The Day My Life Changed Forever
The day my daughter was born was both one of the best and most trying days of my life. It started around eight oclock in the morning on Halloween, (though it should have started five hours earlier) and ended about ten oclock the following morning. I probably went through every emotion there is that day. I went from excitement to nervousness, from being happy to being so furious I could hardly breathe and from being depressed and nervous to being so happy I couldnt stop crying.
On Saturday morning October 31, 1998, around eight oclock, I was woken up by my mother telling me that Nicole, (my ex-wife), had just gone into labor and that she was at Spear Memorial Hospital in Plymouth, NH. I had been, on edge, waiting for that call for weeks. She had been due to have my daughter on October twelfth and with each passing day my anxiety seemed to grow and grow. I jumped off the couch (that was where I had been sleeping since I moved back in with my parents after Nicole and I had separated), and got ready as fast as I could. Im not even sure I took a shower because everything was such a blur.
My mother had to drive me to the hospital because I had lost my license earlier that year for failing to pay a traffic ticket. I remember on the way there thinking about how my life was going to change and about the type of father I hoped I was going to be. I also remember thinking that I was going to remember every detail of the ride; the songs on the radio, the weather, the conversations my mother and I were having, everything! I can honestly say now that I dont think I have ever been more wrong about anything in my entire life. What happened during the next twenty four plus hours would prove that.
When we arrived at the hospital my mother and I went to the nurses station and found out where Nicoles room was, and then went upstairs to be with her. When we were just outside her door I froze, finding it hard to go in. When we were married she had hurt me in emotional and (though most people think that only men do this to a women) physical ways. It was hard to know I had to go in and spend time with her and help her feel comfortable. When I finally worked up the courage to go in I found that she had many of her friends there with her. I know it may sound selfish but I had no problem with that because it would lessen the burden I would have to be under emotionally.
I said my hellos and asked if there was anything I could do to help. We got to talking and I asked how the labor pains were and how long they thought it would be until the actual delivery. She told me that the pain had been okay so far and that no one really knew how long it would be. I also asked how everything had been going since she had arrived at the hospital. She told me that everyone had been helpful. Then went on to say that around midnight she had started to get labor pains and that she had decided around two or two-thirty that they were for real and that she should go into the hospital. The fact that she had been there since three oclock and had not bothered to call me until five hours later made me so furious I had to stand up and walk to the other side of the room to give myself a moment to calm down. All I could think of was, what if the labor had been short and I had not been able to make it in time. I would not have been there when my daughter was born. I asked her why she hadnt called me sooner and she replied, I thought I would let you sleep a little longer. I know this wasnt the true reason, (and I still dont feel I know the truth) because she had never been so considerate of me in the past and I doubt she would have started then. But for the sake of keeping things calm in the face of what was to come I kept my thoughts to myself, even though all I really wanted to do was jump down her throat about it.
A short while later she started to go into more labor pains and I did my best to help her through them. I put on my best I like this face and held one of her hands and let her squeeze it, as her friend, Heidi, gave her ice chips and rubbed her back. I really did want it to go as smoothly as possible and was prepared to endure whatever I had to.
A nurse who had been helping her since she had arrived asked if Nicole thought she wanted some pain medication. At the time I had absolutely no objections. I asked how long it would last and the nurse told me about five hours. What I didnt know at the time was that, yes the pain medications relieve the pain for five hours but they also slow down the birthing process by about five hours. She received pain medication two more times during the course of her labor. Now I do not pretend to even begin to recognize the amount of pain a woman must go through when she is giving birth but it was hard not to be frustrated. I wanted to tell her that sooner or later she was going to have to just suck it up and deal with it. And again I internalized it all as I had done before.
It had been twenty or more hours since I had arrived at the hospital and this was starting to get to me: the wanting to express my feelings but knowing that in the best interest of my child I should just keep my mouth shut. It ended up coming all out in the hall when Heidi, who had been helping her during labor and had gone to the Lamaze classes with her, started lecturing me about what I should be doing and how I should have been there more for Nicole during the pregnancy. Also she was telling me that I was being selfish for divorcing her. It all made me extremely angry. No one knew (or probably even knows now) what went on in our relationship. And for her to be saying that she expected me (or anyone else for that matter) to suffer and endure the things I went through was the, proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I couldnt contain my feelings any longer. I started yelling at her (in what, in retrospect, was probably angry incoherent gibberish), that I had done everything in my power to help her. I had gone to all the doctors appointments and even stayed married to her so that she could be on my medical insurance during her pregnancy. She said that I should have been the one to go to the Lamaze classes with her. I said that Nicole and I had talked about it and decided that it was in our best interest for me to keep working (I was working second shift) and that for her it would be more comfortable going with Heidi, anyway. Now I was not being very discrete about what I was saying and a nurse came over and confronted me saying that I would either have to calm down or leave. I knew it wouldnt take much to be asked to leave, permanently, because I had already gotten the feeling that the nurses already looked at me as a deadbeat dad, so I walked away and tried to calm myself down.
