Winter waited for Leo. Cold and windy, dry as a bone through November and December, but besides going through an entire jar of Aquaphor, it didn't seem like winter yet. I put the girls to bed Monday night with the promise that I'd sew up a project for Sophia, a little bag she wanted to give to the baby when he came. She was almost as discombobulated as I was, old enough to realize that change was coming but not able yet to take the long view and know her place in my heart was safe. I stayed up later than I should chatting with my mother-in-law and Mike and then remembered I'd promised to sew. I did, getting to bed just after midnight.
One last glass of water and then no sleep. I played alphabet games in my head--name a rock band for every letter of the alphabet. A is for ABBA, B is for Beatles, C is for Chicago...and after I'd done three rounds of different categories, I moved to prime factorization of numbers 1-200. 1, 2, 3, 2x2, 5, 3x2...I made it to 188 and fell asleep dreaming of that number. Woke up after 2 sometime and started over. Made it to 192 and the alarm went off. 3:45 a.m. Mike got up and took a shower. I pretended to snooze and got up myself. Looked out the window.
It was snowing. Snow was on the ground.
We were in the car at 4:40. I drove. The Guess Who's Share the Land was on two different stations in a row. We filled the tank at a Quik Trip out at 141 and Manchester. I watched the snow blow around and Mike hopping up and down outside to stay warm. We arrived and parked and were getting off the elevator on the 5th floor of St. Luke's at 5:30 a.m. Cheerful but not sugary nurses greeted us and took us to a room to get ready.
A bizarre set of questions followed. Mixed together with "When is your due date?" was "What is your mother's maiden name?" Every medication I've ever taken, did I have any cultural observances they should take into account, how much weight had I gained? At 6:30 I met the anesthesiologist, a Vietnamese woman who set me right at ease. I've had weird anesthesiologists. The last one argued with a nurse behind me, right as he was about to start my epidural, complaining that I had too many bones. It's a spinal cord. If it surprises you, get away from me. But she was easy to talk to and made me feel more confident about my chances of escaping this surgery without something horrible happening.
It only took two tries to get the IV started, which is typical for me--nurses look at this one vein near my wrist and I guess see it as a challenge they must meet or something. It blows every time. Finally, I mentioned this, as she moved the needle in and out (oy), and she started it in my hand. Told me to let others know in the future--they can't tell by looking that it's a sneaky liar.
She put a hospital inpatient (billing) bracelet on me, and a pink one, which she explained was a blood recipient bracelet. "Your doctor put it in your orders in case you needed blood during surgery. But you won't."
"I lost a lot with my second," I told her.
"And you'll probably lose a lot today, too. More with each baby. But you won't need blood."
I had mentioned this to my doctor in passing a month before. He hadn't even written it down at the time. Seemed very casual about it. But this was the first of several moments that week that I realized he listened to every word I said in appointments. Maybe I would have gotten a pink bracelet anyway because it was my 3rd baby. But maybe not.
At 7:10, it was show time and I was surprised my heart rate wasn't higher. Wheeled me down the hall to the OR, where my doctor was waiting with a couple of nurses and the anesthesiologist. It was so cold. They asked me more questions about who I was, why I was here, who these doctors were--I remember being asked these questions with both girls, and my answers were different then. "What is the doctor going to do?" was responded to with "end this" and then I corrected myself. This time, I was in my right mind and I answered better.
Did I mention how cold it was? I was shivering uncontrollably, and this was before anesthesia.
The numbing shot in the back is pretty damned bad, but I had a wonderful nurse anesthetist who narrated everything. Like thus:
"You'll feel a burning needle prick in your back, followed by more burning. This is all superficial. The burning will get worse and worse, and just when you think you can't take it anymore, everything will get numb."
"Now the doctor is going to insert another needle. You'll feel a tugging on either your right or your left, and I want you to tell me which one so she can adjust it."
"This last one is the epidural catheter, and some women experience a shock, like an electric shock, or like hitting your funny bone. Dad, you might want to brace yourself because if she's going to kick, it's going to be now."
"Now you should feel a warm sensation in your toes, tingly, moving up from your feet."
And all that was just how she said. Tingly and warm now, I was moved back down onto my back, where I instantly started shivering from the medication. But the narcotic they gave me in conjunction made me loopy and sleepy so I kind of just shut my eyes and thought of England. No, actually, I shut my eyes and thought about prime numbers.
They did the cotton ball test, where an alcohol-dipped cotton ball is rubbed say, on my arm: "This is cold." And then on my thigh: "Is this cold?" Of course it isn't. Nothing from my sternum down was cold or hot or sharp or anything. Below my chest, I think my body took a trip to the Bahamas. The rest of me was somewhere near Toronto.
Someone said "7:26" and then the nurse anesthetist stood by my side and golf-announced for me. Seriously. And she was good.
"He's made the first incision."
"Now he is working on the incision into the uterus. He will break the waters and you'll hear the suction, like at your dentist."
