Jael's Journey: A (very different sort of) Birth Story, Part 3

(Another disclaimer:  What Rach and I realized is that due to events that happened immediately after the birth story, I have shut this day away in the 'do not disturb' memory vault for nine months and am actually just processing it now in my head while I process it in writing, so it probably won't be as lyrical as normal... )




  Have you ever seen a newborn be a complete afterthought in a maternity ward?  I have.  The commotion had started about 10:00 am, when the hulking nursing student (I kid you not, he was a football player from Endicott College who must have weighed 235 and was built like an ox) couldn't get her temperature to read out on the vitals display.  His supervisor oh-so-gently chided him and showed him how to do it, except (surprise!) she couldn't get a reading either.  After a wee bit of internal hemming and hawing, a third nurse (Cassie!) showed up with a temporal reader and immediately said, "That can't be right!" when 93.4 showed up on her little display.  So she took it again.  93.1.  Keep in mind, these were not local radio stations.  They were my wife's core temperature.  She couldn't keep food down; she couldn't keep water down, and the IVs they were giving her for fluids were actually bringing her temperature down even further.  I WAS FREAKING OUT.  You could tell because I had my completely stoic face on.  Right, you couldn't tell, but I WAS FREAKING OUT.  By 11:30, I was making mental plans in my head of what I would say at her funeral if I was going to be a widower with three tiny kids...  and frantically trying to think of who would watch them when I eventually dragged my grieving ass back to work.  Isn't it odd what happens when your mind goes down the rabbit hole?  All the while, I sat almost motionlessly in the corner holding the tiny Jaelster and praying while teams of nurses (and a doctor) poured in and out to Rachel, trying various things to find out what was wrong and raise her temperature.  They tried not to talk in front of me, but I didn't get a 1570 on my SAT's (back when you didn't get that for signing your name) for nothing.  I knew what was unfolding in front of me.

      And yet, amidst that, there was grace.  Rachel never lost consciousness.  Around 12:30, her temperature was reading 89.2 -- at least the last one I looked at.  I stopped looking around that point. because my mind could no longer reconcile the number appearing on the temporal scanner with the grace-filled reality in front of me that Rachel never once passed out, and if she was really tired and displayed some pretty funny mental lapses, we gave her a pass.

       Instead of terror, there came peace.  From time to time Jael would wake up and I would comfort her or give her a bottle.  Nurses kept asking me if I wanted to put her in the bassinet;  I just wanted Jael to know that even if her mom was too busy fighting for her life to do anything but make a dopey attempt to nurse her here and there, she still had someone to hold her.

       2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

                                       ---Psalm 23:2-4 (KJV)

  And then, the tide turned.  Cassie, who would be simply my favorite person in the room by day's end, had suggested earlier that there might be a special blanket, and she took it upon herself to track one down... it was specialized enough equipment that no one really knew what it was at first.  When it finally came into the room, I would have smirked if my smirking apparatus had completely failed hours ago.  It was a giant plastic inflatable object (think a in-pool lounger) attached to a bomb heater pumping in 130 degree air.  Essentially, the Sahara Desert in portable form. 

  Sometimes, a little hope is all you need.  Within ten minutes, her temperature rose drastically to 89.8.  Now when you consider that 90 degrees or so is acute hypothermia and many people with that temp are corpses soon after, it might sound bad, but it's all relative.  By the time she got back up to 92 degrees around 2:15, I was positively euphoric.  I knew that I thought she might actually live to see another day when The Police's "Cold as Ice" started pulsing through my head.  ( A side note where I briefly brag about just how tough Rachel is: about 2:30 our pediatrician, who is actually one of her employers, came in to do a routine check on Jael.  Further side note: this would be the last time in Jael's life that there was a pretense of a routine visit.  Ah the good old days.  Anyways, he came in to see Jael and I'll be damned if Rach didn't (with a core temp of give or take 92.5 at this point) sit up and start talking to him like nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.  Whatever else she might be, I'm pretty sure my beautiful wife is the PERFECT employee.)

   Potentially the most heartbreaking part of the day came around 3:30, when we decided that even though her temp was coming up, she should be moved to the ICU for the night to make sure that she was surrounded by urgent care nurses day and night in case anything went sideways again. When we relayed the info to Rachel, she thought about it briefly and said, "Thanks, but I don't think that's a good idea.  I don't see how I can have Jael brought down to the ICU to be nursed every two hours."  It was an astonishing glimpse into her thoughts.  Indeed, little miss Jael would not be coming down every two hours that night-- or at all.  Though she had indeed walked through the valley of the shadow, Rachel would have to walk (and hopefully, sleep) through another night before she could get to know Jael at all. 

Tomorrow, the final episode...