When I came back thirty minutes later she had started having labor pains again and I was told that this was going to be it. With all of the nurses and Heidi in the delivery room I felt that it was just best for me to be out of the way, so I stood off to the side and watched. Everything that you see on television during those birthing programs happened except it took so long that they started to worry about my daughter dieing from lack of oxygen. The doctors decided that they should do a cesarean section and prepared everything for Nicoles move to the operating room. They asked me to leave because only Nicole and her birthing partner would be allowed in the operating room, so I left. Apparently after I left the nurses decided that Nicole should attempt one last push before they moved her. And while I was out of the room, at seven oclock on the morning of November first, in the year of nineteen hundred and ninety eight, my daughter, Alexandra Skye, was born.
Afterwards they let me back into the room and I saw that they had cleaned Alex up and given her to Nicole to hold. This was the last time I remember, enjoying seeing my ex-wife. They told her that they had to take Alex to weigh and measure her and asked me if I wanted to come along.
I followed them to a room down the hall where they poked, prodded, weighed and measured my daughter. The whole time they were doing this I just sat on the floor. I couldnt stand because either I was too tired after the long day and night or because I was using all of my energy looking at and feeling things about my daughter, most likely both of them.
Then they asked me if I wanted to hold my daughter. All I could do was nod my head. They handed her to me while I was still sitting on the floor. Now I have heard people say that you come to a whole new realization about life when you have children and it is true. When I held her for the first time the whole world ceased to exist. All there was was her. I just looked at her as tears streamed down my face.
I made a lot of promises to her. Some of the promises I made were that I would always be there for her, that I would work to give her every opportunity she deserved and probably many others. Im not sure I have kept them all but what I do know is that I have always tried to be the best father I can be.
That day was a day I learned my life was going to change in ways I could not fathom. I have realized this again many times since that day. This realization will continue to help me to grow as a father. I would hate too think that I have failed to remember the lessons I learned that day and grow because of them. For I believe that would be the beginning of my failure to become a good father.
The day my daughter was born was both one of the best and most trying days of my life. It started around eight oclock in the morning on Halloween, (though it should have started five hours earlier) and ended about ten oclock the following morning. I probably went through every emotion there is that day. I went from excitement to nervousness, from being happy to being so furious I could hardly breathe and from being depressed and nervous to being so happy I couldnt stop crying.
On Saturday morning October 31, 1998, around eight oclock, I was woken up by my mother telling me that Nicole, (my ex-wife), had just gone into labor and that she was at Spear Memorial Hospital in Plymouth, NH. I had been, on edge, waiting for that call for weeks. She had been due to have my daughter on October twelfth and with each passing day my anxiety seemed to grow and grow. I jumped off the couch (that was where I had been sleeping since I moved back in with my parents after Nicole and I had separated), and got ready as fast as I could. Im not even sure I took a shower because everything was such a blur.
My mother had to drive me to the hospital because I had lost my license earlier that year for failing to pay a traffic ticket. I remember on the way there thinking about how my life was going to change and about the type of father I hoped I was going to be. I also remember thinking that I was going to remember every detail of the ride; the songs on the radio, the weather, the conversations my mother and I were having, everything! I can honestly say now that I dont think I have ever been more wrong about anything in my entire life. What happened during the next twenty four plus hours would prove that.
When we arrived at the hospital my mother and I went to the nurses station and found out where Nicoles room was, and then went upstairs to be with her. When we were just outside her door I froze, finding it hard to go in. When we were married she had hurt me in emotional and (though most people think that only men do this to a women) physical ways. It was hard to know I had to go in and spend time with her and help her feel comfortable. When I finally worked up the courage to go in I found that she had many of her friends there with her. I know it may sound selfish but I had no problem with that because it would lessen the burden I would have to be under emotionally.
I said my hellos and asked if there was anything I could do to help. We got to talking and I asked how the labor pains were and how long they thought it would be until the actual delivery. She told me that the pain had been okay so far and that no one really knew how long it would be. I also asked how everything had been going since she had arrived at the hospital. She told me that everyone had been helpful. Then went on to say that around midnight she had started to get labor pains and that she had decided around two or two-thirty that they were for real and that she should go into the hospital. The fact that she had been there since three oclock and had not bothered to call me until five hours later made me so furious I had to stand up and walk to the other side of the room to give myself a moment to calm down. All I could think of was, what if the labor had been short and I had not been able to make it in time. I would not have been there when my daughter was born. I asked her why she hadnt called me sooner and she replied, I thought I would let you sleep a little longer. I know this wasnt the true reason, (and I still dont feel I know the truth) because she had never been so considerate of me in the past and I doubt she would have started then. But for the sake of keeping things calm in the face of what was to come I kept my thoughts to myself, even though all I really wanted to do was jump down her throat about it.
