If I hadn't actually seen it happen, I'm not sure I'd believe you if you told me this ten pound baby was once carried inside my wife. Ten pounds, one ounce actually.

 

I was woken up Monday morning, just before 6am to the sounds of Michelle calling my name and Riley racing down the hall to the bathroom. After a few groggy misconceptions, I suddenly sat bolt upright, realizing I was in the bed alone and something wasn't quite right. Finally, after a few long seconds, I answered back, "Yeah? What's wrong?"

 

Riley disappeared around the corner into the bathroom at the end of the hall as Michelle replied in a somewhat nervous voice, "My water just broke."

 

My feet hit the floor and I was down the hallway in an instant. "What color is it? Where did it happen? Are you OK?" I bombarded her with the stock questions from the book as I stepped around Riley and up to Michelle's side.

 

"It's clear, right here, I'm fine." She answered in quick succession. "I guess I should call the doctor." We were scheduled to be induced in only three more hours, so we were a few hours ahead of the game now.

 

Michelle called and was given an appointment in two hours at the hospital. We had no idea what was going to happen now, but we assumed since her water broke that they would admit us and everything would progress smoothly from here. While Michelle was on the phone, I raced around the house getting dressed, feeding the dogs, loading her bags into the car and throwing together a nominal breakfast.

 

We arrived at the hospital promptly at 8:00am not quite knowing what to expect. Once at the maternity ward, we were quickly ushered into a labor and delivery room (LDR) and Michelle was given a hospital gown and told to change.

 

In some discomfort, Michelle managed to maneuver out of her street clothes and into the rather revealing hospital gown. She took a moment to get comfortable on the labor bed before a nurse reentered the room. At her present stage, they apparently wanted to simply hook her up to the monitor and watch things (baby's heart rate and mother's contractions) for half an hour or so.

 

The beds in the LDRs, like the one Michelle was placed in, are actually pretty versatile. They move in enough directions to put Craftmatic to utter shame. Nice big and padded handrails snap into place on both sides of the bed, and when things really get moving, the entire bottom half of the bed gets removed and two more handgrips fold out from the middle of the bed and stirrups rotate into position.

 

But we weren't even close to that point yet. Despite her water having broken, Michelle was still only having relatively minor contractions. To our surprise, the doctor explained to us how they like to wait 24 hours before trying to speed things along even after the water breaks. After about 30 minutes on the monitor, we were told we could return home and told to come back that afternoon for another monitoring. If nothing happened before tomorrow morning, they would start induction at 6:30am Tuesday.

 

So we went home. Actually, we had dropped the dogs off at my parents' place earlier in the day, so we stopped by their house, had a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and chatted with them for an hour or two before really going home.

 

Our next appointment was scheduled for 5pm, but around two-thirty, Michelle suddenly began having horribly painful contractions. They began to speed up and starting coming every three or four minutes in huge cramping contracting waves. Out of breath and in pain, Michelle called the doctor's office to try and get her appointment at the hospital moved up an hour or so.

 

The receptionist at the office told her she could come into the office and talk to the doctor. Disappointed at that option and realizing that, at best, we would only get on the monitors at 5pm either way, we decided to tough things out at home for the extra hour.

 

With the contractions coming on regularly and strongly, Michelle and I paced circles around the first floor of our house, pausing every few minutes to brace in a doorway and endure another wave of contractions. By 4:30, we were ready to go to the hospital again. So we threw the dogs in the truck, dropped them off at my parents' again, and drove up the street to the hospital.

 

This time, instead of being ushered into an LDR, we were directed into the monitoring room. In place of the fancy beds and wall full of birthing equipment, this smaller room simply had two beds side-by-side with a smaller monitor standing beside each. Michelle was again hooked up to monitor her contractions, the baby's heart rate, and her blood pressure and we were left alone to let the tape run.

 

The monitors spit out a long spool of paper as they record, with a pen, just like a seismograph recording the vibrations of tectonic plates. Every time a contraction hits, the needle shoots up the graph paper. As it subsides, the needle falls back towards the baseline and resumes it's vertical path along the paper tape.

 

Just about the time Michelle climbed into the bed and got hooked up to the monitor, her contractions began to subside. The tape recorded a few random spikes along its length, but the regular contractions she had been having just minutes prior ceased to exist.

 

The doctor came in again, spoke to us a bit about the current state of things, told us we could come in anytime we needed to before our appointment the following morning, and, once more to our surprise, sent us back home. We had, incorrectly, figured that once your water breaks, there's no going home again. We thought they had to induce you, and immediately, once you had ruptured membranes. We were wrong. So we stopped by McDonald's on the way home and got ourselves a nice greasy dinner.

