so we stay all that night in the hospital and got absolutely no sleep. nurses seem to come in every half hour to check this or that. i had to try and sleep on some kind of reclining chair deal, which totally sucked. there was hullabaloo because the baby's heart rate was too slow at times, and when it was, three people were required to watch the trace, instead of just one. then come the people whose job it is to feel up my wife, to see how many 'centimeters' she is at. then there are all the probes going up poor ephelba's hoo-hoo, one for to measure ephelba's contractions, and one to measure the baby's heart rate, and i think one going up there just because they could. so, with all this activity going on, sleep was impossible, and i settled on watching 'cartoon network' at 3:00 in the morning. nothing more will be done to get the baby out until the progesterone suppository has had time to do its thing, about 12 hours, or about 10:00 thursday morning. so we wait. ephelba gets up to pee several times, dragging a trail of wires behind her. when she gets up, the muscular activity looks like a contraction on the monitor, and so a nurse would come down to see whats up. just ephelba coming out of the bathroom. around about 9:00, ephelba wants me to go eat breakfast. she worries about me, which is sweet, and thinks that at least one of us should be fed. i get juice for ephelba from the 'patient nutrition center,' she likes apple juice with ice chips, but she will get no solid food for more than a day from now. ephelba's best friend, loon, comes to visit. since she will be there with ephelba, i decide to get some food. so i go eat at the cafeteria, and get a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns, and bring back some oatmeal for ephelba, just in case she can eat it. when i get back, there is a crowd of people around my ephelba, all going on about the baby's heartrate, and how it goes down when there is a contraction and how thats not good. they tell ephelba that she may end up getting a c-section. lovely. loon eats the oatmeal, since ephelba can't have it, and all loon had to eat was an 'energy bar.' at about 10:00 they wheel in the device which will be pumping in synthetic oxytocin into my dear ephelba in order to trick her uterus into squeezing out our little baby about two and one half weeks early. its a computer controlled pump, and it gradually increases the rate that it pumps in the oxytocin over time, starting at 0.5 micrograms/liter/hour and going up from there. around 11:00, they decide that ephelba really should have an epidural put in 'just is case.' ephelba, crazy as this may seem, did not want to have one. unless something went drastically wrong with the delivery, she thought she could manage without it. i thought that since this was an induced delivery, and not really her body's idea, she might need the epidural. the doctor who suggested it said that they could install the epidural, but not run any anesthetic until it was actually needed. ephelba agreed to this. then, when the docs who actually install the damn thing come by they said "no, if we put 'em in, we turn 'em on." fucking doctors. anyway, ephelba gets the epidural she didn't want, and has it dripping meds she doesn't need. i am with her while she gets it in. more people crowd around. they discuss the fetal heart rate. its not great. most of the time, its acceptable, but there is a disturbing amount of time when it is very low. the doctors say our baby is ‘unreactive,’ meaning that she doesn't move around much. by noon, the pump is giving ephelba 2.0 micrograms/liter/hour. ephelba is now pestering loon and i to go eat some lunch. i don't really want to go, but loon and i decide to go in shifts. loon goes first, and comes back around 1:00 pm. now doctors are really worried, and want to put another probe up ephelba, this one to rest against the baby’s cheek, and measure her o2 saturation, or how much oxygen is in her blood. i am against the idea on principle. it just seems like the more interventions you get, the more interventions they decide you need; and i didn’t want any more interventions. i don’t say this out loud, though, because ephelba seemed to already be agreeing with them, and what harm could one more probe up my wife do? not much i thought as i went to lunch. i took my cell phone with me to the cafeteria, just in case. i had just paid for a great looking sirloin hamburger topped with monterey jack cheese, barbecue sauce, and three onion rings when my cell phone rang. it was loon. they had decided to take the baby out by c-section and i should get up there right away. i whip up there; and burst into the room carrying a fairly thick book, (three