A short while later she started to go into more labor pains and I did my best to help her through them. I put on my best I like this face and held one of her hands and let her squeeze it, as her friend, Heidi, gave her ice chips and rubbed her back. I really did want it to go as smoothly as possible and was prepared to endure whatever I had to.
A nurse who had been helping her since she had arrived asked if Nicole thought she wanted some pain medication. At the time I had absolutely no objections. I asked how long it would last and the nurse told me about five hours. What I didnt know at the time was that, yes the pain medications relieve the pain for five hours but they also slow down the birthing process by about five hours. She received pain medication two more times during the course of her labor. Now I do not pretend to even begin to recognize the amount of pain a woman must go through when she is giving birth but it was hard not to be frustrated. I wanted to tell her that sooner or later she was going to have to just suck it up and deal with it. And again I internalized it all as I had done before.
It had been twenty or more hours since I had arrived at the hospital and this was starting to get to me: the wanting to express my feelings but knowing that in the best interest of my child I should just keep my mouth shut. It ended up coming all out in the hall when Heidi, who had been helping her during labor and had gone to the Lamaze classes with her, started lecturing me about what I should be doing and how I should have been there more for Nicole during the pregnancy. Also she was telling me that I was being selfish for divorcing her. It all made me extremely angry. No one knew (or probably even knows now) what went on in our relationship. And for her to be saying that she expected me (or anyone else for that matter) to suffer and endure the things I went through was the, proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I couldnt contain my feelings any longer. I started yelling at her (in what, in retrospect, was probably angry incoherent gibberish), that I had done everything in my power to help her. I had gone to all the doctors appointments and even stayed married to her so that she could be on my medical insurance during her pregnancy. She said that I should have been the one to go to the Lamaze classes with her. I said that Nicole and I had talked about it and decided that it was in our best interest for me to keep working (I was working second shift) and that for her it would be more comfortable going with Heidi, anyway. Now I was not being very discrete about what I was saying and a nurse came over and confronted me saying that I would either have to calm down or leave. I knew it wouldnt take much to be asked to leave, permanently, because I had already gotten the feeling that the nurses already looked at me as a deadbeat dad, so I walked away and tried to calm myself down.
When I came back thirty minutes later she had started having labor pains again and I was told that this was going to be it. With all of the nurses and Heidi in the delivery room I felt that it was just best for me to be out of the way, so I stood off to the side and watched. Everything that you see on television during those birthing programs happened except it took so long that they started to worry about my daughter dieing from lack of oxygen. The doctors decided that they should do a cesarean section and prepared everything for Nicoles move to the operating room. They asked me to leave because only Nicole and her birthing partner would be allowed in the operating room, so I left. Apparently after I left the nurses decided that Nicole should attempt one last push before they moved her. And while I was out of the room, at seven oclock on the morning of November first, in the year of nineteen hundred and ninety eight, my daughter, Alexandra Skye, was born.
Afterwards they let me back into the room and I saw that they had cleaned Alex up and given her to Nicole to hold. This was the last time I remember, enjoying seeing my ex-wife. They told her that they had to take Alex to weigh and measure her and asked me if I wanted to come along.
I followed them to a room down the hall where they poked, prodded, weighed and measured my daughter. The whole time they were doing this I just sat on the floor. I couldnt stand because either I was too tired after the long day and night or because I was using all of my energy looking at and feeling things about my daughter, most likely both of them.
Then they asked me if I wanted to hold my daughter. All I could do was nod my head. They handed her to me while I was still sitting on the floor. Now I have heard people say that you come to a whole new realization about life when you have children and it is true. When I held her for the first time the whole world ceased to exist. All there was was her. I just looked at her as tears streamed down my face.
I made a lot of promises to her. Some of the promises I made were that I would always be there for her, that I would work to give her every opportunity she deserved and probably many others. Im not sure I have kept them all but what I do know is that I have always tried to be the best father I can be.
That day was a day I learned my life was going to change in ways I could not fathom. I have realized this again many times since that day. This realization will continue to help me to grow as a father. I would hate too think that I have failed to remember the lessons I learned that day and grow because of them. For I believe that would be the beginning of my failure to become a good father.