Amanda Feeling

I’m sitting across from Sabrina when the epidural doctor comes in. He is described by the nurses as an extremely good doctor and very handsome. He looks touched to me. A day prior, on Amanda’s due date, Sabrina’s labor was induced but not much had happened until the past hour when the contractions got more severe and Sabrina asked for the epidural. I’ve been running on caffeinated adrenaline with alertness, focus, and calmness. Emotion was in there somewhere but was hard to tap. Hard to tap until I saw the doctor prep Sabrina for the epidural. Numbing shot. Long needle. Epidural shot. I felt it then. This is real.  

The labor process after that was relatively fast (easy for me to say). Sabrina’s doctor went from strongly encouraging her to get a c-section to believing a natural birth would happen. Sabrina took a rest that the medicine afforded while her body continued to work. At around 7pm, Sabrina and Amanda were still making progress and I took a quick shower. At 10pm, a practice push. Not ready yet. At 11pm, fully ready and with the doctor’s guidence Sabrina begins to push in earnest. I’m in the designated husband seat near the front of Sabrina’s bed. Sabrina looks at me. I see her eyes well up. Becoming a mother didn’t seem to be in the cards for her and now it was about to happen.  (being a mother is something Sabrina wanted even as I made it clear I wasn’t having more kids. My attitude changed because of all things reading a tweet that Duane Kuiper’s wife passed away. I asked Sabrina if she still wanted a kid to which she responded with a surprised yes).

After an hour plus of pushing they decided to make a vaginal incision to assist. Makes me cringe even to write that. The room filled up with nurses. Sabrina pushed. There was what seemed like a lot of blood. Amanda was out. Flurry of activity. Me listening for Amanda’s cry. One..two..where is it? There is it. Amanda moved over to the cleaning table. I’ve peering and checking to see she looks well. They give her a score 10 of 10. They ask me to stop filming.

A cleaned up Amanda is placed on Sabrina’s chest. Mom looking down at daughter for the first time. Relief. Relief. Relief. Love. The doctor continues to work on Sabrina.

Amanda’s first breat feeding is at 1:30am and we stay in the delivery room until 2:30am. We take a picture. Sabrina is wheeled down to the recovery room; Amanda lying between her legs; me trying not to get in the way. Once in the room, Amanda has her first poop. Stickly black stuff. Then she’s cleaned and asleep. We all sleep. Deep for moments. Alert and checking on Amanda in other moments. The morning comes and a new day is born.