Jael's Journey: A (very different sort of) Birth Story, Part 1

It's always a little poignant looking back at big days in your life and realizing just how unprepared you were for them.  Sometimes I thank God for that.  There's a carefree nature to these pictures that has taken months to regain, and in some aspect we may never regain-- and that's fine.  On with Jael's birth story.

 It was a high-energy morning.  The boys knew that we were going to the hospital so "Mama could get her scratch where the baby would fall out," as LJ put it, and my mom arrived right on time to take those energetic little knights off our hands so we could get Rachel into pre-op for the C-section. ( A side note about C-sections:  I have been witness to the birth of all three of our kids now, and for whatever reason it seemed to me that a C-section would be a little neater and tidier, potentially require giving away less of your privacy, etc.  For the record, I'm an idiot. Some of the stuff that she had to go through simply for the operation is not going to be written here mainly because I'm a squeamish prude. It's pretty icky.)

 Everything went all right until we saw the anaesthesiologist, who was pretty amped up for 7:00 in the morning.  Both Rach and I were a little disconcerted by his manner, and in retrospect I probably should have been even more forceful about my fears regarding my incredibly tough wife's total inability to deal with painkillers (half a Vicoden sent her into a four-hour puking spree once), but live and learn.  Or in our case... well, you'll find out.

  By 7:30am, they were ready to begin.  They wheeled her down the hall into the OR and gave me a spacesuit to put on.  "We'll come back and get you in ten minutes," they said.  Somewhere during this span, I realized how terrified I was, even through my game face.  I was pretty sure that Rach was feeling the same way.  I had never done anything like this (how times change, eh?)  and the thought of walking into an OR was making me nauseated.  I couldn't even imagine what Rach must feel like to be lashed to a gurney, completely devoid of liquid for ten hours ("suck on some ice chips if you get thirsty" -- because you know when you get a powerful thirst, you don't want a beer, you want freaking ICE CHIPS) and about to be sliced open and have a slimy, screaming tiny human ripped out of her.  Is it super sad that every time I hear the words C-section now I immediately think of Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8? :
                          Despair thy charm, 
 14    And let the angel whom thou still hast served 
 15    Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb 
 16    Untimely ripp'd. 

  Poor Jael was about to embark on that great journey, although we were convinced that she would actually be a boy named [NAME WITHHELD IN UNLIKELY CASE A THIRD SMALL KNIGHT EVER COMES ALONG].
  The operation itself was a blur.  I stood up by Rachel's head with a charge nurse, two anaesthesiologists, a couple people for whom I had no idea of their function, and two surgeons and a resident on standby.  It was like a clown car of operating rooms.  And then... at 7:56 am, out popped our little wonder.  I say wonder because I wondered what gender she was for a good twenty seconds.  I told you I was an idiot.  I don't know why they always ask the dad to call the gender, but I'm a royal failure at it. ( I couldn't call Elijah's gender either-- his cord was way too big.)  After about 15 awkward seconds where I looked for man-parts that weren't there, I squeaked out, "It's a girl?"   And indeed it was.  Welcome to the planet, Jael Juliana ... born at 7:56am on September 26, 2013.  7lb 13 oz and 19 1/2 inches long.  As I saw her being washed and dried off to the side, I looked over and remarked offhandedly, "She looks like a little ninja."  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the truest and most poignant thing I would say all day.

 The story continues tomorrow...