On January 24, 2008 my wife began her first
day on leave from work. She was nine months pregnant, and wanted the last days or
weeks of pregnancy to be at home, gathering up
her strength and thoughts before the big moment
of labor began. A bookish, geeky introvert -she
was looking forward to a few days alone read-
ing, journaling, knitting and napping.
This loner's paradise was interrupted around 2
PM that day, when she called me and said her
water had broke. We were employees at the
same company -a tech company with less than
twenty employees, unknown locally, but an
Emmy winning technology used by news organzations worldwide. I came downstairs from my
hot, loud R&D laboratory and told the CEO and
CTO the news. They told me to go, immediately, and someone offered to rush me home.
We live in the inner city, half hour walk from
work, and don't need a car. So our drama of the
going-into-labor car race to the hospital was dif-
ferent from Hollywood's standard script. We
called a taxi. Actually, we packed up our sup-
plies (snacks, clothes, more snacks, and the
kitchen sink), went outside, dialed for a taxi
from our cell phone, and waited. Patiently. The
stories of a rushed affair during this phase of
giving birth are pure fiction, statistically. I en-
joyed seeing our neighborhood environs in a
new light of meaning, standing there waiting
with my life partner and knowing we would re-
turn with a new life partner.
The taxicab driver was surprised he was driving a woman in early stages of labor to the hospital. He was supportive in every way. He drove
at the legal speed limit, and told his stories
about childbirth. It was a great way to get to the
hospital in this situation.
Upon arrival at the hospital, we were first
sent to maternity triage, where they determine
whether or not it was a false start, and whether
or not to send you home or to a birthing suite.
They found there was a rupture of the protective
sack around the baby, meaning germs could now
travel from the outside world to him. He had to
be born before the bad germs caused infection.
Natural processes don't receive orders to do
something at a specific point in time, but they
can be encouraged to move along. We didn't get
sent to a room where a doctor induced labor and
out popped a baby. We were instructed our best
option was to walk the hallways of the hospital,
for about an hour and half, to enlist gravity and
working torso muscles to push the baby into a
better position for birth.
For me, this was another one of those great
moments in our lives together. It was kind of
surreal romantic -the quiet, sterilized, well deco-
rated hallways with a view of the city; us hold-
ing hands and being very much a couple. We
walked around an area of the hospital full of of-
fices and seminar rooms, and it was after 5PM,
so almost no one was there. At this stage there
was little discomfort for my wife, so the walk
was truly enjoyable; a walk that had an added
dimension to "recreational". We have photos of
us on those walks, and it looks like the most
romantic date, the kind of date where the couple
only knows about each other.
2 PM, January 25th. My wife had been in la-
bor seventeen hours. The doctors have figured
out there is an urgent problem: the umbilical
cord is wrapped around our son's neck, and he is
slowly choking. Another complication: he is
very large and not fitting through the passage-
way. My wife and son were both in dire trouble.
At this point I remember the room full of
mostly women. Maybe this was a continuum of
an ancient pattern, a pattern repeated across the
full spectrum of races and cultures. Women
clustered around and in charge of baby having.
Maybe so, but these women had something
more they bought to the room -professional and
intellectual empowerment. They had years of
hard science and practical, physical experience
delivering babies to inform this moment.
We were at the top hospital for having babies
in the Northwest section of the United States.
Seven hundred babies a month. World-
renowned physicians, teams and programs. I'm
not writing a promotional brochure right now,
these things matter in the speeding calculus of
the moment when your wife and son might live
or die. So it mattered, it registered as important,
when they said a doctor renowned for her spe-
cial ability at surgically altering the birth passa-
geway was on her way to the room. When she
entered, the entire room gave her a privileged
deference. In hindsight I'd say it was because
she's smarter than most and gets it done.
The doctors did the surgical work, and told
us we only had the next wave of contractions to
get the baby out, and if that didn't work we'd
have no choice but try a C-section. The waves
came in three pushes. My wife pushed so hard
on the first push, then the second, when that
failed I felt we were up against a wall of last
chance. She began the third push. I looked down
and saw the baby's head totally outside her
body. He was out and on the clean up table
shortly. I still recall almost every second of the
next fifteen minutes, especially the first time he
ever opened an eye, and looked at his mom.
Months after all this my wife and I talked a
lot about what happened during North's birth. I
came to a realization, and my wife agrees, that if
we had done this birth at home, or even been at
a less advanced hospital, North would not be
alive. Maybe even my wife wouldn't be alive.
At the hospital we had two friends lending
their presence and support through a lot of that
eighteen hours. They are women with a strong
identification with natural childbirth, and "na-
ture is best" in general. I appreciate their friend-
ship, care and support towards my wife. Blunt
statement: I am so thankful their values were not
in control, I'm so glad our (female) medical
science doctors were in control. That childbirth
suite had a hierarchy of values, knowledge, wis-
dom, and practical application far superior, in
any respect, to the folkways world of natural
childbirth. How can I make such a grand and
sweeping assessment of such a complex cross-cultural domain that involves women more than
it involves men?
Because my son, and maybe my wife, would
be dead. If natural childbirth had been our
choice. And in places where natural childbirth is
the only choice, there are a lot of men who do
not hold their child or wife, because they are
dead.
Across a lot of time and cultures (from the
white Protestant American Old West, to Muslim
Turkey, to Confucian China) there are large
swaths of family mores where the men are aloof
-taking themselves seriously as businessmen,
political leaders or warriors; and offering no
deep peer connection with their wives and children. We may never figure out all the causes for
this kind of society. But I do think I've figured
out one cause for men's aloofness and detach-
ment from their mates: the high death rate for
mothers and their babies during childbirth. I am
not putting up a stopgap to Feminist's perennial
critique of these male-dominant societies, I
think Feminists are right in their negative ap-
praisal of many societies. But it makes sense on
a certain level: to not become too attached to
someone very likely to die through the course of
what you both will be doing a lot of; having sex
and having kids. Lots of wives and lots of at-
tempts at childbirth are a way to leap over the
statistical wall of death that faces those without
the aid of medical science.
I'm glad I don't face that stark and cruel
world without science, where my deepest and
most meaningful bonds to my wife and son
would not be encouraged. I like being in love
with them.
Love
-it's what our modern civilized life affords.
Chapter 2: Skilled Public Workers versus Zombies on TV