 

Halfway through her double cheeseburger mini combo, Michelle's face suddenly went white and she let out a blurting cry. She reached over and grabbed my arm, HARD, and struggled to stand up from where she was sitting on the couch. She gulped a few deep swallows of air and managed to cough out a quick "Contraction!"

 

For the next fifteen minutes, the contractions rolled through, one after another, every two to three minutes. They were each lasting over 90 seconds, so the resting period between each was brief and not entirely restful. We managed to walk upstairs and back before the contractions subsided enough for Michelle to get a few breaths and attempt to finish her dinner.

 

Ten minutes later, as she swallowed the last bit of her dinner, they hit again. And again. And again. They were coming on so strongly that Michelle simply couldn't move whenever they would start. With tears in her eyes, she would brace herself with each wave of pain and breath through the peaks, best as she could.

 

After about twenty minutes of continuous contractions, we began to debate the merits of going to the hospital early. We had already been sent home twice, so we were unsure as to whether it was even worth going in again. And then another contraction hit. Unable to speak and panting heavily in pain, our minds were made up. We were simply not going to get any sleep here at home, and perhaps they could even help ease the pain a bit at the hospital.

 

So, once again, we hopped into the truck, left the dogs at home this time, and drove as smoothly as possible up to the hospital. It took us a good fifteen minutes to walk to the elevators and then to the second floor maternity ward. Every two minutes, another contraction would swell up and hit her like a ton of bricks and we would simply have to stand wherever we were, Michelle bracing on my shoulders and breathing as best she could through the pain.

 

We were offered no fewer than three wheelchairs on the way to the elevator, but the thought of bending over to sit down was even worse than the contractions, so we slowly continued on our way. When we finally walked into the maternity ward, the nurses took one look at Michelle, swung wide the door to LDR#1 and led us inside.

 

Between contractions, we managed to get her into another hospital gown and then onto the adaptable labor and delivery bed. The nurses came in shortly and hooked her up again to the monitors, adding a pulse monitor for Michelle's finger to the traditional belts monitoring her belly.

 

Now that we were officially admitted to the hospital, the doctor came into the room and was able to examine Michelle to see how far along all of these painful contractions had progressed things. The news was not exactly what we had expected. The hours of contractions had only brought Michelle to 2cm dilation. With the pain she had been in, we had hoped for at least twice that – enough for an epidural.

 

The best the doctor could do was an IV for fluid and a shot of Demerol. As the shot took hold, the nurse reached into the room, lowered the lights, and Michelle began drifting into sleep in between each contraction. "Hopefully, you'll get some sleep," the nurse said as she softly closed the door.

 

And so the night progressed. With each contraction, Michelle would suddenly wake up, call for me, sleeping fitfully in a lounge chair beside the bed, to watch the monitor and tell her when it was subsiding, and then fall back to sleep once it was three quarters done. Every three or four hours, the pain medication would begin to ease and Michelle would wake from her fitful sleep, rolling painfully from side to side trying to stay ahead of the contractions. Soon enough, the nurse would come back in and administer another dose and Michelle would drift back into her restless contraction-filled sleep.

 

By morning, the doctor promised they would begin the pitosin around 8am. Pitosin is used to increase and regulate the intensity and speed of the contractions. We were hoping that the continuous contractions had pushed things further along, so when the doctor checked things out just before ordering the pitosin, we were a bit disappointed to find out Michelle was only 3cm for all that work and lost sleep.

 

And then the pitosin started. Even through another shot of Demerol, the contractions began to come on strong and regular. Soon Michelle was in such pain through each contraction that she was completely unable to move. The resting periods between each peak were becoming shorter and shorter and when the nurses came in to examine her a few hours later, she was almost unable to even move enough to let them do their job she was so cramped up and in pain.

 

That's when they decided to call the anesthesiologist. Within a few minutes of their call, he was in our room with his cart of fun, prepping Michelle's cramping back for an epidural. After a few careful minutes of prep and a few very still moments of no movement, Michelle had a catheter running into her back, numbing the paralyzing pain in her lower half to the level of uncomfortable pressure.

 

Her pain under control, the doctor began to up the pitosin. Every fifteen minutes, he would enter the room, increase the speed at which Michelle was getting the pitosin, inquire how she was doing, and softly close the door as he would leave. Once an hour, either he or a labor nurse would come in and check Michelle's progress. The goal, once on pitosin, is at least 1cm every two hours.

