A new day, a new Bean

“I have never peed on myself.”

“You have never been pregnant before either,” Dr. Pettigrew said in a tone that ended discussion.

I was 36-weeks pregnant.  Dr. Pettigrew was my OB. She was old as dirt with steel gray hair, wire rimmed glasses, sensible shoes and a no-nonsense attitude, and, frankly, she scared the hell out of me.

The idea that I might have tinkled on myself also scared the hell out of me.  What had I gotten myself into?  No one mentioned incontinence when I embarked on my journey to become a single mother.  An image of myself in disguise surreptitiously searching for Depends on the personal hygiene isle of the drug store came to mind, and I had an anxiety attack.

Two weeks later I was standing in the checkout line to buy yet more baby stuff when something warm trickled down my leg.  Shit!  Did I just pee on myself?!

When I called Dr. P., she told me to meet her at the hospital with my bag.

“Can I have two hours?” I asked.  “I’m not packed.”  I could hear the disapproval in her silence.

At the hospital I learned that I was leaking amniotic fluid, which meant that infection was now a risk, so I would be given an IV drip of Petocin to induce labor.  It was a full moon and I wasn’t so sure that my stars were aligned because A) everyone I called to tell that I was in labor thought that I was playing an April Fool’s joke, and it wasn’t even April—it was October for crying out loud, and B) they were all MIA.

Mimi was at a family reunion two states away.  Sarah, who was supposed to be my birthing coach, was in New York City at a conference. Joe was laid up in the bed with a cold.  Bell and Zoro were on a sisters’ retreat to parts unknown.  And, Papa, who joked about being at the bottom of my list, was out in the harbor sailing.  Fortunately, he wasn’t that far out and was at the hospital within two hours.

Papa showed up at the hospital more talkative than usual.  I think he’d been drinking beer.  Beans like to talk.  This is a fact. If you’re talked out, that’s okay, you just nod appropriately, and Papa is happy.  And if you appear to be losing enthusiasm, that’s okay too—he whips out his cell phone and calls someone else, and when he talks on his cell phone, he talks like he’s hard of hearing—very loud—I think this is to make sure that the person on the other end understands every word he is saying, but it’s very unsettling if you happen to be in the room with him and you are trying to have a baby.

Actually, it took my mind off of things, except when I was having one of those nasty contractions and then I would suck in breath, and Papa would be respectfully quiet.  He also flirted with Battleaxe Pettigrew, who started being nice to me because either A) she was charmed or B) she felt sorry for me.

We turned the TV on while we waited.  For once, Andy Griffith was not on TV Land (Papa and I both love to watch black and white episodes of Andy Griffith), so we flipped between the cooking channel and American Movie Classic.  Outside a thunderstorm that we could not hear in the sound-proof hospital raged, and we caught glints of lightening through the windows.

And then it was time.  Pettigrew told Papa to go to the waiting room for two hours, and the contractions turned mean and the epidural lost its juice.

“Dr. Pettigrew, I mean no disrespect, but you either need to ram up that epidural or do a C-section.”

She ignored me and told me to push, which, of course, was good advice, and Beans follow good advice.  Beans do not like pain either, and I was over the whole thing, so when I pushed, I pushed gutturally like Pettigrew was holding a gun to my head.  I pushed so hard I could feel the veins protruding from my temples. I pushed so hard that the baby was out in 15 minutes.

Papa had hardly had a chance to sit down when he heard Jax crying, and, of course, he came running back…. It’s a bit disconcerting to have just given birth and to have your father standing on the other side of the curtain.  Papa waxed and waned poetic and puffed up a little.  After three daughters and almost four decades, he had had zero hope of the Bean name continuing, so this was a big deal. 

Jax was all pink and wrinkly just like he was supposed to be with 10 fingers and 10 toes.  Despite his early arrival, he was a good size at 7-pounds, 10 ounces.  The nurses swaddled him and put a little blue knit cap on his baby head, and Papa held him while I celebrated with a roastbeef sandwich, canned fruit, chocolate cake and something carbonated and nonalcoholic.  During the commotion, the rain had stopped and another day had slipped in, bringing with it my own little rainbow that lay bundled in Papa’s arms. 

A new Bean had arrived.