Margaret's first days
The following is a (long) record of Margaret's birth and first days that I wrote shortly after she came home from the hospital. For the sake of completeness, she was born on April 3, 2006 weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces with a length of 20 1/4 inches.
Right now, Abby is upstairs with Margaret having a grand old time. The baby is alert and interactive, and Abby has her on a pillow and is playing with her. Her vision is much better than it was as she's able to focus on things for an extended period of time. They're having a nice afternoon of mother-daughter bonding.But I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'll go back to the beginning of the week.....
We had scheduled a c-section about a week ahead of time, although we'd known for some time that the procedure was probably necessary. The night before going to the hospital, we were both nervous, but excited. The nerves were a combination of apprehension about the procedure and concern about the kid being ok along with general concern about the life change that was coming. We went to a Japanese place for dinner that had caught Abby's eye at some point and spent the meal talking about how that was likely our last opportunity for that type of outing for a while. The rest of the night is mostly a haze, but I recall drinking a few beers on our back patio while looking at the stars and calling various people for moral support as Abby watched Deperate Housewives on TV.
The next morning, we woke up feeling decidely unrested. I don't recall sleeping poorly, but I definitely felt a bit off that morning. We got to the hospital around 7:30 AM. Two nurses took us to a pre-op room where they got Abby dressed for the operation and hooked up all sorts of sensors. One of them was a heart monitor for the kid through which we could hear a little thump-thump-thump.
Everyone basically ignored me. The nurses made some small talk with Abby about our dog, but were pretty much all business. Abby's doctor, Dr. Burke, and the anesthesiologist stopped in to explain the basic timing of the procedure and, again, didn't even acknowledge my presence. Then around 8:30, they came and took Abby away.
I sat around the pre-op room putting on some blue clothes that they'd given me. Around 8:50, one of the nurses came to take me to the operating room. The walk over was a complete blur. All of the nurses we passed kept saying "congratulations" even though nothing had actually happened yet. The nurse who accompanied me asked a few small questions which, I recall, led to a brief discussion of our dog and her upcoming adjustments. She then took me to a door where I had to wait alone until they called me in.
The operating room was a confusing place. Abby was lying on the operating table with a blue sheet draped just above her belly. The anesthesiologist was behind the sheet with us while lots of other people mulled about in various parts of the room. I sat on a small stool near Abby's head. Her arms were spread, and I held her hand throughout the procedure while also stroking her head.
As the operation began, I recall two distinct events. First, "Ain't Wasting Time No More" by the Allman Brothers was playing on the radio. I remember thinking how much I like that song and the rest of Eat A Peach by the Allman Brothers. My next thought was that I wished they would change the station to Imus in the Morning so that we could at least listen to something interesting. Second, lots of action was occurring behind the sheet. What, exactly, was going on behind that screen? When would we know that something good, or bad, had actually happened.
Suddenly, Dr. Burke said, "We've got a girl" in a fairly level tone as he passed the baby back to some nurses behind him and across from Abby and me. I recall seeing this purple and white splotched thing appear on the heating pad surrounded by a bunch of nurses. Based on her appearance, my first reaction was, "What the heck is that? Is there something wrong with her?" My second reaction was, "A girl? How can it be a girl?" So many people had predicted a boy that I'd come to expect it. We had actually settled on a single boy's name, Nicholas Gustav, but had narrowed down girl's names to a set of about 5 or 6 combinations all of which had Margaret or Genevieve as the first name and a variety of different middle names.
I watched as the nurses sucked fluid out of the baby's mouth and nose and began wiping the goop off of her. At that point, she started wailing and pinking up. People like the anesthesiologist kept leaning into us and saying "Congratulations." Abby's pain medication wasn't working too well at that point, so neither of us were as excited as we could have been. Finally, they brought the baby over to me and finished the operation. They shifted Abby onto a gurney, and I suppose that a nurse took the baby away from me and put her in a rolling bassinet, but I don't really recall that happening. Nor do I recall leaving the operating room. It was all kind of a blur.
Next thing I remember was sitting in the post-op room (which had been the pre-op room when we started) holding the baby. Abby was still in a fair amount of pain, but I remember thinking that we needed to come up with a name. Margaret? Seems good to me. What about the middle name? For some reason, I latched onto Claire which was a name that we had on our short list, although we were even more unsure about middle names than we were about first names. On one level, it wasn't that she seemed like a Margaret, but on another level, she did. I’m not quite sure how I reached my decision with all the commotion and confusion, but I had definitely decided that Margaret Claire was the name for this baby.