 

By 1pm, even with a maximum dosage of pitosin and the help of the pain medication, Michelle was only at 5cm. She had been stalled there for nearly three hours and when the doctor again checked things, he noted that the baby had stopped descending. He was stuck at the same spot and he simply wasn't moving. "Looks like we're gong to have to get him out of there," was his comment. And with that, he stood up, told the nurses to get Michelle prepped and mentioned he'd see us upstairs in a few minutes.

 

That's when the real fun began. Suddenly, every nurse on the floor started rushing in and out of our room. The door was thrown open and propped wide against the wall. For a brief moment, Michelle and I were left to ourselves as everyone scrambled to prepare. We reassured each other that everything was going to be fine and that a C-section was the best option. Then the nurses all rushed back into the room with a stretcher rolling in between them.

 

By this point, Michelle had no fewer than six wires and tubes hanging from various points around her body, so the nurses sorted the rat's nest of cables into some sense of order and then carefully helped her slide from the LDR bed on the narrow stretcher.

 

"Do you have a camera?" the one nurse inquired, looking at me.

 

"Uh, yeah," I said, eloquently as I rushed across the room and grabbed my camera from my coat pocket.

 

As soon as I managed to turn around, they began wheeling Michelle out of the room and down the hall. I double-stepped it to catch up and then followed them straight out of maternity, into the elevator and up to the next floor, where all the operating rooms were. The nurses quickly wheeled her around a few corners, through a double set of doors and then paused briefly in a short hallway before another set of doors.

 

"You go in there," the one nurse ordered me, "change into some scrubs and put on a hair net. Wait in the waiting room and someone will come get you." The nurses then opened the next set of doors and pushed Michelle through, leaving me standing alone in the hall.

 

I went into the small locker room and soon enough managed to find the supply of scrubs and hairnets. The anesthesiologist who had put in Michelle's epidural walked in from another door shortly after me and, as we spoke about fatherhood, showed me to an empty locker where I could leave my clothes in the meantime.

 

Out of my street clothes, I wandered into the waiting room down the hall to await the nurse's call. As I stood in the doorway waiting, I heard an old woman suddenly laugh from behind me. "Another one, huh?"

 

I turned and looked at the amused older lady. "Is it that obvious?" I asked her. I laughed, "I was trying to blend in."

 

She smiled. "I thought, at first you might be a doctor," she joked with me, "but you look a bit confused."

 

"Yeah," I agreed with her, "I don't think you want me operating on anyone." She laughed and offered me a seat.

 

Fifteen minutes later, I was beginning to get a bit nervous. Perhaps they had forgotten about me. What if no one came and got me? Would anyone remember the father? Someone must remember the father. One of those nurses, at least, would ask, "Where's the father?" Dr. Cohen would remember. Michelle, assuming she wasn't under too much anesthesia, must remember me. Can they do this without the father?

 

Just as I went to stand up and ask the waiting room attendant how long it usually takes them to prepare for a C-section, a woman in scrubs came through the double doors at the end of the hallway, waving me across the floor. I got up like a shot and took what felt like three huge steps to clear the thirty feet between me and the door.

 

The woman introduced herself as Someone Somebody, an anesthesiologist. A half step behind her, I followed her through another set of double doors into a sea of green people. Everyone was dressed in green scrubs as we maneuvered through the busy crowd. "Get him a mask," she ordered a nurse standing beside a huge metal sink, "I'm going to see if they're ready for the dad now."

 

While the nurse quickly instructed me on how to properly wear the mask, the anesthesiologist cracked open a door to the right of the washing sinks. Inside, there was a green sea of activity as doctors and nurses and assistants, all dressed in green surgical scrubs, moved about a central operating table.

 

The anesthesiologist turned around and motioned towards me, "They're ready for you now." She swung the door open wide and ushered me in.

 

As I stepped into the room, the green sea suddenly parted, revealing Michelle, strapped like a frog to the operating table. Our doctor and an assistant stood on opposite sides of her abdomen and were focusing intently on a small opening in the green sheets covering her from the chest down. Someone reached around me and pulled a small gray stool from beneath the table and set it beside Michelle's head.

 

"Sit here," a voice commanded. "Don't touch anything beyond this sheet," it added, referring to the sheet suspended just below Michelle's neck shielding her view of the procedure.

 

I sat down beside Michelle and looked into her eyes. She had a stick-on thermometer attached to her forehead and an oxygen tube in her nose. I reached over and grabbed her one hand, strapped wide to the table.

 

Then I saw smoke. I took my first peek over the curtain as they were opening and cauterizing the incision. The doctor caught my glance and made an offhand remark about the smoke. Everyone in the room seemed to respond to his comment with a slight chuckle as they all monitored their own stations. It was obvious he was in control of the situation.

