August 12th

Two years ago, The Lady woke up in the hospital thinking everything had calmed down from the crap hitting the fan a few days earlier and we would be heading home to relax.  She was still on a monitor and being checked on by hospital staff, but things seemed a lot better than the prior couple of days.  I remember her pointing out to me, as she was eating a little bit of breakfast, that she was experiencing a little bit of pain in her back and she thought it might have been from lying in a bed for a few days. 

Right then, I thought to myself, we aren't going anywhere.  I was right.  August 12th 2005 was the shortest and longest day of my life, so far.

Dr. Sneed, a cute redhead, that would fit in perfect to the flavor of the month hospital drama on television these days, came in to check my wife under the hood early that morning.  She said things had slowed down and there wasn't any further dilation from times before.  Some time passed after that and my wife was still experiencing discomfort in her lower back.  I told the nurse, she made note of it and said she would tell the doctor. 

Later, in walks Dr. Brian McCulloch.  He came in for about a minute and asked how things were, we told him of the discomfort, he flips off the monitor tells my wife to continue to rest, and as a question is still coming out of my mouth, he walks out of the room.  I'm glad I didn't follow him out of the room at that time.

A few hours pass as I am writing down on a tiny notepad what time it is every time my wife puts on a I'm really not enjoying this pain I'm having in my lower back face.

She was having contractions and here we are in a room, monitor turned off by the idiot Dr. McCulloch, but at least we had an amazing nurse, Rena Thompson, trying hard as she could to get a doctor to listen to her.

I'll never forget the click-clack of Dr. Sneed's stiletto heels on the floor when she walked into the room, on a hunch, to check on The Lady.  Her white doctor coat was covering the obvious, it's been a really long shift, I don't have to come in tomorrow, that's right I'm going to have an adult beverage and unwind with some friends, evening outfit.  Before she left, she noted that she was the last person to check my wife and wanted to do so.  She went under the hood, her face went white as a ghosts, and she said something about centimeters. 

My notes were correct, my wife was in full blown labor and because of her high tolerance for pain and the fact the monitor had been turned off, my notepad was the only thing to show for it.

The room turned into an episode of ER.  Not the episode where one doctor is trying to figure out how to love another doctor, while having deep emotional feelings for yet another doctor.  The episode where people are running around like crazy screaming "Stat!", stuff flying all over the place and objects coming from out of the ceiling.  My wife was wheeled into a delivery room down the hall.

It was pure craziness and in walks Dr. Brian McCulloch. 

I lost it.  I didn't lose it in the sense that I grabbed him by the throat, ripped into his chest, pulled out his heart and showed it to him.  I lost it in the sense that I just started talking from the corner of the room, not screaming or yelling, just talking.  I asked him how was I supposed to trust him with two of the three most important things in my life, my wife and our unborn child.  I told him that whatever he thinks of himself, the fact that he is a doctor, that he might be much smarter, richer and more sophisticated than I might ever be, that when he shows up for work, he still works in a service industry job.  I reminded him about the fact he would not take an additional ten seconds to listen to my concerns earlier in the day, he had the audacity to turn off that monitor and walk out of the room just a few hours earlier, as I was in the middle of questions.  I told him that all of that and his lack of compassion so far had made me lose complete faith in anything he would do for the rest of his time in dealing with us.  I tossed my small notepad, the one I had been using to record my wife's pain,  towards him on the floor with tears rolling down my face and asked for his full attention on what was about to happen, our child being born.

I recall looking around the room at nurses stopped in their tracks, crying with me.

There was a short time before The Little Man was born that was surreal, complete calm.  A lot of people were coming in and out of the room and my wife receiving an epidural.  I had to throw up, I ran back to the room we were in and nurse Rena Thompson followed me in.  She walked into the room behind me and locked the door.  She thought I was looking for McCulloch, I told her that I had to throw up and I wasn't the kind of guy to get thrown out of the hospital for beating up a doctor.  I remember telling her I was scared, she was amazing in calming me down and walking me back to the room my wife was in.  Our son was born shortly after that.

"You have yourself a boy." someone said and the tears exploded from our face.  Having not known the gender of child we were going to have , it was a great surprise for us in a time when we needed a great surprise.

He was immediately whisked away to a corner in the room where it seemed like every hole in his body had a tube going in it.  We had no idea what was going on.  It was a few brief moments in the corner, then out he went with a pack of people surrounding him upstairs to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

I remember really seeing him for the first time in the NICU.  I couldn't believe how small he was, it was crazy.  His entire body could fit into my hand.  The wonderful staff in the Lutheran General NICU were very positive from the start with us and they were amazing.

We went home two days later without him, he had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for a couple of months before coming home on a monitor that drove me nuts for another month and a half.  I thought I was an insomniac before, I rarely sleep at all now.

Did I mention we were right in the middle of relocating our family from Chicago to Cincinnati for my wife's job at the time?

After numerous appointments to an eye doctor early on, we got the all clear to move and everything is fine with the boy now.  He's great, and it seems like that story happened ten years ago, instead of only two. 

What a difference two years makes.

Comments

[JonMcP]

Great story- We spent some time in the PICU when our daughter was 3 months old (which in part prompted me to decide to be an at home dad)and saw our fair share of doctors who didn't give a crap about our feelings. Glad to hear everything worked out well in the end.

[Aunt Becky]

Not kidding...I am crying at school reading this at my desk...I thank God for The Little Man everyday:)

[samantha Jo Campen]

I'm crying too! I can't believe how far he's come. I still have his birth announcement on our fridge of him in the hospital and whenever I look at it I have to pause. Because really. The fact that he's here. Doing so well. Wow. It's just such a blessing.