The couple whose delivering their baby

The Couple Whose Delivering Their Baby Waiting for a child and especially delivering are always very exciting and responsible times for expectant parents. Many future fathers want to help their wives in delivery rooms, support them, and share the hardest and most important moments of childbirth. Watching the process of giving birth, expectant fathers always get shocked, stunned, amazed, but then they recognize the miracle of delivering a baby and describe these moments as ” transcendental”.
In the evening of September 16th, 1994, a couple of first-time expectant parents, Cheryl and Phillip, gathered at home for dinner. They were about to enjoy their meals, when the wife suddenly felt first calls for contractions. Excited husband started calling the obstetricians, but the office was closed for a Jewish holiday. Then they got connected to their doctor Arita, who told Phillip to bring his wife to the hospital only when contractions are frequent and regular. Therefore, at about 10 p. m. the couple left to the marital hospital.
Closer to the midnight the expectant parents arrived to the place and were sent to an empty hospital room to wait. Phillip was very excited and could not help appreciating Cheryl’s calm and determined mood. But staying there, in the hospital, they felt as just a little part of daily turnover of future parents, that’s why it was going more and more exhausting for both of them to wait.
They escaped from the room to have a walk, then came back and watched TV for a while. When contractions grew really very strong, Cheryl’s doctor Arita finally visited the room to see the future mum. He offered painkiller, but Cheryl refused. As her health was very good and there were no fears for baby’s safety during the delivery, Cheryl wanted to give natural birth. Contractions have been getting stronger and stronger, and Cheryl tried hard to do proper breathing. Very soon her pain became unbearable and she cried for a painkiller. Phillip ran out of the room and asked doctors to give his suffering wife some Demerol. The painkiller soothed her pain, and presence of the nurses also helped Cheryl to calm down.
But in anyway the process was growing tenser and tenser. To ease Cheryl’s attempts in contractions, Phillip had to provide his wife with ice. Running from the room and back, he speculated about the role of a man in marriage and, in particular, during the delivery of a child. He felt that his physical presence was not much of help for Cheryl. She was in her own pain and treated husband as a servant, bringing ice, or as a distractive object. During the spasms it was relieving for her to grab Phillip’s belt and pull it.
This agony has been developing from 2 to 6 a. m., until doses of painkiller stopped easing Cheryl’s pain. She started crying for help and Phillip insisted on administrating epidural. Anesthesia of epidural brought relaxation to Cheryl, and at 7 a. m. she asked for some meals. Having Cheryl left under supervision of obstetricians, Phillip ran to a Greek caf to get some breakfast, thinking about coming child. He was afraid to miss the delivery.
On his return, doctor reported that Cheryl has been doing well and it was time to think over baby-girl’s name. But how could a new father think properly in all that excitement Actually, the delivery was still on, Cheryl has still been trying, but her efforts were not much enough to push the baby out. That is why doctors began thinking about using forceps. They made some tests on baby’s scull to be sure that little girl was well aerated. Until noon Cheryl continued her attempts to push again and again, but then it was time for help.
Equipped with forceps, doctors finally pulled out a little reddish body of the girl and ended 18 hours long agony of her mother. The new-born baby with a bush of black hair made Phillip ran from tears to laughter in his extreme exhilaration. He found her very pretty. This is how Lily Elena Francesca Lopate was born.
After all this experience, Phillip came to the conclusion that it was important for a man to share all the pain and suffering of his wife during childbirth, because in such significant moments the woman must not feel isolated in any meaning.
Bibliography:
Lopate, Phillip. ” Delivering Lily.” Creative Nonfiction. Issue 5: Fathers And Fatherhood. Ed. Lee Gutkind. 1996.