12:01

"Things are going to start happening very quickly now."

Her voice is clear and strong, and she holds my vision fast — making sure she has my full attention and understanding. The next 30 seconds are for me; after that, I will be a bystander.

"We've been monitoring things carefully and we're starting to see some signs of fetal distress. The OB has decided to bring her into the OR, where we're going to do a C-section."

"Okay." I'm listening intently. Pulling in all the information. I want to understand what's happening. I don't know enough to be nervous.

There are other women in the room. Nurses, I think. They are rapidly unplugging monitors and unwrapping and rewrapping IV lines. I see them pull the pitocin off the IV cart and put it to the side. That part is done.

"We're going to wheel her down the hall in a minute. You're going to come alongside, and just before we get to the big double doors I'm going to put you into a changing room. It's a locker room that the doctors use. I'm going to give you some scrubs and a mask and some paper booties. When you get in, take off your shirt and pants and put on the scrubs, then put the booties on over your shoes. Have the mask ready, and we'll have someone come in and get you."

I nod my assent. Three feet away from me, my wife is lying on a hospital bed. Her belly is huge, her face a shifting palette of pain and exhaustion and concern. It is not long past 11pm.

Thirteen hours earlier, I leave work. Drive home. Pick her up and drive her to the hospital, for what are now frequent check-ins with her doctor. We joke together on our way there, about how the overstuffed and eager bag sitting on our backseat is an exercise in futility. "They're going to send us home," she says. "I know it. I'm going to be pregnant forever."

Twelve hours earlier, her doctor is telling us: we're going today. Our eyes both go wide at the news. We're not ready for this. And just as quickly we realize: it doesn't matter. That's the nature of the game.

Eleven hours earlier, we're being admitted to the hospital and set up in a delivery room. I'm looking at it - the beige walls, the pictures of flowers, the small, ceiling-mounted color TV, the vaguely antiseptic smell - and thinking: how can something so big happen in a room so bland. 

Ten hours earlier, we're looking at one another with wonder and excitement. "I can't believe this is happening," I say. "Seriously. How the hell did we get here?" A slow, steady drip through a thin clear line brings the pitocin into her body. Willing her into labor. Pushing the process forward.

Nine hours earlier, she is shuffling slowly, awkwardly, painfully through the halls. "Walking is helpful," the nurses tell us. She is wrapped in two hospital gowns, and pushing the wheeled IV stand with her as she moves. Her younger sister walks with her, keeping her company. Offering me a few minutes to make calls and provide updates. Telling grandparents-to-be what is happening, what we understand from the nurses and doctors, why they should not come until we tell them to come.

She takes small, steady steps, gently looping through the maternity ward. A woman who has before and who will again run 10k races, moving slowly. Navigating her way through unfamiliar waters.

Four hours earlier, we are growing impatient. She is growing weary. She is dilating, but slowly. Her abdomen is wrapped in elastic bands, pressing monitors against the wall of her belly. We listen and watch carefully, tracking the numbers. Fetal heartbeat. Maternal blood pressure. The ticks of a wall clock, stretching farther and farther apart.

One hour earlier, the nurse is telling us that she seems to have hit a plateau. "You've been stuck at the same state of dilation for a few hours now," she says. "We're going to keep a close watch on you, and make sure the doctor knows what's going on so she can make any decision she needs to make." We nod. Whatever you say. We are in your hands now. This is beyond our expertise, or our capacity to make judgments. Please guide us through safely.

And then we are suddenly wheeling down the hall. I am carrying her bag — a large backpack, really. A great, gaudy, speckled green pattern. Some designer whose name I can never remember. I'm also holding a plastic bag that carries her purse, her shoes, the clothing she wore this morning. In the midst of everything else, we are losing our room. I think, "This is a good time to coordinate a move," but I do not say it aloud, because this is not my time to be saying things that I think. As we walk, I hear snippets of conversation between the maternity nurse and one of the OR nurses. I hear terms like failure to progress, and fetal distress, and epidurals did not take, and emergency C-section.

Emergency.

It's the first time I've heard that word, and it's like I'm suddenly awake in all kinds of new and terrible ways. I've spent my life - we've spent our lives - avoiding emergencies. Taken such care, especially, these past months — moving so gently through the world; keeping things in their proper place. And now, here, in the midst of trained professionals and elegantly engineered machinery, we are suddenly in an emergency.

And the nurse says, "We're here," and I lean over and give my wife a kiss on the cheek and then, in a heartbeat, I am alone. My skull is a hive of angry bees, but I am in logistics mode and so I try not to think as I change, swiftly, into the blue scrubs and then slip the booties over my feet. The lockers are all locked, predictably. I try to hide our things carefully in a corner. And then I stand there, facing the door. Ready.

Minutes pass. And the angry buzz in my skull becomes louder, and the minutes pass, and I try to stay focused, and the minutes pass, and I find myself wondering... what... what is happening here? What could happen? And I tell myself they must do this all the time, and for that instant I am grateful we are here - in the best place we can possibly be - but I'm also aware that things do not always go according to plan. That sometimes despite the best intentions and all possible preparations, sometimes things go terribly wrong.

I'm not ready for that. I press hard against it, refuse to give it air. There are scenarios pressing to come into play, trying to claw their way out of the part of me that expects the worse, but I cannot and will not allow that right now. That is an indulgence, a luxury, and this is not a time when I will allow myself to succumb.

Focus.

The clock. Ticks. Slowly.

And then there is the rapid knocking on the door, and I pull the mask up over my nose and mouth and it is time.

. . . . .

To be continued.