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Thirty years and 14 hours ago...
May. 4th, 2009 05:04 pm...give or take a minute, Galina woke me from a sound sleep at 3:05 am to inform me that her membranes had ruptured, and that it was time to head for the hospital to deliver our first-born.
I got dressed, willy-nilly, and went out the door of our fourth-floor walkup with a tee shirt still in my hand. I wasn't doing the stereotypical tv-dad-going-crazy bit, but I was acutely aware that it was the middle of the night, near the intersection of 84th Street and Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, and that we had to get to the New York Infirmary (on the lower East side of Manhattan, if memory serves) with the least amount of delay.
As a typical carless New Yorker, the only feasible mode of transportation under the circumstances was a taxicab, which is why I ended up standing in the middle of an essentially empty Northern Boulevard, early on a Friday morning in May, bare-chested, waving my tee shirt for all I was worth, hoping to flag down a cab.
I did, in surprisingly short order. I explained the situation, pointed to the entrance of the apartment building, and as the driver turned down 84th Street, I trotted back to the apartment to see if I could help Galina in any way.
Fourth-floor walkups are, at the same time, fourth-floor walkdowns, and getting down four long flights of stairs wasn't the easiest task in the world for Galina. Eventually, though, we made it to the waiting cab, which proceeded to hightail it into Manhattan. We arrived at the Infirmary without incident.
As we had not signed up for any program that culminated in husband participation in the delivery room, I was shown the waiting room, where I cooled my heels while Galina went through labor. Her obstetrician was not around that early in the morning, and I sort of got the idea that whoever was around wasn't exactly anxious to wake him up, either. (Maybe I got the wrong impression, I don't know, I just don't recall seeing him that day.)
Around 7:30 am or so, I was told that Galina was still in labor and that there was no telling when she would actually give birth. As I was on the verge of bouncing off the walls of the waiting room at that point, I decided to walk over to where I worked, over on 8th Avenue and up a couple of blocks, and put in an appearance at the office. I bought a box of cigars along the way.
About two hours later, I got a call, saying that Galina had given birth, and was fine, but that the baby was having trouble breathing. I said I'd be right over and hung up the phone.
You know that cliché involving a cold feeling around your heart? For several blocks, I lived through that icy grip, my mind going back to the time Galina had called to tell me our first baby had been lost due to a miscarriage. By the time I got to the hospital, I had calmed myself down. When I got to the maternity ward, the information that had been given to me over the phone was repeated as I strained to look through two panes of chicken-wire glass at a crib wa-a-ay over there - two rooms over - with what appeared to be a huddled blanket inside it.
I was then told that arrangements were being made to transfer the baby to St. Vincent's Hospital, where they had a neonatal intensive care unit. It took me a moment to realize that "having trouble breathing" was way more serious than I could imagine.
Galina was sedated and sleeping, so I made my way to St. Vincent's in time to stand around outside the building for what seemed like forever until the ambulance carrying Andrew arrived. He was in an incubator-like contraption that looked like an aquarium on top of a gurney, and he was whisked into the building before I could get a good look at him. I was strangely happy that things went as fast as they did, as I figured the faster the paramedics got our baby into intensive care, the better.
Upstairs, I introduced myself to the staff and was walked through the procedure that would enable me to see my child. Scrubbing - for a long time - with a disposable brush soaked in iodine, or something similar. A small price. Then a mask, a gown, and booties. If the kid was going to catch something, it wasn't going to be from me or any other visitor.
My first sight of Andrew was of a tiny infant almost hidden by all of the stuff he was hooked up to. An IV drip. An oxygen monitor. ECG leads. A positive-pressure, oxygen-enriched air feed. I forget what else. Tubes all over the place. On my way out of the facility, I caught sight of a bulletin board with pictures of kids who had "graduated" from the neonatal unit, and it calmed me.
The next day, if memory serves, Andrew's lungs collapsed. By the time I found out about that, a surgeon had been called and had already done what was necessary to snatch our son back from the threshold of death. The next time I saw our boy, he was hooked up to even more technology, which I found pretty amazing.
Galina and I visited Andrew often during his stay at St. Vincent's; I made it a point to come by during my lunch hour, as the hospital was very near where I worked. I learned that Andrew suffered from "Respiratory Distress Syndrome," and a further question clarified what, exactly, a "syndrome" is (basically, "we've seen this before"). Day by day, however, there were fewer connections between Andrew and the medical technology that monitored his well-being. Eventually, the day came when we took him home.
