The Red Tie: A Tale of Two Births

Roger had been drifting in and out of sleep for the past three hours, but now at 6:30 in the morning he was curiously awake. The fact that he was lying on a vinyl couch with a thin blanket and no sheets partially accounted for his restlessness, but of course it wasn't just that.

He rolled over and gazed out into the room. Sandy was sleeping peacefully in the bed, her usually tidy hair tangled and stringy from the night's exertions, but the wooden cradle next to her looked empty.

Roger raised his head and squinted. A lump that couldn't have been Sandy and a familiar patch of fuzzy, matted hair poking out of the blanket told him that the baby was in the bed with her. Yes, he vaguely remembered the baby crying sometime after they all had fallen asleep. Sandy must have taken him into her bed then.

He was breathing, Roger reassured himself. He couldn't actually see any movement but he was pretty sure that he was. He remembered worrying about this when Heather was little, peering into her crib, sometimes holding a finger under her nose, just to make sure. He laughed at his anxiety, probably universal to all parents, and tried to fight the urge to get up and check, but in the end he gave in.

Crouching beside the bed he thought he saw some movement but he wasn't sure. Gingerly he began to pull back the covers to get a look. There was a reassuring snort of life and a little mewling sound as the baby stirred. Roger prayed he wouldn't wake up and cursed himself for not letting a sleeping baby lie. When nothing but silence followed, he smiled and sat back down.

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When Heather was born it was so different. First of all, he and his first wife, Phyllis hadn't gone to any child birth classes. He wasn't sure they had them back then. And they certainly didn't have so many books on natural childbirth. Sandy had started reading them even before she became pregnant.

He and Phyllis had trusted the doctor unquestioningly, and asked for nothing out of the ordinary except  that Roger be allowed in the labor and delivery rooms. When the doctor hesitantly agreed, provided of course that there were no unforeseen complications, Roger prided himself for the modem father he was about to become.

He didn't remember caring about the sex of the child then. What with law school and working, he didn't have time to think much at all about what it would mean to have a baby. He was young and unprepared. So was Phyllis. But somehow they muddled through, even through the worst times.

This time around, he was pleased to have a boy. He had secretly hoped for one, although he didn't admit this, even to himself, until after the birth. He had long considered himself a feminist and was not the least disappointed when his first child had been a girl, so he was surprised and a little ashamed to find himself feeling this way. Of course he would have adored another girl, too.
 
Funny, that even though he wanted a boy, he felt a little sad that it wasn't a girl. In the last few weeks of the pregnancy, he had begun imagining what the baby would be like, sometimes as a boy and sometimes as a girl. So it was almost as if in receiving their son, they had lost the female member of a pair of twins. But thank God it wasn't twins!

But more than that, having a girl would have almost been like having another chance with Heather. A chance to provide her with a stable home, headed by mature, loving parents, who didn't believe in the myth of an open marriage. Heather couldn't even remember their all being together as a family. Her earliest memories were of traveling cross country, living in the back of her mother's boyfriend's van, and sharing a basement bedroom with Roger in his brother's house.

In more recent years, Roger and Phyllis each had acquired their own homes, so now Heather had two bedrooms but they lived a thousand miles apart, and she commuted between them several times a year. Roger only saw her during four school vacations and summers.

He missed her terribly during her long absences, especially before he met Sandy, but living with her wasn't always easy either. The weeks were always too short to feel like they had spent any time together. And it always took her a few weeks to adjust being with him in the summer. She missed her friends, missed her mother, and until recently didn't get along with Sandy all that well.

She took the news of the pregnancy well, though. She said she liked the idea of having a brother or a sister. But it meant giving up her bedroom and moving into the den. He hoped she really wouldn't mind.

They named the baby Max. Roger had picked out the name early in the pregnancy but Sandy had agreed to it only about a month ago. Roger had wanted it because it had been his grandfather's name but also because he liked the way it sounded. It suggested to him a certain strength and straight forwardness in its simplicity, while being modern in its old fashioned-ness.

