by Janis Powers
“What are you doing? Are you working out? Isn’t it about time you stopped that sort of thing?”
“Mom, I just had to sit down. It takes effort at this point.” I shoved a throw pillow behind my back, but that didn’t seem to help.
“Are you in the living room?”
“Yes.”
“On the upholstered couch?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I hope you are sitting on a towel. If your water breaks, you will ruin the fabric on that piece of furniture.”
She did have a point. I wanted to get up and get some towels, but another wave of pain shot through my back. I started to get concerned. If it was too early to have real contractions, maybe I was experiencing the false ones. As if I was supposed to know the difference.
I looked at the clock. 2:45 pm on a Thursday. Starting last week, Dale had agreed to check his phone for texts and calls during the day in case something like what I thought was happening occurred. But I had to get off the phone with my mother before I could call him. But I didn’t want to call him unless I was sure of what was going on. “Mom, I think I had a contraction. I can’t tell for sure.”
“What?! Maxine, you get to the hospital right now! I will come and meet you there!” My mother flew into hysterics, which was not helping me at all.
“Mom!” I shouted back.
“Don’t yell!” she screamed. “It’ll only make it worse! And where is your husband?!”
I took a deep breath, per the instructions from my pre-natal classes. I went to that soothing place on the beach and tried to listen to the crashing of the waves. No contractions. Everything was under control.
“Mom,” I said calmly. “Please chill out. I will hang up if you freak out on me.” Whatever was happening had reduced my vocabulary to that of a spaced-out tween.
She apologized. “O.K. How often are the contractions coming?”
“We haven’t established that they are contractions,” I said in denial.
“Maxine!” I could feel her lips pursing. “Go get a watch with a sweep hand. Didn’t they tell you anything in those pre-natal classes?”
“Sweep hand?”
“Just get a watch, Maxine. The two most important words when dealing with contractions are ‘duration’ and ‘frequency.’”
Another shock blasted through my back. Now I had two words associated with contractions: “freakin’ painful.” I moaned pathetically as I shuffled to the kitchen counter. Slowly, the instructions from the classes were coming back. I wasn’t supposed to go to the hospital until the contractions were less than five minutes apart. I still had time. Or at least I thought I did. “O.K. You’re right. I remember. I’m writing it down.”
“How many contractions have you had?”
“I think two.” I hunched over the counter and decided I would wait for the next contraction before I started to record anything.
“What do they feel like?”
“What do they feel like? Really?” I couldn’t believe she was asking me to describe the pain, when I was supposed to be focusing on anything else but the pain. “Well, Mom, it feels like someone has wedged their fingers into the blood vessels and nerves in my lower spine and then made a big fist and ripped everything out. Sound about right?”
“I’m coming down there.” I could tell from her voice that she had made up her mind.
“You’re going to hit a ton of traffic, Mom. How about I call you when I’m on my way to the hospital, all right?” Ironically, the last person I wanted around while I was trying to give birth was the person who had given birth to me.
“We’re coming now. Why don’t you start trying to get hold of your husband? He’s the one who’s going to have to deal with traffic.”
I hadn’t even thought about that. Dale’s office was over half an hour by taxi from Lennox Hill without rush hour traffic. The longer it took for him to get out of the office, the longer his commute to the hospital would be. Ordinarily, I’d think the subway would be the fastest option, but the express trains on the Lexington Avenue line were closed for repair work. He’d have to do some cross-town subway-bus jig that could take well over an hour. What if Dale missed the delivery? What if I called him up to the hospital on a false alarm? And why wasn’t this baby coming when it was supposed to—at the scheduled time next week?
I tried to reason with myself. Maybe I just had muscle spasms. I convinced my mother to at least pack her bags and make some overnight arrangements before she and my father came charging into the city. That would buy me some time to determine if I actually was in labor and, if so, to track down Dale.
My mother had just called again, this time to tell me that she and Dad were leaving. She had a semi-meltdown on the phone when she told me of a reported wreck on the Hutchison Parkway. They would have to detour, and blah, blah, blah, contraction. I had confirmed with myself that, indeed, I was in labor, and at this point, I didn’t care how far apart the waves of pain were coming. I needed to get to the hospital immediately so I could get the proper medical attention, i.e. drugs. I told my mom I’d keep her posted and I hung up the phone.
I had already texted and called Dale a few times, but I hadn’t heard anything. If he was actually on the trading floor, he’d never hear the phone ring or feel a vibration. That seemed like the only logical explanation for why he hadn’t called me back, but it had been years since Dale had been down there, yelling like mad with the minions. He was too senior for that now. I knew his phone got reception all over the office at Worthington, so I was baffled as to why I hadn’t heard from him. I picked up the phone and called his secretary directly.
“Worthington Investments, Mr. Dale Pedersen’s office.” Sabrina spoke with a lilted Dutch accent. I had only met her a few times, but she always looked like she had stepped out of a duty-free Bally store. She was overly protective of Dale’s business calendar.
“Sabrina? This is Maxine, Dale’s wife.”
“Yes. How are you feeling, Mrs. Pedersen?”
