I recently had to write an essay in English about an event that changed my life, and of course I picked Campbell's birth.

On the morning of his First Birthday, I thought I would share it with you.

 

Forever Changed by a Crooked Smile

The morning of Saturday, the ninth of October started out innocently enough; my very pregnant wife, Megan, was in full nesting mode. The baby was due in just a few days, and Megan had an uncontrollable urge to clean the house, so clean we did. The two of us are not what you would call the most fastidiously neat people, so we had quite a bit of work ahead of us. After spending the morning inside, we moved to the backyard to do some lawn work. Well, I did lawn work while Megan supervised.

Sometime in the early afternoon, around 2:30 or so, Megan felt…something. She stood and said, “I think my water just broke.”

“Really?” I yelped. I realized the obviousness of her statement when I noticed her khakis were all wet.

“Maybe you just peed?” I asked. It is not unheard of for pregnant women to lose a little control of their bladder now and again.

“Are you kidding?” was Megan’s reply. She was now standing in a small puddle.
I was finding it hard to stand at all. I wanted to leave right then and go to the hospital, but Megan pointed out that we had been working all day and were quite sweaty. We proceeded inside, and I followed Megan up the stairs. She got undressed and took a shower in our bathroom, a nice and leisurely one seeing as she hadn’t felt any contractions yet. I, on the other hand, took the fastest shower I’ve ever taken. It couldn’t have been longer than thirty seconds. I was in full “Panicky Expectant Father” mode. Luckily, we had prepared a list of everything we needed to bring to the hospital, and I quickly packed everything up, and by the time Megan was ready, I was waiting by the top of the stairs.

Because we called ahead to let the Birth Center know we were coming, they were prepared for us. I wheeled Megan up to the third floor, and we were shown to our room – a warm and cozy birth suite, everything designed to look homey and inviting, but it all can be changed in a heartbeat into a state-of-the-art birthing center.

On the way to the room, Megan started having her first contraction, and she found it a bit…intense. She called the nurse and told her to please call the anesthesiologist right away as she would be needing an epidural. About twenty minutes later, the anesthesiologist came in and started laying out his equipment. The nurse sat Megan up, and I helped hold her steady as the doctor got to work. He pulled out a very long but very thin needle and had just inserted it into her back when Megan said, “Ouch!”

He stopped in a panic and exclaimed, “What? Am I hurting you?”

Megan replied, “No – it’s a contraction!”

The doctor said, “Well don’t say ‘ouch’ unless it’s because of me!”

With the epidural in, it would take about a half hour for it to reach full potency, so the nurse said that seeing as how it had been about six hours since I had eaten, it would be a good idea for me to run and grab something to eat. Megan could not eat anything because of the whole baby thing, and I felt bad – but not bad enough to forgo dinner. I tried to go to the hospital cafeteria, but it was closed. A janitor mentioned the coffee shop might be open. They were – but all they had were sweets. I needed sustenance for the long night ahead, so I drove to Portillo’s and grabbed an Italian beef, fries and a chocolate shake. Being the loving, thoughtful husband that I am, I chose to eat in the car. Mainly I did it because I think Megan would have broken my arm if I brought all that up to the room while she was starving.

Once I was fed, I made my way back up to the room. We had brought a laptop and some DVDs, so we could watch movies while we waited, so I plugged it in, and we began to watch Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. We cuddled up on the bed together and turned out the light with only the laptop and medical equipment to light the room.

It was about twenty minutes into the movie, and Frodo and the Hobbits were hiding from the Ringwraith, when Megan suggested we call the nurse to check on her. It was right up to this point that we were still convinced that we were going to be there for a long time. Megan’s cousin was in labor for seventeen hours! So, imagine our surprise when the nurse came in and checked Megan and informed us, “Well, you’re ready to start pushing.”

“Um…excuse me?” I blurted, “What do you mean?”

The nurse continued, “Well, Megan’s fully dilated, and we need her to start pushing this baby out!” I hurriedly put away the laptop and mentally prepared myself for what was to come.

The nurse turned the lights back on, and Megan and I squinted at the sudden shock to our eyes. The obstetrician arrived, and she began to run the show with whip-crack precision. Now, I must mention that from the moment Megan learned she was pregnant, she was very adamant about me not being anywhere near “down there.” I was to be only up close to her face, cheering her on and coaching her breathing. So when the nurse said, “OK, Dad, we’re going to need you to hold her left leg while I hold her right,” I was a little nervous. I waited for Megan to say something, but she was a little preoccupied, so either she didn’t notice or she didn’t care. As the contractions came, the nurse and I held her legs back while Megan pushed, but she wasn’t mastering them as well as the doctor would like.

The doctor said, “Grab your thighs and pull like you’re rowing a boat.” Little did the doctor know that Megan rowed crew at Oklahoma State for three years. With that analogy in mind, Megan pushed like a gold medalist.

Megan pushed and pushed, and I coached her by counting off every ten seconds. She was doing great; it had been about a half an hour since she started pushing, and she was making great headway (no pun intended), but she still had a while to go. Every time she had a contraction, the head crowned, but as it subsided, the head was pulled back in. Much to Megan’s dismay, I had a front row seat to the event. I tried to cajole her, “No, sweetie. I can hardly see anything.”

After about another hour, Megan was getting very close to delivering. The nurse flipped a switch on the wall, and lights popped out of the ceiling, the bed transformed into a receiving area and all the machines turned on. I have to admit, it was pretty neat. Just then, the obstetrician mentioned an episiotomy (guys - WARNING). Now, I’m no ignorant husband – I knew full well what that was. What I was NOT prepared for is how quickly it was done. No sooner had she said it then she had her scissors out and snip-snip – it was done. Megan screamed. I can’t imagine why.

Now I would like to make a parenthetical aside to point out that Megan and I did not know the sex of the baby. We wanted to be surprised. And surprised we would be.
One more push – she’s almost done. One more – and the head is out. “The head is out!” yelled the doctor.

“What is it?” Megan cried.

“A HEAD!” the doctor and I shouted in unison. One more push for the shoulders…and our son was born.

My brother and two sisters all had a daughter for their first child – so I was totally convinced that we were going to have a girl. I was in a state of total disbelief when I saw that he was a boy. We agreed ahead of time that if we had a boy, we would give him Megan’s maiden name, which is Gaelic for “crooked smile.” I looked at him and softly said his name – “Campbell.”

I stood there, overcome with awe and joy and crying like a baby. Campbell’s wailing easily drowned mine out. The nurse pushed scissors into my hand, and I cut the umbilical cord – it was tough and fibrous – like cutting a garden hose. I followed her as she took Campbell to the incubator where she wiped the cheesy vernix from his body. Campbell was weighed, measured, tested and given an ID band. She inked his feet and pressed his foot onto an identification card. She wrapped him in a blanket, and I was finally allowed to hold my son.

Words like “happy,” “joy” and “relief” didn’t mean anything anymore. I was feeling what millions of fathers and mothers have felt throughout history, and yet – it was entirely new for me. It must be boring for someone who has never had a child to hear, but it must be said – I fell madly in love with this boy. I’m not an especially cold or reserved man; I don’t hold my emotions in, but I have never in my life cried the way I did when I held this little baby who was staring up at me.

I brought him to Megan and she held her son for the first time. We looked back and forth, from Campbell to each other, unable to wrap our heads around what had just transpired. We took turns holding him and gently calling his name. After the first ten minutes, his crying subsided and he was remarkably alert. We knew that he couldn’t see yet, but the way his eyes moved around – well, you can forgive us if we made believe that he saw us.

Look at how much he's grown!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMPBELL!!

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