Abby started feeling a little better. The baby was very mellow. She was a little squirmy and fussy, but I started letting her suck on my finger which made her happy. She was such a sucker that the nurses commented on it and said that we’d have no problems getting her to latch on, although they turned out to be a bit wrong in the end. One of the nurses came to give the baby her first bath which led to some serious screaming. I remember thinking that the nurse seemed overly concerned about making sure that we didn’t think that she was hurting the baby, but I had no concern about that. Talk about trauma – you’ve just been popped out of your warm home and someone starts fiddling with you all over. As they probably always do, the nurses clucked about her strong lungs.
Chuck (a friend of ours) had warned me that his wife was very upset that he got to hold their kid for so long before she was able to. Abby didn’t seem to be upset for that reason, but she was keen to hold her despite the pain. Eventually, I passed her over to Abby who seemed very happy. I wanted to talk about names, but it seemed like the nurses would never leave us alone for any extended period of time. Instead, they asked if Abby wanted to try to feed the baby. She tried to do so, but it wasn't clear whether there was any success.
They wheeled us back to a room in the maternity ward. I had to go downstairs to sign up for a room, so I made a few calls with rain spitting on me under a gray sky and a weird feeling of adrenaline running through me. I talked to Abby’s mom, who seemed excited, and left a message for my dad. Later, my mom told me a wonderful story about the result of that call. She had left on her cell phone at school since she was waiting for a call. All of her students knew that a call was coming about her prospective grandchild. So, when her phone finally rang, her kids got very excited. When they found out that it was a girl, they all cheered. They then cheered the next day when mom posted a photo of the baby on a computer screen that the students could then see.
We spent the next few hours decompressing in the maternity ward. Both of us held the baby who was very calm. The nurses kept coming and going, referring to “the baby” until I finally told them that her name was Margaret, something that Abby and I finalized at some point before getting to the maternity ward. They were all very pleased with the name, although they also liked to call her “blondie,” and seemed slightly surprised with our choice, a reaction that we got from a number of people in the hospital. Apparently, Margaret is a slightly old fashioned name, but not one that people find objectionable or too old fashioned. One of the nurses said, “That’s a lovely name. Don’t hear that one too much anymore” while one of the flower ladies, who were generally old, said “That’s my middle name.” I remember thinking that I was happy with the first name, but was waffling a little on the middle name. At that point, however, we’d already passed the news, and the name, onto enough people that there was no going back.
The next few days blended together. Flowers arrived, nurses came and went, and Abby moved from a liquid diet to solid foods. Abby couldn’t move her legs much, especially her right leg, so she was confined to her bed for a couple days. Abby slept in her bed, and I slept on a chair that pulled out into a mattress. No one who came into the room paid much attention to me unless I addressed a direct question to them. The baby would feed after which we would, following the suggestion of Abby’s doctor and various friends, send her to the nursery. The nurses would then bring her back periodically for a feeding. We kept trying to get Margaret to feed correctly with some help from the lactation consultants, but hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. Abby was getting better at manipulating the baby, and the baby was getting better at getting on, but it was still tricky.
On Thursday night, we had to attend a discharge class. We were among the first to arrive and brought Margaret in her little bassinet. The nurse asked if she could use Margaret as a demonstration baby for the class. "Sure," we said as all of the other babies were left wailing outside of the classroom. I was sure that Margaret would start bellowing at some point during the class especially when the nurse started manhandling her to illustrate various things like bathing techniques. But Margaret was a perfect little trooper. She fussed a little bit, but generally was a good baby. It was a first instance of parental pride – "My kid is oh so good, especially when compared to those kids bawling in the hall." Right after we got back to our room, Margaret starting wailing like crazy for a long time, but at least she was good when it counted.We were discharged the next day. It was gray and raining, and an elderly attendant held an umbrella for us as we loaded Margaret into the car. Margaret seemed unconcerned with everything around her, but we obviously had no idea what we were doing as we struggled with the car seat. The elderly woman with the umbrella gave me a sweet smile and a soft pat on the back, and we were on our way.
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