Once labor has begun, the routine for expecting parents is well established. Grab a bag, call a cab, hop in your car, race to the hospital–you almost hope you’re stopped by a cop. At least that was my fantasy. I wouldn’t wait to be asked for my license–I’d just point to my wife moaning in the seat beside me, shout “She’s going to have a baby,” and direct them to get us to the hospital right away. Rather than stick around and deliver it themselves, the police would escort us in a breakneck motorcade all the way to the emergency room. Following behind with the biggest girl in town, I’d be above the traffic laws. That was one advantage I saw in a hospital birth.
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But if everybody I know jumped of the Brooklyn Bridge, would I follow? Depends. With the first kid we’d reached the point where both doctor and midwife were set–Dr. Flood and the midwife, Kay Fury. Flood and Fury would deliver the baby. Instead he was born like Frankenstein’s monster. Strapped to a table, wires and hoses hooked up to various parts of her body, Grace was wheeled to the operating room in the 11th hour of labor for an emergency Caesarean section. After a healthy baby boy was pulled out of her abdomen, she was on the nod for two days from the anaesthetic and hardly noticed the joyful proddings of a succession of hearty nurses.
All went well at the hospital, yet Grace chose to have our second baby at home. She pointed out several advantages: (1) She wouldn’t be strapped down during labor. (2) No travel or parking fees. (3) Less chance of infection (“There’s sick people in the hospital, honey,” she explained). (4) She’d only have to deal with one doctor and one midwife, instead of a succession of nurses and doctors on shift changes. (5) It was more likely that she’d have another C-section in a hospital–the HomeFirst doctors try to avoid surgical intervention to the point of last resort; they won’t even perform an episiotomy unless they have to (“Isn’t this vaginal-birth thing overrated?” I wondered). (6) It’s cheaper to give birth at home (appealing to my practical side). (7) It’s impossible to go home with the wrong baby (this after watching Oprah). (8) We have cable.
The doctor in Villa Park looked like a kid playing a video game as he twisted knobs, pushed buttons, and watched the screen on the ultrasound. Grace had a contraction. “Good,” he commented. “She’s definitely in labor.” He advised us to leave soon, predicting we’d miss rush-hour traffic and be home in plenty of time to have the baby. “Thanks,” I said. “And if it’s a boy, I’ll name it ‘Ike.’” He wanted to know why. “Because it’s going to be born on the expressway.” He said that was unlikely.
Grace never complained. She didn’t even say the word “pain.” She didn’t have time. I could hear her loud and clear in the stairwell, and I was sure they could hear her in the mortuary. Then Dr. Flood called me back to the bedroom. “It helps sometimes for the husband to get behind and help with breathing and pushing,” she said pleasantly. I stubbed out my cigarette and stretched. I wondered if we should have taken classes.
He hardly made a sound. A thick rope of umbilical cord pulsed on the bed. Dr. Flood waited to cut it until it fell limp. “It’s giving the baby a transfusion,” she explained. Our friends took pictures, the bulbs flashed. “OK,” said Dr. Flood. “No more pictures. The flash hurts the baby’s eyes.” She has experience dealing with photographers.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/John Figler.