Has it really been thirty years? It's hard to believe.
Cheers...
I got dressed, willy-nilly, and went out the door of our fourth-floor walkup with a tee shirt still in my hand. I wasn't doing the stereotypical tv-dad-going-crazy bit, but I was acutely aware that it was the middle of the night, near the intersection of 84th Street and Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, and that we had to get to the New York Infirmary (on the lower East side of Manhattan, if memory serves) with the least amount of delay.
As a typical carless New Yorker, the only feasible mode of transportation under the circumstances was a taxicab, which is why I ended up standing in the middle of an essentially empty Northern Boulevard, early on a Friday morning in May, bare-chested, waving my tee shirt for all I was worth, hoping to flag down a cab.
I did, in surprisingly short order. I explained the situation, pointed to the entrance of the apartment building, and as the driver turned down 84th Street, I trotted back to the apartment to see if I could help Galina in any way.
Fourth-floor walkups are, at the same time, fourth-floor walkdowns, and getting down four long flights of stairs wasn't the easiest task in the world for Galina. Eventually, though, we made it to the waiting cab, which proceeded to hightail it into Manhattan. We arrived at the Infirmary without incident.
As we had not signed up for any program that culminated in husband participation in the delivery room, I was shown the waiting room, where I cooled my heels while Galina went through labor. Her obstetrician was not around that early in the morning, and I sort of got the idea that whoever was around wasn't exactly anxious to wake him up, either. (Maybe I got the wrong impression, I don't know, I just don't recall seeing him that day.)
Around 7:30 am or so, I was told that Galina was still in labor and that there was no telling when she would actually give birth. As I was on the verge of bouncing off the walls of the waiting room at that point, I decided to walk over to where I worked, over on 8th Avenue and up a couple of blocks, and put in an appearance at the office. I bought a box of cigars along the way.
About two hours later, I got a call, saying that Galina had given birth, and was fine, but that the baby was having trouble breathing. I said I'd be right over and hung up the phone.
You know that cliché involving a cold feeling around your heart? For several blocks, I lived through that icy grip, my mind going back to the time Galina had called to tell me our first baby had been lost due to a miscarriage. By the time I got to the hospital, I had calmed myself down. When I got to the maternity ward, the information that had been given to me over the phone was repeated as I strained to look through two panes of chicken-wire glass at a crib wa-a-ay over there - two rooms over - with what appeared to be a huddled blanket inside it.
I was then told that arrangements were being made to transfer the baby to St. Vincent's Hospital, where they had a neonatal intensive care unit. It took me a moment to realize that "having trouble breathing" was way more serious than I could imagine.
Galina was sedated and sleeping, so I made my way to St. Vincent's in time to stand around outside the building for what seemed like forever until the ambulance carrying Andrew arrived. He was in an incubator-like contraption that looked like an aquarium on top of a gurney, and he was whisked into the building before I could get a good look at him. I was strangely happy that things went as fast as they did, as I figured the faster the paramedics got our baby into intensive care, the better.
Upstairs, I introduced myself to the staff and was walked through the procedure that would enable me to see my child. Scrubbing - for a long time - with a disposable brush soaked in iodine, or something similar. A small price. Then a mask, a gown, and booties. If the kid was going to catch something, it wasn't going to be from me or any other visitor.
My first sight of Andrew was of a tiny infant almost hidden by all of the stuff he was hooked up to. An IV drip. An oxygen monitor. ECG leads. A positive-pressure, oxygen-enriched air feed. I forget what else. Tubes all over the place. On my way out of the facility, I caught sight of a bulletin board with pictures of kids who had "graduated" from the neonatal unit, and it calmed me.
The next day, if memory serves, Andrew's lungs collapsed. By the time I found out about that, a surgeon had been called and had already done what was necessary to snatch our son back from the threshold of death. The next time I saw our boy, he was hooked up to even more technology, which I found pretty amazing.
Galina and I visited Andrew often during his stay at St. Vincent's; I made it a point to come by during my lunch hour, as the hospital was very near where I worked. I learned that Andrew suffered from "Respiratory Distress Syndrome," and a further question clarified what, exactly, a "syndrome" is (basically, "we've seen this before"). Day by day, however, there were fewer connections between Andrew and the medical technology that monitored his well-being. Eventually, the day came when we took him home.
Has it really been thirty years? It's hard to believe.
Cheers...
