Delivery Story

Leading up to Cormac's birth, I was beginning to see the impending "labor and delivery" event much like an upcoming race but one that could wake you up like a fog horn in the middle of the night and never gave you a sense of when you needed to start tapering before. Or in my case a race that slowly started at the end of a work shift that I would fatefully declare to Matt when getting home "Okay. That was the last work thing I really needed to square if I could. Anything else I can do after this would just be a gift." .

Dinner and a drive home later left me realizing these waves of pain were slowly sounding like that race gun getting louder and louder. A few other symptoms finally got us denial, "what would this cost to go to the hospital if it weren't labor with our insurance plan..." types to get in the car and head over. Matt put on Twine Time by my request to help me feel like there was something familiar afterall about this Saturday night. And so we listened to "Uptown Saturday Night" with Rigg Daddy, as if this was a weekend date like any other. .

Nerves were still steady enough for Matt to make the joke that has been winding up for years whenever I see someone driving fast "acting like their wife is in labor" as he got onto the Mopac ramp with a bit more authority. It was one of those merciful 5-6 minutes between a contraction so he got me to laugh.

We drove up to the hospital with no idea where to go. So I unceremoniously got out of the car and hobbled up to a concierge like I was making sure we had a reservation at this hotel. A gum smacking young woman said "Labor and Delivery? That's upstairs on the second floor and down the hall." Then a fleeting recognition to my plight she added a half hearted "good luck..." I texted Matt this was the place so he could park then thought "who the #"$$!&!!!!??? designer put Labor and Delivery on the 2nd floor and down the hall?!"

Matt met me bent over a railing in the hall and we made our way to the blessed elevator. When we got up to the second floor we were immediately disoriented by a number of hallways, doors and conflicting signage. After heading in various directions only to be met by locked doors and daunting long hallways, I knocked on a window behind which I saw a handful of nurses busily puttering around machines and equipment. I pointed to my unmistakably pregnant abdomen with likely annoyed motions and said something dumbly through the glass like "Maybe in labor. Doors are locked - let me in somewhere." One nurse came out and indicated on the wall somewhere that there was a phone I was supposed to use to go in. I held off telling her what I thought of these subtle procedures and made my way to the next desk.

We spent 2 delirious hours in triage hearing the comings and goings of others in this intimate yet noisy process. At one point an electrician came in then a crew of maintenance staff to clear up some mysterious, and I gathered significant problem, that had happened with the adjacent bathroom. That more than anything for some reason made me grateful we hadn't waited any longer to check in. Finally, around 10:30, they declared my body officially in Boo Bop birthday mode. It was terrifying and totally thrilling, a race day on steroids.

A red headed nurse then showed up and took my hand right as another wave hit. She waited it out with me then said with a hard to place yet somehow familiar accent "that's it mama. I'll let you have this moment." When it past she then said what every girl wants to hear in a time like this "Hi. I'm Bernadette. I've been a Labor and Delivery nurse for 27 years and I'm going to help you get to your baby's birthday party." Turns out this godsent woman with unfaultering confidence was from Corner Brook, Newfoundland. A place not far from adventures we took to Gros Morne National Park and where I once shipped 500 hand knitted hats from our library where Syrian refugees arrived a couple years back. Between moments of desperate breathing we talked like strangers become happenstance friends on a long, dimly lit overnight flight. 

Then every few minutes she took control of the conversation as needed with assuring phrases that made me think what I felt was something called for, celebratory and totally empowering. .

So this race day morphed into an incoherent overnight flight afterall with fitful moments of rest punctuated by more than fitful moments of discomfort. In place of meal service were beeping tests, shots, words of soothing and confident encouragement then simply offers of ice. The clock seemed to be spinning around so quickly despite the fact that I often felt like I was living second to minute. Then all at once, right as Bernie's shift was ending, it seemed Cormac had decided he was good and ready to come be our little boy. We lucked out once again with a straight talking nurse who got Matt to laugh through the intensity and me to at least breath through it. Then our sweet boy cried out to us with hearty strength that made us know he indeed required the strong, proud Texas name we were hoping to give him. And us 2 became 3 and our Boo Bop Sweeney became Cormac Barton Sweeney.