Walking in on My Wife

Kirsten assures me that there's some sort of demand out that for my version of the birth story. So, I'll temporarily suspend my governing principle that whatever the father does during labor and delivery doesn't matter (e.g., boiling water) and give you a little window into my mind.

First, I have to reveal that Kirsten is off on certain elements of the timeline. I can't fault her for this, as she wasn't so much near clocks or paying close attention to them, but as I was teaching at the time, I was keeping very careful track of each minute. In the event of later litigation, I have eight students who can testify as to when I walked out of class.

1:40 (Kirsten pegs at 1:20) My cell vibrates with an immediate second call from Kirsten, which we'd previously agreed was to be reserved for an I-should-walk-out-of-class (one I'm teaching) baby-related scenario. I interrupt trying to figure out how to get through Halton draws before class ends at 1:45 to answer the phone in the hall. Kirsten tells me her water has broken, but since she's not contracting, I don't need to head home immediately.

1:41 I apologize to my class that the "leave immediately" alert was triggered for a non-leave immediately scenario. Go on to explain how Halton draws can expedite numerical integration in the likelihood function of random coefficients logit models.

1:48 Get back to my office after class. Call Kirsten back to see how she's doing, and see if it's perhaps time to let my parents know they need to get on the next plane from Ohio (they're on call to take care of Soren while we're in the hospital). Kirsten suggests that perhaps it's best if I come home now.

1:50 Fire an email to my 2:00 meeting with a publisher rep that I would have to cancel because my wife's water just broke. In retrospect, this is at least as effective as the dead grandmother excuse.

1:52 Call my mother and tell her to get on a plane. She sets off to find my father.

1:53 Shave legs. Why...oh.

1:55 Pack my stuff and walk out of my office for the 30 minute commute home. On the way, I think about what I'm going to do with the inevitable time in labor before we go up to the hospital: the last place you want to be before it's time to be at the hospital is at the hospital, because they just leave you in a poorly-designed waiting room. For Soren's birth, I'd planned a bunch a distraction activities for Kirsten; I was a little behind in that respect for Sigrid.

2:29 Pull into the driveway. Collect myriad empty coffee cups from my car. Throw the recyclable ones into the bin on the way into the house.

2:30 Open the door and slip the non-recyclable cups in the garbage (I recall this specifically...it was important these be properly thrown away).

Pause, as I hear incongruent crying. It isn't Kirsten, and it isn't Soren (who should still be at school). I turn the corner when Kirsten calls, "Chris...", and she's standing in the dining room holding...the crying thing. "What is crying, and why is Kirsten holding that really realistic doll?" ran though my mind (really...that stuck me as more sensible than she'd just had the baby in the dining room and was holding it). Then I saw the umbilical cord and what happened became a little more clear. Kirsten reassured me "She's OK, she's OK," as I'm sure she saw a bazillion thoughts run across my face.

Now, I'm a planner and a strategizer, and I deal with these situations by doing things...what needs to be done. But this was a situation in which I never expected to find myself, and hence I had no idea what to do (though I did remind myself that, in fact, there was no need for boiled water). Fortunately, Kirsten intervened and told me to go upstairs and get a towel...that seemed sensible.

On the way back down, I was true to my academic nature and grabbed the pregnancy book to see what it suggested I do in this situation. It reassured me that sudden, unexpected at-home births were wonderful plot devices, but didn't happen enough in real life to worry about.

Failing to find satisfaction there, I called the OB's office, where are recorded voice informed me I was second in line.

I had hesitated to call 911 because it wasn't a life-or-death emergency, but as I sat on hold with the OB, I realized I was going to have to transport this tiny, tiny baby in my car if it wasn't in a rescue, and somehow getting her into a carseat seemed challenging and inappropriate. Also, if she was going to be more than 28" from Kirsten in transit, the cord was going to have to be cut and a placenta delivered. I wasn't trained in this, and the book clearly wasn't going to be much help. So, I hung up on the OB and called 911.

In the very few minutes while we waited for the ambulance, I did take a minute to hug Kirsten and look at the baby, and even to snap a few pictures. When rescue arrived, there were no fewer than seven paramedics and supervisors in the delivery room, so it was a bit crazy.

I did get to cut Sigrid's cord, and hold her briefly while they wrapped up Kirsten. When they drove off--lights and sirens--with my girls, I rolled up the rug, set about making after-school arrangements for Soren and took off for the hospital.