john lecarre novels bound as one) my lunch in a to-go box, a large soda, and my phone, which somehow i hadn’t gotten around to putting in my pocket yet. i drop the stuff down on a shelf while the docs explain that the baby’s o2 levels go down too far during contractions. they don’t think she can survive a vaginal delivery. that leaves, they say, only one other way out: cut a hole in my dear ephelba’s belly. ephelba has already given consent, so they don’t waste any time trying to sell me on the idea. they crank ephelba’s epidural up full blast, thrust a small stack of scrubs, face mask, and booties at me and say, “follow us.” when we get to the o.r., they have me wait outside and tell me to put on the scrubs, mask, and booties. i hope they have me sized correctly, i want to get in there right away. i needn’t have worried. i could have fit two of me in there, which would really impress you if you have seen a picture of me. anyway, i’m all dressed up and waiting to go and finally someone comes out to get me. they tell me not to touch anything, and i am lead past ephelba’s feet, up to and past a large cloth drape obscuring ephelba’s upper torso. her arms are stretched out crucifix-like, and are held there by restraints at the wrists. as i go past her belly, i observe the surgeon making their first incision, see the skin part and the fascia underneath. the wound fills with blood and i am urged onward behind the drape. a chair is pushed towards me, and i sit down. ephelba smiles her ‘holy shit’ smile. i stroke her head because i know it soothes her. i try to crane around to see whats happening, but they don’t like that. maybe they’re afraid i’ll faint. i say to ephelba, “they act like i’m some delicate flower.” one of the guys in the room laughs. the baby is cut out of ephelba in under a minute and gets hurried into the next room. some one says that she is out, but i don’t hear any crying. a nurse opens the door to the room where they have her, and tells us to listen, but i don’t hear a damn thing. ephelba tells me to go to the baby, and stay with her. this is a decision we had talked about before, that i would go with the baby, and that loon would stay with ephelba, if that became necessary. but loon wasn’t allowed in here, and i didn’t want to leave ephelba. but i do leave ephelba, and go to the baby room, where they are examining her and cleaning the vernix off her skin. they suction out her lungs, pulling out this vile red mucusy crap. this makes her cry, but its a small soft cry. i want them to stop. she looks so small, and so thin, with wrinkles of skin falling off her arms and thighs. where there should be fat and muscle mass is just spindly arms and legs, with her knees bigger than her thighs. she is waving all her limbs around, slow and shaky. they’ve left her with a huge umbilical stump, its like five inches long, and now they decide to trim it back to a more modest two inches. they ask me if i’d like to do it. i pause. you see, during all the time that ephelba has been pregnant, during our lamaze class together, somehow this cutting of the cord was supposed to be a crowning achievement of the birth process, at least it was to be the height of my participation in it. we’d hear stories about it, like one guy who asked the doc if he could bring in some ceremonial dagger that he had to do the job. i would tease ephelba by saying that i, too, would try and bring in my own blade for the job. but the one thing i really wanted to have happen was for them to wait for a bit. for them to put the baby on ephelba’s stomach and just to settle down and wait for the cord to stop pulsing, so that this moment where we all first lay eyes on each other is allowed to proceed at its own pace. and that ephelba and little peanut could separate themselves when they were ready. it means nothing now, this cutting; she is already cut from her mother. but i say, “sure” anyway. one of the nurses hands me a scissors. as the doc picks up the umbilical and holds it up for me to cut, he says, “there’s still pulsation.” it is a bitter moment, and i fight with my tears. the cord is tough and hard to cut through. it resists the scissors, or maybe they’re just dull. then, i’m through it, and they pick up our little peanut, weigh her, wrap her, and hand her to me. i take her and look at her, all red and crying a little cry that sounds like a cat meowing. she is covered with a downy fuzz all over and has nearly a full head of dark brown hair. i touch it, and it is the softest thing i have ever felt. nothing else seems to matter now. i walk across the operating room and put her down on ephelba’s chest. peanut weighs all of four pounds and one ounce. to be continued...