Sandy had originally complained that the name reminded her of a short, fat, bald, movie producer with a cigar. But she liked the idea of naming the child after somebody - it was going to be Molly after her grandmother if it had been a girl, and she promised not to rule it out. After they had met a new-born Max sleeping in a stroller, and a very charming, freckled faced Max of about three, in a store, she began to turn around. It was when Roger bought the Max doll that she finally agreed.

They were in a book store buying things for themselves when Roger spotted the doll and insisted that his child had to have it. It was a reproduction of the little boy, Max, in the children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are," and it was winningly cute. Roger said that if she agreed to name a boy Max, they would call the doll "Little Max", but if they had a boy with a different name or a girl, it would serve as his consolation for the name he wanted.

Sandy fell in love with the doll's impish grin and it's wild mane of black hair. But she especially liked the idea of a father wanting to buy a doll for his son. Soon all images of a fat, smoking movie producer disappeared from her mind and Max it was.

The considerations were completely different when he and Phyllis had named Heather. Although Roger's grandfather had been dead then, he never considered the name Max, nor had either of them wanted to name the child after anyone. They had both liked Heather because it was a plant name and suggested being in touch with the earth. He couldn't even remember what they had finally agreed upon to name her if she had been a boy, but he remembers tossing around names like "Dylan" and "Sky". He was much younger then.

Roger got up to use the bathroom. He looked in the mirror with amusement. His clothes were rumpled, he had circles under his eyes, his hair was a mess (what was left of it), and he needed a shave. He splashed some water on his face and ran his fingers through his hair. He was also hungry.

When they had arrived at the hospital at five the previous afternoon it hadn't even occurred to anyone that he should have wanted to eat. It wasn't until after midnight that his hunger finally caught up with him and he remembered, but by then Sandy was already pushing and he wasn't about to leave her.

After the birth, he had two candy bars and an apple juice from a vending machine. The cafeteria was closed.

Heather had been born in the same hospital, and the cafeteria was as close as he had gotten to her birth. He had accompanied Phyllis to the labor room, which she shared with another woman, but he was soon sent out by the nurse so that she could be "prepped" - probably shaven and given an enema.

When he was allowed back in, Phyllis was in bed and the nurse was asking her if she wanted "a little something" to help with the pain. It was early evening, and the baby probably wouldn't be born until the middle of the night or early morning. Phyllis was already pretty uncomfortable so of course she said yes.

The nurse came back a few moments later and gave Phyllis an injection. This would just take the edge off and allow her to doze in between contractions, she told her. Then she turned to Roger and told him he would have to leave the room.

"With the medication we've given her she might say something she doesn't want you to hear, " she explained to him. ("That was probably scopolamine," Sandy had said with disgust when she heard this story. "It made women crazy. They don't use it anymore.")

"But we were told I'd be able to stay with her and that I'd be able to watch the baby being born," he had protested.

"Don't worry, this baby won't be born for hours," she assured him as she guided him out the door. "Just check in with the nurse's station every so often and they'll tell you her progress. We'll let you up when the baby's coming. Go on now and let her get some rest."

So he had no choice but to go have coffee in the cafeteria. He scanned some discarded newspapers and hospital brochures, but he couldn't concentrate. He checked his watch every few minutes and finally positioned himself so he could stare at the large clock on the wall.

After about half an hour he found a hospital phone and called the nurses station. She was still in the labor room, call back in half an hour, he was told.

He called back in half an hour and was put on hold by the nurse who was going to check for him. He waited for over five minutes before he decided to go upstairs and see for himself.

When he got off the elevator there was no one at the nurses station. He was about to walk straight ahead towards the labor room, but something caught his eye down the corridor to his right. Some nurses were wheeling a woman in a hospital bed, in the direction away from him. It looked like Phyllis. "Hi," he called out, running to catch up with her.

"Congratulations, Mr. Stern," the nurse smiled at him. "Your wife just had a healthy baby girl. "

Roger hesitated for a moment, trying to process the information. "That's wonderful," he said smiling broadly. "That's really great."

"We're taking her to the maternity ward," the nurse continued. "You can visit her there in the morning. She needs some rest now."

He looked around for his daughter. "Where's the baby?" he asked, puzzled.

"She's been taken to the nursery. You can go over now and look at her through the window if you like."

Roger looked at Phyllis. "How was it?" he asked.

