It should’ve been California!

With a scream, my wife tore down the stairs holding my father’s pill case. She found the case on the floor in our den, where I had left her and Marcel to play on the computer. She was convinced that Marcel had taken one of his pills.

However, Marcel hadn’t gotten into them when I was in there. In fact, she wasn’t in the room, at all, for most of the time I was there. And I didn’t leave the room until I coaxed my wife in to replace me as Marcel’s computer helper. Given that monitoring coverage, there was no way for Marcel to get into that case. Plus, the case wasn’t opened.

My wife wasn’t convinced, though. Apparently, Marcel told her she had eaten “a white one.” That wasn’t convincing to me. My wife has a very bad habit of asking leading questions. I warn her that that, like torture, leading questions will only get her the answer she expects, which is not necessarily the truth. Unfortunately, she can’t break the habit.

Now, for any other situation, I probably would patronize her. But this wasn’t any situation. This was a trip to the hospital emergency room. More and more, I hear stories about people actually getting sick at hospitals, rather than getting cured. In fact, the last time that we took Marcel to the hospital she got pink eye from another kid in the small waiting room. We had to spend the next week engaged in the very difficult procedure of applying an ointment to the inside of her eyelid. And the illness du jour was a flesh-eating bacteria. I didn’t want to risk Marcel getting THAT .

Worse, this was poison. That meant Marcel would have to ingest charcoal and, I thought, get her stomach pumped. This would keep us in the hospital, I thought, for hours. I feared that this would be torture for Marcel and, thus, I didn’t think this level of patronizing was worth it.

I gave the case to my father for him to count his pills and, assuming that would settle the matter, I went off to the supermarket. But it didn’t settle the matter. My father momentarily couldn’t find one blood pressure pill, which could be fatal to a toddler. Poison control insisted that my daughter go to the hospital for “observation.” So they called me at the supermarket and demanded I come home. I was furious.

I left my pregnant wife home–no sense in her getting a flesh eating bacteria for this–and took Marcel to the local children’s hospital emergency room. When I showed the triage nurse the pill case, Marcel piped up, clear as day, that she hadn’t taken any medicine. Twice. But the die had been cast and the hospital was now in control.

Part II, next week.

Everybody…EVERYBODY…claims to see a little of themselves in my daughter, Marcel. My mother, for instance, claims that she spit her out. Seriously, she claims every inch of Marcel.

I will admit that I definitely think Marcel looks like the rest of my family and not at all like my wife’s family. My wife, on the other hand, of course thinks that that is nonsense. She claims all types of things. My favorite is when she says Marcel has hair just like her. Now THAT is a good laugh.

My dad, however, is more modest. He’ll only claim the eyes. You see my mother, my wife, her parents and I all have lighter eye colors while only my dad, like Marcel, has brown eyes. That may change, though. Apparently, my wife was born with brown eyes that eventually changed to green-blue when she was three and Marcel is now nearing that stage.

However, there is one thing that my father will always be able to claim. That’s “Hrmpf!“

Growing up, “hrmpf” was Dad’s go to signal for disapprobation. Something crazy come on the news? Dad would go “hrmpf!” Make a suggestion that he didn’t like? Dad would give you a “hrmpf!” Somehow fall short of his ideal, and he’d cushion your fall with a sharp “hrmpf!”

I didn’t really notice it, though, until my youngest brother picked up the habit. Like the rest of us, he had only ever been a victim of the “hrmpf.” Then, one day, he decided to do a little victimization himself. It’s one thing to get criticized by your dad. You figure he’s just doing his job. It’s a whole other thing to get it from the spoiled brat of the family! That’s when I realized how powerful the “hrmpf” really was.

Unlike in my youngest brother, however, dad can’t find anything to disapprove of in Marcel. So, unlike my little brother, Marcel can never have actually heard the powerful “hrmpf.” That is, she never heard it until she uttered it, herself.

Now, if I suggest Marcel say “hi” to someone when she’s not interested in saying “hi”, then I get a “hrmpf.” If I offer Marcel a piece of food that she’s not interested in eating, then I get a “hrmpf.” If I suggest that she spit her pacifier into my hand, then I get a exaggerated body turn, squenching up of her nose, full-throated, “HRMPF!!!”

And, I’m sure, somewhere my dad is offering a very warm, “attaboy!”

I’m writing this blog to catalogue the history of my life in my daughters’ world so I don’t lose and forget any of our wonderful memories. I started the blog two years after Marcel was born, though, so there are quite a few memories that I haven’t posted. From time to time, I will go back, reminisce and then write about those missed memories, however late. This is one of those times.