“Sabrina, I am in labor. I have been trying to reach Dale for the past 15 minutes and he has not returned any of my texts or calls.” I had to stop because I was out of breath.
“Yes, well, Mr. Pedersen is in a closed-door meeting with Mr. Macaluso until the trading day is over.” She paused and then said, “He will not be available for another 58 minutes.”
I pounded my fist on the counter. I would have used her jawbone as a cushion if I had been within striking distance. “I am certain that both Dale and Mr. Macaluso would understand if you interrupted the meeting. I am sure you can find a way to inform Mr. Pedersen of my condition.”
“I am afraid I cannot do that. But I will let him know immediately when the meeting breaks up.” That was even less helpful because there was no way the doors to Macaluso’s office were going to magically open when the final trading bell rang at 4:00pm. Who knew how long the meeting would go on? Dale might not be available for an hour and 58 minutes!
“Look. Sabrina. I think you’re being a little unreasonable.”
“I think you’re being unreasonable by asking me to violate the Worthington Code of Conduct.”
Even in agonizing pain, I knew better than to threaten her with termination. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Sabrina, so I slammed the phone down. I texted Dale again. Nothing.
I gathered my belongings, pausing at the computer in the living room. It was the place where I worked, and now work was on my mind. I wrote a quick note to Deirdre and Caine, cc’ing Joy, Jeffry Hsu and Nancy Lallyberry, officially signing off. I congratulated myself for maintaining my professionalism in the face of excruciating pain.
While I endured another contraction, I considered other means of breaking Dale out of Bobbie’s fortress of isolation. I could try to reason with Bobbie’s secretary, but if Sabrina had stonewalled me, Sir Macaluso’s secretary would be exponentially worse. I had to take this issue straight to the top. I dialed Helen Macaluso.
She answered the phone cordially.
“Maxine! Good to hear from you! How are you doing?”
“Uh, well, I am heading to the hospital and I can’t get in touch with Dale. I was wondering if you could help me.”
Helen stammered. “Is everything O.K.? Are you all right? Do you need an ambulance?”
“Goodness, no. I’ll be fine, but the contractions are heavy. Listen, Dale is in a closed-door meeting with Bobbie until the end of the day and his admin refuses to interrupt them. Dale won’t return my texts. . . .”
She cut me off. “I am on it, Maxine. Don’t you worry about a thing. I will take care of this. What hospital are you headed to?”
“I’m going to Lennox Hill. Dale knows where to go. I am leaving now.”
“Good. Your safety is the number one priority. Get yourself over there immediately. Dale will be there. Good luck!”
20
The cab driver almost made a break for it when my doorman announced, “She’s in labor!” He, like my mother, was in hysterics. I had to maintain my composure out of self-preservation. If I went bonkers, no cabbie in the Tri-State area would pick me up.
I quickly opened the taxi door and said, “Don’t worry. Everything is fine. Just get me to the hospital. 77th between Park and Lex.” Then I threw down a pile of towels on the backseat, a move that seemed to assuage the driver’s fears. If I was going to make a mess, at least I had had the foresight to safeguard the sterility of his cab. The doorman threw my bags on top of a cigarette hole in the seat next to me, and we were off.
The cab jerked and lurched. Every sudden acceleration caused my heart to flutter. I clung to my phone for dear life. Instead of looking out the window at the continuous parade of accidents we were avoiding, I emailed, texted and called anyone who might communicate with me.
Finally, mercifully, I received a text from Dale. “Coming” was all it said, but that was good enough for me. I’d rather he hoof it pronto than stand around sending me a lengthy text. Helen called me to let me know that Dale had been pulled out of the meeting and that someone from Worthington had made arrangements for some sort of VIP transportation. I was going to ask for clarification, but the cab was approaching the hospital and I had to hang up.
Out of gratitude to me for not giving birth in his cab, I think, the cab driver helped me into a wheelchair at the emergency room of the hospital. I was grateful for his consideration, and since I couldn’t speak Senegalese, I tipped him ten bucks.
The administrivia of the admissions process was expedited when my water broke in the wheelchair in the E.R. vestibule. I reminded myself that I was wearing black pants, so the fluid wouldn’t be visible. But when the nurse helped me off with my clothes, I gasped in disbelief. Whoever had coined the term “water breaking” should be sued for fraud because whatever was all over my legs was far from a clear liquid. I sopped up what I could with my pants, which I then instructed the nurse to chuck into the medical waste bin because I never wanted to see them again.
My next emotion on the journey towards Delivery Acceptance was embarrassment. My initial physical exam, done by the on-call doctor, not my own physician, was interrupted when another doctor came in to consult about some lab work or x-rays or some such triviality that I didn’t care about because all of my private parts were on display. That emotion turned to fear when I was informed that I had dilated to eight centimeters. It was almost time to start pushing.
Then there was panic when I demanded my epidural and the doctor said casually that he would, “See what he could do.” I would have gotten up to poke his eyes out if not for the stirrups. The doc left, and in desperation I looked to Katie, my fresh-out-of-school nurse, for an explanation.
“I should still be able to get an epidural, right?”