"OK," Phyllis replied, smiling weakly (it seemed to Roger almost contemptuously) and she closed her eyes.

"I love you," Roger called out, as she was wheeled away out of sight.

He practically skipped as he headed towards the nursery. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a tie, and put it on.

The nurses were wheeling in the baby just as he arrived and they held her up to show him. She was wrapped up tightly in a pink hospital blanket with only her little red face showing. She was asleep. They placed her in a spot right in front of the window. Roger gazed at her in awe, his face pressed against the glass, but there really wasn't much to see. Finally he went home.

What a fog he was in that night. It wasn't until he got home, that he realized how angry he was about missing the birth.

Thinking about it now, Roger saw that night at the hospital as the beginning of the end for him and Phyllis. It's not that he blamed the way he was prevented from being at Heather's birth for the break up of his marriage two years later. No, the marriage's failure had its seeds in their earliest dating days, and was helped along by a certain young musician who appeared on the scene when Heather was a year old.

But it was that moment in the hospital, when Phyllis gave him that look of contempt, undoubtedly born as much from exhaustion as anything else, that struck him. It was then that he first remembered having the sinking feeling that maybe everything wasn't all right between them. He wasn't consciously aware of it at the time, but looking back, that's how he remembered it.

How different it was when Max was born. He imagined he would look back at that moment years from now as an experience which brought him and Sandy closer together.

Of course, he and Sandy had done things entirely differently. Sandy knew exactly what she wanted from the birthing experience: no pain killing drugs, minimal use of monitors and other machines unless there was a problem, and a birth attendant who would help her through the rough times. She didn't want a home birth so she went straight to the only nurse-midwife in town with hospital admitting privileges. They both liked Jane right away.

Then there was the birthing room, which hadn't been available when Heather was born. It was a pleasant little room (for a hospital, that is) with wall paper and curtains, a rocking chair, a couch, a cradle, a TV, and a wooden poster bed that was actually a standard hospital bed in disguise.

They didn't prep the mothers any more or put them to bed, and when Jane examined Sandy, she didn't question Roger's being there. It was going to be a while before the baby would be born and, in the interest of hurrying things along, he and Sandy took a little walk along the hospital corridors, stopping every few minutes when she had a contraction.

They wandered over to the nursery to peek at the babies through the window.
"Hurry up, Baby," Sandy said patting her belly. "All your friends are waiting for you." But she wasn't really referring to these babies, because they weren't planning to keep their baby in the nursery. Jane had told them that they could have an early discharge four hours after the baby was born, as long as there were no unforeseen complications.

"We forgot the red tie," Roger said following another contraction.

"What are you talking about?" Sandy asked.

"Newborn babies are especially attracted to red," Roger explained. "If I wear a red tie, the baby will be more likely to notice me. I wore one when Heather was born."

Sandy looked at him oddly for a moment. "Do you mean when Heather was born you didn't get to hold her?" she asked. "You mean you stood outside the nursery window and tried to get her attention with a red tie? How sad."

"I guess so," Roger said. "I don't think they let me hold her until we left the hospital. She must have been three or four days old by then."

Back in the birthing room, when the labor started picking up, Sandy hung on him and moaned. It got to the point where she couldn't even talk and she would have to point at things when she wanted them, like a sip of water.

Then things got so bad that she didn't want to stand anymore. Jane tried helping her into different positions that might be more comfortable but nothing seemed to work. At one point she was sitting on the bed leaning back into Roger's arms. He held her tight when the contraction came, but she pushed his arms away and howled something inarticulate.

"Don't touch, me," she finally blurted out. "Get off the bed. Just get out of here!"

"She's in transition," Jane explained to him as he hopped off the bed. "A lot of women don't like to be touched when they're in transition." And then she crouched by the bed and looked into Sandy's eyes. "It won't be long now. You're doing just fine."

She was right. The next time Jane examined her she announced it was time to push. Sandy lay in the bed which was raised to a sixty degree angle. Roger held one of her legs while a staff nurse held the other.

Sandy pushed and grunted with each contraction for the next hour or more. Her face turned red and she sweated profusely. She pushed so hard it seemed that all her guts should have come out with the baby. They didn't, but afterwards Roger noticed that she had burst blood vessels in both her eyes.

