me it was hormones, but I knew it was fear, and relief. You were silent, my heart held still, I asked if you were okay, and I got no answer. Seconds passed like minutes, and then you wailed, and I cried and your father cheered. It was 10:30. Not more than an hour had passed, even if it felt like an eternity.

I didn’t get to see you, your father asked if I wanted to look at the pictures he took, and I told him no. I wanted to meet you; someone I felt was a part of my very being and a stranger at the same time. I didn’t want a photo to ruin you. I asked if your father could give you your first bath I wanted him to be with you, to never let his eyes leave you until you were safe in my arms.

I lay on the table and they wheeled me to a nicer room, a room I should have been in all along. I got to hold you, and I cried. I tried not to let anyone notice, but deep in my soul you’d already buried yourself and I never wanted you to leave.

The nurse taught me how to feed you, and you embraced it beautifully. They were impressed.

Your father left us alone, we had visitors and he was going to greet them. I made sure I wasn’t overwhelmed. Just two or three people at a time, I didn’t want anything to steal you from me. First your grandmother Tammy, and Aunt Heather came to see you, the rest of the family filtered in and out like a blur, each one amazed at you. You were small; they laughed and held your tiny feet up to their hands, your foot no longer than a finger.

The next few weeks were a daze of feedings, late night tests and nurses waking us both up every two hours to make sure you were fed, that you were thriving. You lost weight, and had jaundice.

Through it all we fought, you, your father, and I.

We were a team, inseparable and in love.