***

It was around midnight when Marcel decided to come into this world.

My wife and I were laying in our bed. All of the lights were bright. I remember her reading but I don’t remember what I was doing. Perhaps I was reading, as well. Perhaps I was watching TV. It was a school night.

The contractions, at this point, were mild. They were so mild that we questioned whether my wife was actually going into labor. It just so happened that my wife had an already scheduled, 2 pm appointment with her obstetrician the next day. We decided to go to sleep while we could and, if Marcel would allow, ask our questions then.

Well, I decided to go to sleep. My wife, instead, decided to do…stuff. She cleaned. She packed, I think. She might have done some paperwork. Trying to sleep as much as my conscience would allow, I wasn’t too clear on all that was happening. In the morning, I woke up for good and called into my office to explain our uncertain circumstances and to spend the day with my wife. That’s all I remember of the morning.

At the doctor’s office, there was a lot of activity. A lot of people must have been going into labor, that day, because our doctors had gotten the word to direct women away from their affiliated hospital to another hospital because the affiliated hospital was full. We stayed cool, though.

Once we got into see Sharon, our obstetrician, she confirmed that Syd was in labor and that the baby could come that day…or next week. My wife was experiencing contractions, but they were mild and she had only dilated a portion of a centimeter when she really needed to be at 10 centimeters in order to give birth. Frankly, that was disappointing news. We wanted to have a baby.

We didn’t have to complain about it, though. Sharon immediately offered to “strip the membrane” to speed the process. Eager to see this child, we took her up on the offer.

I’m still not sure what happens when you strip a membrane. A doctor friend, Mieke, said it was like taking the pin out of a grenade. Perhaps. The actual stripping, though, seems to hurt like hell. After that pain, because timing would still be uncertain, our obstetrician sent us home with instructions to call back if the contractions started coming in five minute intervals.

Despite all of my wife’s activity through the course of the night before, there were still things that needed to be done. Specifically, we had to get the car seat put into the car. A local children’s hospital provides that service for free , including a tutorial so that it’s done right in the future. We also had to get a visitor parking permit for my parents, which were available at the neighborhood police station. We left the doctor’s office with the intention of doing those things, immediately. Instead, the grenade went off.

I don’t remember the sound my wife made. Maybe she screamed, but I don’t think so. Maybe she yelled, which is like a scream, but coherent. Or maybe she just spoke firmly. I remember having control of the vehicle. I wasn’t nervous while driving so I don’t think she did anything that was distracting. I do remember her wanting me to watch out for bumps. The jostling of the car was too much to endure during one of those full on contractions. That’s saying something because, frankly, our very solid car doesn’t jostle.

Still, at one point, my wife insisted that we pull over. I’ll never forget the spot. It was a generic gas station. The attendant worked out of small, white building, where customers exchanged currency for gas, chips, cigarettes and other gas station-type staples through a bullet proof glass. To this day, I point it out every time that I pass it. The contraction subsided and we continued on our way.

By the time we got to the children’s hospital, which is somewhere between the 25 minute trip from our obstetrician and our home, the pain had subsided to the point where my wife thought we could get the car seat installed. We could. A contraction still came but, apparently, it was easier to deal with standing up.

We still needed to get the parking permit for my parents but I was wary of subjecting my wife to anymore “jostling”, as was she, so I dropped her off at home. In the brief time I was away, however, the contractions kept coming. Faster.

By the time I returned home, my wife was in real pain. Often. We decided to time the intervals. Sure enough, the contractions were coming between five and six minutes, apart. We were faced with a dilemma.

On the one hand, Sharon said to call if the contractions were five minutes apart. On the other hand, she expected that to happen two or five days later, not two or five hours later. We didn’t want to be pain-in-the-ass, nervous-first-time parents.

But we were.

So we called.

By this point, another obstetrician, Maro, was on call. I explained the situation. Or maybe my wife explained the situation. This part is hazy. I distinctly remember that we brought up going to the alternative hospital because the affiliated hospital was full. I remember that because I remember her being annoyed that we called the affiliated hospital before calling her. That wasn’t true, though. We had heard about the crush at the obstetrician’s office, not via our own phone call, and told her so, which satisfied her. She said the crush was over and sent us to the affiliated hospital.

The crush wasn’t over.

When we got there, there wasn’t a room yet available. Without a room, my wife couldn’t get an IV. We understood, as I remember it, that my wife would have to get fully hydrated with an IV before she could get an epidural anesthetic. Because a room wasn’t available when we arrived, we had a wait of undetermined length ahead of us. A potentially very long wait. A wait…filled with pain.

