Like A Twister: Boy Oh Boy

I called my friend Heather last Monday to see how her belly was feeling. She was due to have her second son, Cole Henderson Wall, any day now, and I had a couple of meetings and didn't want to miss the call if she suddenly went into labor. She was ready to be done being pregnant, but assured me that I had a couple of hours to live a normal life. I had plans to be with Heather for this birth, mainly because she's a fellow photography worshipper and wanted to capture some of the special moments associated with having a baby. My mom promised me it would change my life, and as usual, Mom was right.

Relying on what must have been some subconscious awareness I brought my cell phone to bed with me Monday night. I read a little of Us Weekly and finally went to sleep around 1 a.m. A few minutes later, say 120 of them, I got a call from Heather Cell. It must be time.

In my surprisingly alert 3 a.m. state, I packed a bag, grabbed my camera, and drove to Louisville. The drive was pretty uneventful until I got to the Jefferson County line and the heavens decided to open up and show off the lightning and thunder they'd been brewing. I arrived at the hospital at 5:10 a.m. and walked into a labor and delivery room to find my best friend of 18 years gritting her teeth and contorting her body trying to get comfortable. She was three centimeters dialated and, between contractions, was as lucid as a person can be expected to be at 5:15 a.m. Just don't touch her.

She breathed and squirmed and told her mom to tell the nurses to get her something for the pain. They said she couldn't have her epideral since she wasn't far enough along so she settled on chewing ice and smelling alcohol swabs to control her nausea. I tried to make her comfortable or make her laugh, but she was somewhere else. Something was taking over her body, distracting her mind from realities outside of herself. The nurses gave John, her husband, an ID bracelet, and he casually watched television and made some phone calls. Her mom came back in the room, and Heather scooted up the bed. "My water just broke."

Are you sure? her mom asked. She left to tell the nurse, who brought in a strip of green paper that reminded me of the litmus paper from 9th grade science and dipped it into what I have come to call a puppy pad, which Heather sat on. The color changed in confirmation, and when the nurse said a little too softly for comfort, "You're really moving. You're at seven," the entire atmosphere of the room changed.

Seconds turned into hours, heartrates increased both in and out of the womb, and breathing became the most important thing in the room. When the nurse said, in that too soft and too calm tone that make nurses professionals, that Heather might not get an epideral, the room hushed. What are you talking about, no epideral? No way. That is not how this was supposed to go. She's not ready for a natural birth. I'm not ready for a natural birth.

The nurses called for the doctor and started setting up the room to receive Cole. Two tables and several pairs of clamps found a place in the room. Heather breathed and twisted her face into expressions of pain that I had never seen before. I wanted to reach in and take some of her pain from her. John was scared at how fast it was all moving and began to sob in a way not ever expected from a man as tall as he is. He rubbed her head and heaved his body up and down. Her mom moved in and held her hand, reminding her to breathe, trying to bring John back to her. Prayers, pleas, groans and fear came from Heather's mouth. She said she couldn't do this, but at that point she had no choice. Her body was just a tool that nature was using to further its own agenda. She almost cried when she said, "It burns so bad," and then whispered to God to get her through this.

I was stunned. John was sobbing. Jan was coaxing. Heather was breathing and had retreated to someplace deep inside herself that the rest of us couldn't even imagine. I think it's where you go if you're ever assaulted or shot or kidnapped or in a car accident or have a really violent parent, that place where your body keeps you from fully understanding what is happening to you. Just then, something screamed.

Cole was bloody and small with blue hands and feet. He kicked his legs and splayed out his fingers. His nose and eyes and lips were too big for his tiny face. He was like a raging loaf of bread. His cries expanded his little chest and puffs of air came out with them. John cut the cord, and the baby was placed on his mommy's chest. Heather, who is one of the most modest people I know except when it comes to gas, sat accessible and courageous in the bed, color rushing back to her face as quickly as it dripped from her body. Cole blinked his milky blue eyes and the nurses cleaned him up, took his footprints, and gave him the Wall family ID bracelet. His six-pound body was the most active it will be for the next two months in its first two hours.

I still can't imagine what it is like for him. Leaving the warm fluid world inside his mother's body and coming into ours, rotten with gravity and changing temperatures and oxygen. How does he know to breathe? How can he transition from an aquatic environment to an atmospheric one without any knowledge? How amazing is his little body? How amazing is his mother's that it was able to grow him?

Seeing Cole come to life changed mine. It wasn't beautiful or romantic or meaningful in the way they want you to think it is. It was rugged, awful, scary, thrilling and dangerous. It was a miracle -- that people can survive the process is a miracle, that people repeatedly go through childbirth is a miracle, that children never fully have to understand what their mothers went through to bring them into this world is a miracle.