 

I looked back down and stared at Michelle for a while. It must've been a long, rather odd stare since after what seemed only a few moments, she looked back into my eyes and told me to speak to her.

 

The anesthesiologists were already telling her she was doing great and that everything was going well. I wasn't about to describe what I had been watching on the other side of the curtain at this moment. So I started telling her of the old woman in the waiting room. I could tell she wasn't particularly interested at that moment. But the sound of my voice was really what mattered.

 

As I was speaking, someone else mentioned that she might begin to feel a little pressure soon. At that point, the anesthesiologist began feeding several syringes full of clear fluid into Michelle's line. I turned and looked back over the curtain, past the machines monitoring her blood pressure and heart rate. 127/80 and 120, it was exactly the same as she had been all morning in labor.

 

On the other side of the curtain, things were really beginning to get serious.

 

I always had this image of a Cesarean in my mind as a peaceful surgical procedure. I figured the doctor makes a nice incision, spreads it open using a set of retractors and simply reaches in and lifts the newborn from the mother's womb. On the way out, in order to keep the incision as small as possible, I figured there might be a bit of easy maneuvering of the baby to fit him through the small opening. At least that's what I had seen on TV.

 

Let's just say TV leaves out a lot.

 

The doctor had one hand fully in the opening he had made. While he was obviously reaching around and trying to maneuver his right hand into position in the incision, his left hand was at the base of Michelle's ribs. Across the table, his assistant had both hands on Michelle's midsection. In unison, the two of them were pushing and squeezing Michelle's abdomen in order to work the baby's head back out of the birth canal and up into the C-section incision.

 

As they worked, they began pushing harder and harder. Michelle was suddenly feeling pressure, as promised, and the entire operating table was moving with the force of each push. It was surprisingly barbaric the way they pushed and squeezed and pulled inside her abdomen. The anesthesiologist fed another syringe into Michelle's line.

 

And then, just as the pushing climaxed, the doctor pulled his right hand from the incision and suddenly emerged with a huge head. It was covered in body fluids and hair and suddenly a cry filled the room. The doctor grabbed it with both hands and turned it straight around to face me, this crying head sticking from a hole in my wife's abdomen. It was screaming. And it had my nose.

 

At that point, I lost it. I was completely unable to speak. I couldn't breathe. I gasped a few times and choked. Michelle asked me what was happening. I tried to answer but simply couldn't get any words to come out.

 

The doctor reached down and continued to pull this huge creature from Michelle's abdomen. He was huge. I've watched quite a few births on TV and I've seen a lot of photos of newborns. They're not usually this big. As he was pulled completely from the wound, I finally managed to blurt out to Michelle in a primitive gurgle, "He's huge!"

 

Free from his prenatal confines, several hands quickly reached in, clamped the umbilical cord and cut it an inch or so from his body and he was passed, overhand style, across the room to the awaiting pediatrician. "He's huge!" I repeated to Michelle.

 

His color was beautiful, nice and pink, as the pediatrician wiped him clean. Someone reached in and listened to his heart. Someone else began clearing his nose and mouth with a long clear tube. He didn't like that and he snorted and fussed. Michelle asked how he was.

 

"You'll see him in just a second," one of the nurses assured Michelle. "He's huge!" I added.

 

Soon enough, they had him wrapped snuggly in a blanket and someone else ran him like a football around the perimeter of the room and handed him off to me. His weight filled my arms as I stared, wide eyed, at the bundle in my arms. I leaned over and showed him to Michelle.

 

"Do you have a camera?" the anesthesiologist asked suddenly. I passed her my camera from beneath the baby and she shot a few pictures as I tried my best to show him off to Michelle.

 

"I didn't hear any film wind, did this thing work?"

 

"It's digital," I answered.

 

"It'll be on the web tonight," another voice cracked in.

 

A few pictures taken, and a small glass cart was wheeled up behind me. I passed the baby back to the pediatrician and he was placed in the cart and suddenly wheeled through the door.

 

"Dad, you go with baby," someone ordered.

 

I leaned over, kissed Michelle as best I could through the surgical mask, told her I loved her and I'd see her soon, and I got up and ran down the hall to catch up with the crew wheeling my son to the nursery.

 

Downstairs in the nursery, he was given the full head-to-toe inspection. Everything was perfect. He was weighed and measured: 10 lbs, 1 oz, 22 inches long. Official time of birth, 2:02pm on the day before Valentine's Day, February 13, 2001.

 

He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and he is my son, Eastland Benjamin Schamis.

 

But If I hadn't actually seen it happen, I'm not sure I'd believe you if you told me this ten pound baby was once carried inside my wife.