Now, I love my wife. I love her, in part, because of the children she has given me. Because of them, my love for her knows no bounds. I wish I could’ve had her with me in that waiting room. I could have use her strength. But I didn’t have her because my wife changed into someone else while she paced through her pain and that woman hurt my feelings so bad, that I could’ve crawled into a hole and died. Three times.

Eventually, though, we got that room and the IV and, as I remember it, the epidural not too long afterward (Thank god!). And my wife, in her bed, and me, in my easy chair, finally got to get a little of the sleep that we didn’t get the night before. This was a little after 8 pm.

From time to time, I would wake to nurses or Maro coming in to check on my wife. She was making, they noted, slow but steady progress toward that 10 centimeters dilation. There was some talk about inducing if 10 centimeters hadn’t been met by morning. A burst must have happened, though, because by 11:30, or so, they moved into action.

As my wife lay, the nurse began converting my wife’s bed, Transformer-like, into a gynecological table. The nurse (a wonderful woman whose name, I’m ashamed to say, escapes me) asked me to help her out and grab one of my wife’s legs. I had assumed that she had wanted me to hold the leg up until she could set up the stirrup. Instead, I was to be the stirrup.

I had fantasized about sitting in the waiting room, as expectant fathers had done so for generations before me. I would sit with my father and get one last lesson about the demands of the position. Or, maybe, we would just sit silently and let the torch pass. And, when the doctor burst forth from the delivery room with the good news, we would hug and I would present the cigars, and father would welcome son into that glorious fraternity.

My father had done his part. I had had the opportunity to call my parents on the way to the hospital and, with my youngest sister’s son, they had made the 3 hour plus trip from their home to be present at Marcel’s birth. But the women in that hospital had conspired against me. They had kept me in that delivery room. And I am grateful.

For several hours, my wife pushed and pushed. And every time my wife pushed, my daughter’s full head of hair came closer and closer into this world. A little closer she came with each push. A little retreat she made with each relax.

The monitor had showed some distress. Perhaps, Maro had wondered under her breath, the umbilical cord was wrapped around Marcel’s neck. Perhaps, Maro had wondered under her breath, we might need a Cesarean section. But none of that wasn’t going to be. Shortly after 1:30 am–quickly, in fact–Marcel emerged, sunny-side up. The distress, apparently, was because her nose was getting smooshed.

And this is the story of how, more than 23 hours after the first rumblings of my wife’s belly, my Marcel came into this world.

Yesterday, Marcel offered me an umbrella but I didn’t take it. The offer came as she was closing the door behind me when I was leaving for work.

I refused the umbrella, in part, because I was eager to get to out of the house before a tragedy occurred. For most of her life, Marcel hated it when I left her. It made for a heartbreaking scene whenever I left for work or dropped her off at daycare. And it’s only recently begun to change.

At first, it was only rarely that she would NOT have an explosive tantrum when I left the house. Then, on occassion, she was so content with whatever she was doing–watching a favorite tv show, eating a favorite breakfast or enjoying time with my wife–that she wouldn’t even really notice that I was leaving. Eventually, she got comfortable enough with my departures, that she would even send me off with kisses and “good-byes”.

Still, on occasion, we could have tragedy. And, increasingly in recent months, Marcel would even try to leave the house with me. That’s great on a Saturday morning errand run. Impossible, however, on a work day. So my heart filled with dread when I saw Marcel run to me as I began to open the front door, last week.

“Wait, wait,” she called out.

I quickly moved to the door, but, amazingly, wasn’t fast enough. She caught me or, rather, caught the door.

“I close it,” she excitedly explained.

That was somewhat reassuring. Still, I wasn’t certain that things wouldn’t take a turn for the worse, so I urged her to close the door quickly. She refused, though.

“Wait! You need an umbrella!”

Of course, I thought on that sunny morning, Marcel just wanted to show off some new knowledge, however relevant or appropriate. Or, worse, she was just stalling for time. So I brushed her off.

“No, honey,” I explained, “I don’t need an umbrella. So, now, close the door.” Then I reached for the door.

With the exasperation of a teenager, she let out a high-pitched, elongated “okaaay“, however, and pulled back the door to preserve her opportunity at this newly discovered chance at fun.

But as she closed the door and looked at the sky in the distance, she shook her head mournfully. You see, Marcel knew the truth. The rain did come that day. And it came, again, when we repeated the episode a few days later that week.