I thought we’d come home with a baby but all I have is a bucket of vomit!

Last night was the night before CJ’s 5th birthday.

He is understandably antsy. After lying in bed for a while, he comes tip-toeing out. I give him my best, most sternest glare. “WHAT are you doing out of bed?”

“Mommy!” he says, “I already went to sleep TWO TIMES!”

I can’t help but smile. “Really?”

“Yes!” he pauses, then asks, “Is it the morning?”

All I can do is hug him before gently guiding him back to bed. Because the truth is, I understand. I know about waiting and how hard it can be…

Really I do.

***
five years ago…

“I think my water just broke!” I announce triumphantly. After two days of walking, spicy food, and every other labor-inducing remedy known to womankind, this is the event we’ve been waiting for.

We rush to the hospital and are ushered in by a tired-eyed nurse, who tells me she’ll run a test to see if my water really did break. I’m not feeling any contractions… or wait, was that one? At this point I’m having trouble distinguishing between contractions and gas pains.

“The test is positive!” she tells us, “which means, we’ll need to induce you if you don’t start having contractions soon.” she leans in and says conspiratorially, “the on-call doctor wants to have you stay here overnight. But I convinced her to let you go home and sleep and come check in in the morning. We’ll induce you then.”

“Perfect,” I say, although I’m not really sure why going home is a better option. It’s not like I’ll be doing all that much sleeping.

At 7am sharp we are back at the hospital, ready to have our baby. The nurse hooks me up and starts the pitocin. And we wait.

At noon, the contractions are coming hard and fast. We still haven’t seen a doctor, and the nurses have been absent too. Mainly it’s been me and Jay and this enormous belly and an empty room.

Jay watches the contraction monitoring device like it’s a crystal ball. “THAT WAS A BIG ONE!” he shouts, and somehow the validation seems helpful.

Suddenly, my doctor appears to examine me. Brusquely his pulls on his rubber gloves and dives in without so much as a how-do-you-do.

“You’re not dilated at all,” he admonishes me in a tone that implies that I am NOT DOING MY JOB, “I’m not sure your water broke at all.”

“But…” I murmur, “the test was positive…”

I didn’t do anything WRONG!

… did I?

“Oh that happens ALL THE TIME.” he says.

“No, I don’t think your water broke. We’re sending you home.” He looks at me with disgust, and marches out of the room.

Sending me HOME?! Is that allowed?!

I give Jay a look of desperation. I’ve been hooked up to this pitocin for FIVE HOURS having contractions, and now they’re just going to send me home?

Another woman would have raised the roof. But my mother raised me to be nice so I say nothing.

The nurse bustles in. “How far apart are your contractions?” she asks. Two minutes.

She gives me some morphine for the pain and unhooks me from the monitors and IV.

And, just like that, I’m out the door and on the way home, with a vomit bucket in my hand.

Is this really happening? TELL ME THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!

We sit in the car, wide eyed and probably in shock.

As each contraction racks my monstrous belly, I double over in pain. Halfway home I throw up.

Good thing they gave me this handy bucket.

I look over at Jay and giggle.

“What?” he asks, “what’s funny?” What could POSSIBLY be funny at a time like this?

“I thought we were going to come home with a BABY,” I moan, “but all I have is a bucket of vomit.”

He grins and somehow I know that it will all work out, one way or the other.

***
“THEY GAVE YOU MORPHINE?!?!” my mother-in-law’s face is horrified. As a nurse, she is experienced in drugs and, as a nurse in a plastic surgeon’s office, she really knows her pain killers.

“Morphine is the worst possible thing they could give you! It causes vomiting!” she continues.

BLEGGGHHHHH HRRGGHHLLL

I wipe my mouth and pass the vomit bucket to Jay. “But… the nurse said it wouldn’t cause vomiting,” I say.

Then again, they did give me this handy bucket.

I’m starting to feel that our labor and delivery hospital isn’t such a top-notch operation.

It’s dinner time, and our house is filled with all the family that we had called the night before, ho rushed to Seattle for the grand event.

But, instead of sitting at the hospital cooing over a newborn as they’d planned, they’re packed into our house like sardines watching in horror as I march my enormous misshapen body up and down the dining room moaning and grunting and groaning with each contraction.

Finally, I am lying in bed when I feel a massive spread of warm wetness all around.

“OHHH!” I shout.

“WHAT?!” exclaim the fifteen family members, rushing to my side.

I never intended to make this such a family affair. Yet here I am.

“I think my water just broke,” I announce. And they rush me back to the hospital.

This time there is no question of whether my water broke. They check me in, hook me up, and let me go.

I’ll spare you all the sordid details (haven’t you already had enough)? I won’t tell you about the anesthesiologist who, after warning me to stay still because one wrong move could be paralysis, couldn’t seem to get the needle in the right place. I won’t tell you how Jay nearly had to be escorted from the room because, peaceful though he is, he nearly jammed the needle in said anesthesiologist’s neck.

I won’t tell you about the PAIN OH THE PAIN or the VOMITING OH THE VOMITING.

Finally I find that I have one nurse on each side of me, each shouting different instructions.

“Push!”

“No, DON’T Push! The doctor isn’t here!”

“Push!”

“Don’t push!”

Finally I scream out, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”

And AT LAST in runs the doctor (he was busy grocery shopping). He doesn’t even have time to change into scrubs; just plops down by my feet and holds out his hands and is promptly doused in a wave of amniotic fluid.

Out comes CJ… a sweet bundle of pink baby amidst the mess of liquid goo.

The doctor holds him up and CJ pees all over him.

Well hello, CJ. I like you already.

***
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