That's AUNTY Kiko to You

Got a call last Tuesday saying that it was time for me to come down to LA to be there for the birth of my first niece. I did what I could at work to make it happen, and I bought myself a plane ticket for the same day to fly down and catch a few winks of shut-eye before making my way to the hospital. Births are strange events. On the one hand you kind of have a window in knowing when it's gonna happen, but then again, we're dealing with nature here, so it's not like you can say that I need such and such day off and buy your ticket 14 days in advance and be there. Anyhow. It worked out.

Now, I've never seen a birth before. The only real birth that I've been semi-a-part-of was the birth of little bro. All I remember was that we went out trick-or-treating one night in 1979, and when we got home, Mom and Dad were gone and our Aunty was there. I remember waking up and my Aunty yelled at me for eating candy for breakfast, and then later my dad snuck me and my older brother to look at Mom through a side window at the hospital. Then we made a sign saying "Welcome home Alex!" and the rest was history. Oh, and before we could come near him, we had to wash our hands. And then the rest was history.

But this time it was different. My sister-in-law wanted me to be there--be there in the same room with her while the actual event was happening. Have you ever seen a birth before? I haven't. As I was trying to find where to park at the hospital I was thinking, I should have looked on the internet or something to see what happens during childbirth so that I could brace myself and be more prepared for the big event. Unfortunately with the whole moving thing and work-catastrophes and whatnot, I had neglected to do any research. I know from watching movies and tv, there is moaning, and yelling at the father, and blood and push! push! But here's what really happened:

Her labor was induced, meaning that the due date had come and gone and everyone was impatient and the doctors decided, eh, let's just give her a shot of the good stuff so the baby comes out. That was 7am. Then everyone got there and she was in a nice little hospital room. It was warm with nice little wooden shutters over the windows and a TV with VCR and a bureau and cabinets and private bathroom and a little sink and a sofa that folded out into a bed. It almost looked like a hotel room, almost. I counted how many of us were there and there were 9, and it wasn't that crowded. My dad was sitting on a chair reading Haruki Murakami and nodding off and we were sitting around talking and joking, and she was hooked up to a monitor that gauged the levels of her contractions and the baby's heartbeat and you could hear the heartbeats, and there was a machine that spit out the different readings on a long piece of paper like you see when they record earthquakes. My little brother suggested that we keep the paper and use it as a border to wallpaper the baby's room with. Unfortunately when we asked they said we couldn't keep the paper because it had to go into the records department for safekeeping (for lawsuits, I'm assuming). Everyone was very calm. Mom was in good spirits. She cringed a little when she had a contraction, but swore that she was not going to get an epidural because she didn't want her baby to be born on drugs and she had gotten through her first birth without them.

At one point, my nephew asked me to take him to the cafeteria. He had been there since before midnight, since that's when they wanted to start monitoring Mom in order to give her the baby-inducing shot. So I took him to get something to eat. I tried to tell him when he was eating that the baby was going to be very lucky to have a big brother, and I told him how I always felt safe to have my own big brother out there to protect me, and how it was harder for girls in this world. I don't think I actually ever had to play the big brother card, but still. Last weekend after we got stuff thrown at us when we were playing taiko I was telling my teacher how if my big brother were there he would have taken care of things.

Anyhow, we were only gone for maybe half an hour, but when we go back, the whole room had gone very quiet, and mom was lying on the bed, in obvious pain. She was asking when the anesthesiologist was coming, and had opted for the epidural. Good choice. In a little bit, the pain doc came in and inserted the good stuff right into her spine. There was a tube hooked up to a lock box that distributed the medication right where we needed it. My own mom had had a lock box except hers had morphine, so we knew exactly what the box was all about. In a little bit, mom's spirits were lifted again, and after a while the nurse came in to measure and before we knew it, there were 10 good centimeters of dilation, and in baby talk, that means it's time.

We kicked out all the boys, except for my big bro, the Dad, and then there were me, mom's friend, mom's mom, and the medical team. They didn't make us wear any outfits or gloves or masks, but I figured I needed to do something, so I reverted back to the only other birth experience I knew, so I went and washed my hands. If little bro turned out ok, then handwashing it was. Oh, and I ate cake (almost like candy) for breakfast, so it was all ok. And the room transformed. The bureau turned into baby station complete with oxygen, medical gadgets, and baby-receiving bed:Spotlights appeared out of the ceiling with the flick of a switch. And in the blink of an eye, a nurse had mom put her feet up on some stirrup contraptions and then pulled a lever which removed half of the bed so that what was left was half a bed and a place for the doc to come in and do his job. It was like magic. There was a special birthing garbage bag that fit right where it needed to be so that there was no mess, and there was a whole team there, at hand, ready for anything. I'm telling you, they made it look easy. There was no screaming involved. The nurse said you need to push like this, and mom pushed like that, and I tell no lie, in the 15 minutes between when the nurse said we were at 10 cm, we had a baby. I think she pushed for no more than 5 minutes. Maybe through 2 main contractions, and there was a head, and then there was more head, and in no time, the baby came out, and the moment the baby came out, the doctor thrust it, crying and completely healthy, right at mom. It was so fast, so unbelievable. Miraculous really. The dad was the calmest person in the room. He cut the cord, and Mom held the baby and rocked her in her arms, exclaiming, hello beautiful! Hello baby! You really need to see a baby born to understand.

Here's one of the first pics of the little family:
And now I'm an aunty! Aunty Kiko!Not that I wasn't an aunty before. But an aunty again. Oh and I'm so proud. Proud of my sister in law who should be an advocate for why-you-don't-have-to-fear-childbirth. Proud of my brother who was so calm and collected.

I got to hold the baby, eventually, eventually after I got over my fear of dropping her or breaking her, and she opened her eyes and looked right at me. She's got grey eyes! So beautiful! And she scowled up at me like me and my brother scowl, and then she yawned at me, and she looks exactly like her big brother and she is such a wonderous miracle. I'm pretty amazed. Wow. A baby!