Katie put an automatic blood pressure cuff on my arm. “This is going to go off every few minutes. Don’t be alarmed when it does.”
I jerked my arm back to my side. I had a new emotion: insolence. “I don’t want to be inflammatory here, but I am a lawyer. If I do not get my questions answered in a satisfactory manner, I am going to bring the biggest, hairiest, ugliest. . .” I pulled my legs out of the stirrups as I paused to catch my breath, “. . . lawsuit against you, the doctors, the board and all the employees of this facility.”
Katie pulled off a rubber glove and tried to stifle laughter.
“What?!” I yelled.
“Nothing,” she said quickly, engaging herself in checking all the monitors in the room. “It’s just that when you said, ‘biggest, hairiest and ugliest,’ well, I wasn’t sure where you were going with that. Around here, that could mean a lot of things.”
I grabbed the sheets with both hands, marking the arrival of another contraction. “Don’t worry,” she assured me, “You should get your epidural. In fact, I’ll go check on it right now.”
I heard my phone ringing across the room, but there was no chance of reaching it. I would have buzzed the nurse to help me, but if she was tracking down an anesthesiologist for me, I wasn’t going to interrupt her. Drugs first, then cell phone.
The nurse came back with the anesthesiologist and someone else—I presume an assistant—to hold me down. He greeted me and then asked the nurse about the frequency of my contractions and reviewed my chart. I asked the nurse for my phone. Then the anesthesiologist asked her to contact my regular obstetrician.
“Why? Can’t you just do what the on-call doctor says?” I demanded. “He said I could have an epidural!”
“Look, Mrs. Pedersen,” he said calmly. “I know you’re in a lot of pain.” I gave him the look he received about ten times a day, the one where we women all called collective bunkum on his ability to even remotely understand our condition. But he was the holder of the needle, so I let him continue. “The good news is that it looks like you’ll need to start pushing soon. This is going to be over with before you know it. I’m just concerned about administering the needle with your contractions coming at such a frequency.”
I looked at the nurse. “What is the frequency?”
“Of your contractions?” She looked like a flustered witness as she reviewed the data on the monitor. “Every two minutes.”
“Fine,” I directed. “After my next contraction, you have over 90 seconds to get the needle in. I swear I will be perfectly still.” My head dropped as I tried to bravely absorb another contraction as proof of my steely fortitude.
My phone rang again. The anesthesiologist looked horrified. “You must get rid of that.” Then he glared at the nurse. “Clear the room of any noisy devices!” And then he ran off to answer his pager.
Katie handed me my phone, which bore the fantastic news that my husband was finally calling. “I just got here,” he said. “What room are you in?” I told him where I was and that he should hurry. “Great,” he said. “We’re coming up.”
“What?! Who is we?!” But the line went dead.
What a nightmare. Why were all these people parading through the room and no one was getting me what I needed? Another contraction signaled the painful realization that in the end, no matter who was around, or how many drugs I did or did not have, I, alone, had to birth the baby. I turned the phone off and handed it to the nurse. “Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”
Katie wiped off my forehead and offered me some ice chips. “Was that your husband on the phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re lucky. He’s just going to make the delivery. Do you know what you’re having?”
“It’s supposed to be a boy.”
“Do you have a name picked out?” I was starting to understand her technique. Keep me talking so I could remain calm.
“My husband wants Hamilton. After Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury.” Katie nodded in oblique recognition. “My husband works on Wall Street.”
“Oh, neat.”
The blood pressure cuff went off. “And what name did you pick?”
“Henry. For Patrick Henry.”
“Patrick Henry who?”
She nodded and smiled, smartly taking the Fifth as she left the room to get more towels. That left me to listen to the woman across the hall. Even though her door was closed, the entire labor and delivery unit became painfully aware that she was in labor thanks to her deafening screams.
Katie came back in. I attempted to sit up to show my authority, even though I didn’t have much of it. “Is that what’s going to happen if I don’t get my epidural?” Katie looked at me nervously, and without my saying so, ran off to find the doctors.
She went out, and Dale came busting into the room. His face was bright red, his hair was a mess and his pants were filthy. He rushed over to me. “Oh, my God! Are you all right?” He gave me a kiss and then took a step back. “Man, what’s with all these cords and shit?”
“Can I come in?” asked someone from the hallway. It obviously wasn’t one of the hospital employees, because they barged in whenever they felt like it.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
Dale quickly scanned me, I presumed to make sure I was decent. “Check it out. This is my escort!” Dale took a step back and motioned at the doorway. In strode a stocky N.Y.P.D. officer, sporting a leather jacket, knee high black boots and Ray-Bans. He took the sunglasses off and introduced himself.
“Thomas O’Shaughnessy, ma’am.” And then he slapped Dale on the back like he had just done a beer bong.
It was unmistakable. With the glasses off, Thomas had the same bloated, freckled face as Patrick. Nature had selected practically the same chromosomes from the O’Shaughnessy Family DNA to make a virtual replica of Patrick. And here he was, in my delivery room.
“Patrick got his brother to give me a police escort from downtown. It was so awesome! And we got here in no time. Man, thank you so much!” Dale and Thomas exchanged a bear hug.