My Big Toe

On a sunny June morning in 1973, my mother woke up knowing that this was the day she would give birth to her fifth child. She felt excited yet confident, having gone through the process four times before. Still, she had some last-minute preparations to take care of. Being a woman of extreme orderliness, she promptly planned her day. She told my father to take the day off work not because she needed to go to the hospital right away but because she needed to get a haircut first. In her mind, being on the verge of labor was no reason not to look her best, and she wanted to get her hair done before checking in to the hospital.   Following her hair appointment, feeling much more presentable, she had my dad drive to the grocery store, where they stocked up on a few necessities before driving home. At this point, she was having contractions, but she felt they were still far enough apart that she could get some things organized at home before going to the hospital. At home, my parents enjoyed a leisurely lunch and took care of some household chores. Around 4:00 p.m., Mom decided she was ready to go. She called her parents to come stay with the other children.   At the hospital, Mom was admitted, and Dad staked out a spot in the waiting room. He had not been allowed in the delivery room for the births of his other children, and he didn’t intend to change that tradition for this one. Mom and Dad exchanged a kiss, and then he took a seat in front of the television while she was rolled into the delivery room, just as she had been four times before.   The doctors too expected an easy birth, yet it wasn’t long before extra attention was required. The umbilical cord was prolapsed. This means that the cord had entered the birth canal ahead of me, cutting off my supply of oxygen. In a race against the clock, the medical team tried to reposition the umbilical cord and get me out.   My dad was still in the waiting room, with Walter Matthau on the television screen, when a nurse rushed in and demanded his signature on a sheaf of papers. He signed quickly before she bolted away without a word of explanation. Stunned, he wondered what was going on. He clung to the hope that if things were serious, the nurse would have said something. He kept his eyes on the TV screen, but his mind was in the delivery room.   Without time to put my mother completely under, the doctors gave her a local anesthetic before performing an emergency C-section. After forty-five minutes, I was free of the cord and the birth canal, but I was blue and not breathing. One doctor began CPR, while the others had already given up. Twenty minutes later, the doctor stopped his compressions and wanted to call the time of death, but another doctor stepped in and continued the CPR. After twenty more minutes, I was able to breathe on my own. By the time my dad saw me, my color had returned, and I was crying powerfully. Since my birth had been so difficult, the doctors wanted to let me cry for a while so my lungs would get the workout they needed. My parents were relieved and grateful to hear me wailing. Their son had survived.