"There's the head," Jane remarked in the middle of a push. "Do you see it? It has hair"

Roger saw it, but as soon as the contraction was over and Sandy stopped pushing, it receded out of view.

"I'm so tired," Sandy moaned after another push. "I can't keep this up." Roger wasn't sure where she got the energy to go on for as long as she had. By now he was pretty tired himself. But they couldn't give up now.

"You can do it," he said, stroking her leg. "You can do it."

When the next contraction came, she pushed and groaned until it looked like she was going to burst.

"That's it, keep on pushing," Jane urged her on.

After a few more pushes the head was out far enough that it was visible even when she wasn't pushing. But it looked freakishly small, about the size of a tennis ball. Was the baby going to be a pinhead?

With one more push the head slipped out into Jane's hands. It was streaked with blood and some white greasy stuff, it was covered with fuzzy wet brownish hair, it had a funny elongated shape, molded by the trip down the birth canal, but it wasn't a pinhead.

"Ease up, ease up," Jane instructed when the head was out. Roger could see that the baby's eyes were open and it was looking around in bewilderment.

"You catch the shoulders," she instructed Roger. "Put your hands under it."
His heart pounding and his hands shaking, Roger did as he was told. He had wanted to be involved but he hadn't planned on delivering the baby too. A few more pushes and the baby wriggled out into his hands, although Jane was still supporting the head.

"It's a boy," one of the nurses announced so quickly that there must have been a race among the staff to see who could say it first. Although Roger still had his hands under the baby, it was lying on the bed now. Jane reached for her instruments and began to suction mucous out of his nose and mouth. The baby began to cry and everyone relaxed and smiled.

"Now place  him on Sandy's thigh," Jane instructed. The baby was wet and slippery but Roger managed to accomplish the task. In a minute there was enough umbilical cord out that Jane could put him on Sandy's chest. She tied the cord and handed the scissors to Roger. "Cut right here," she instructed.

Jane quickly wrapped a blanket (blue of course) around the baby and placed a little stocking cap on his head.

"He's beautiful," Sandy sighed as she positioned him to nurse. "It was worth it." The baby began to suckle, and showed what seemed to Roger like a look of surprise.

"Does he look like a "Max" to you?" Sandy asked.

"Let me get a closer look," Roger replied. The baby had stopped nursing so Sandy handed the little bundle over to him. "What do you think, do you like the name Max?" Roger asked the tiny newcomer, whose large, staring eyes revealed no opinion about anything at all. "He says he likes Max, Roger said.

"Well I do too," Sandy agreed. So it was settled.

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There was a knock on the door but someone entered before Roger had a chance to respond. It was the nurse, ushering in the pediatrician. He had come to discharge the baby.

"Congratulations," he greeted the new parents.

Sandy looked up groggily from her pillow and smiled.

Max didn't wake up until the doctor started taking the blanket off him. He howled during the entire examination but it lasted only a few minutes.

"He looks fine," the doctor said. "You can take him home anytime you want. But I hope you have someone to help you out. You should spend the next few days in bed," he said to Sandy.

"My mother's coming," Sandy said.

"Don't worry. I won't let her change a diaper for a week," Roger said.

"That's good," the doctor smiled. "Make sure you bring him in to me in two days. I'll give him the PKU test and check him again for jaundice. "

After the doctor left, the nurse came in with a breakfast tray. Fortunately for Roger, Sandy was willing to share.

After breakfast, Roger changed and dressed Max, and packed their bags while Sandy washed and dressed herself. Roger strapped Max into the infant car seat, and they were ready to leave.

"You carry the baby, Pop," the nurse instructed. "Mom, you  put the bag in your lap. You're going in the wheel chair."

"But I can walk perfectly well," Sandy protested. "I've just taken a shower."

"No new mother ever walks off my floor," the nurse told her, firmly.

Sandy got in the wheel chair, but she rolled her eyes at Roger. Stupid hospital rule, she seemed to be thinking.

In the car Sandy said, "It's a good thing we're going home. Now you can put on your red tie."

Roger knew when he was being teased.

"You can wear the red tie, if you want," he said. "I don't think I have to dress so formally for Max."