"Now he's going to push on your abdomen to help bring the baby out. You might feel the pressure--" I didn't "--And then you should be able to tell that he's pulled the baby out." I did.
Boy, just as we had been told (thank God, considering all the decisions we'd made already based on that information). Born at 7:47 in the morning. Cried right away. Apgar of 8, followed 5 minutes later with an Apgar of 9. Healthy and huge: 9 pounds, 1 ounce. Managed to "void" on the doctor as he lifted him out. Good for him.
Mike went over to the little warming station with the nursery nurse while my doctor finished the job of, oh, you know, putting me back together again. Leo was here. But just like the other two births, I was concentrating on staying alive. I wasn't in any danger this time, but you still kind of feel like you're dying. You can't feel your lungs expand, so you have to concentrate on the air going through your nose to remember that you're breathing. And I was still shivering. Not pleasant. But I lay there thinking
2 to the 5th power, 11 x 3, 17 x 2, 5 x 7, 6 squared...and then my doctor's face appeared in front of the sterile screen.
"Looks good. Went through the same scar as before. You had some adhesions but nothing that made me worry. I'll see you back in the recovery room in a few minutes."
And I was done. Epidural came out. They transferred me to a more stable bed with sides, handed me this new person, and wheeled me back to the room where I'd started. Leo nursed, latching on easily (although, since I still couldn't feel anything below my sternum, I didn't catch his sucked in lower lip until after he'd given me a blood blister--but it's getting better). No complications, I started wiggling my feet after a few minutes, and before I knew it, I was sitting in room 5508 staring out at the light gray sky. Snow was still blowing around. It was quiet. Mike gave me my St. Benedict medal back. Leo nursed, I breathed and crunched on ice chips, and all was well.
Here is the first photo as he came around the "sterile field" and they gave me a look before I went back to counting and concentrating on breathing.
This one is Leo all bundled up. Note that the nurse has on THERMALS.
Here we rest in the room that afternoon.
Baby.
Lost now on the country miles in his cadillac.
It was a shotgun flat, second floor. Shotgun, meaning, if you shot a gun through the front window, it would go through every room in the house. It was a small flat, too, just three rooms. The living room was the only room with air conditioning, and the summer of '96, if I remember correctly, was brutal. The kitchen had an old fridge, you know, the kind kids get trapped in when they're left out in junkyards? It also had a gas stove that frightened me. The standard Sears and Roebuck metal sink/draining board/cabinet unit (at least, that's what I've heard it called). The kitchen was large, really a kitchen-dinette, but since we didn't have a table or chairs, it was just a big kitchen. We ate, and lived, in the living room. In the very back was the bedroom, where we actually never slept until the September break in the weather. 
We lived in a furnished apartment for a few months when we left Macon, looking around for a house. Found a new development in a suburb called Pearland. It was the ultimate in exurb development at the time--cheap housing put up fast, designed to last about 15-20 years. Most things in Houston, in fact, seem to be designed to last that long. Having moved from Macon, which had more history than I could take, it was weird to live somewhere with no history at all. Pearland had very recently been rice fields and cow pastures--mostly the latter, which still existed in fits and starts throughout the town. Also throughout Houston proper, but it's kind of a weird place. No zoning will do that to a city.
Another move, right after kindergarten was over, we headed back east, to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It's really just a suburb of Tulsa. I lived on First Street, but that doesn't tell the truth, either. It's really just a suburb and should have names like "Fox Glen" and "Pecan Valley". It was a nondescript three bedroom house in an obviously nondescript curvy street neighborhood. Not a lot of kids, although a girl my age a block away and a girl two or three years older in the opposite direction. My father chopped his knee open with an axe that year--he was cutting firewood and missed.
There, I attended first grade (and a part of the day in a second grade classroom, again) at Vandever Elementary School. If I were attending tomorrow, I'd be looking forward to this for lunch:
My dad got a job at Indio Community Hospital and we moved to a small house in a retirement community in Palm Desert, California. This is a suburb, believe it or not, of Palm Springs. This photo is of my house, although when I lived there, it was off white stucco and we didn't dare try to grow grass or giant shrubs. Doesn't the house look like it's all garage? I look at that now and it's just bizarre. But all the houses had private courtyards right next to the garages--sort of a backyard in the front yard.
(photo by capitrueno)
My dad worked in the ER and finished his bachelor's degree (BSN). And we lived just down the way from his place of work, not walking distance, but definitely biking distance, in a four family flat on South Grand. We were, as I said, about a half block from Bates, south of Eiler. We lived upstairs in a shotgun flat, just slightly bigger than a 1 bedroom. My parents knew some of the neighbors, and we planted a tree in the backyard that is still there 33 years later. I like to think of this as my first home, because it's a pleasant full-circle feeling to be just north of where I first lived. But in truth, I didn't make it there until I was one. And, as became our habit, we didn't stay long. Back to the south county apartment life when my mom was pregnant with my brother.
