My first son was born at 2:08 am on June 29, 2005 at Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I was 19.
I had been married less than a year and a half. I turned 20 two months later, and a few months after that, we bought our first house, a townhome not far from Schriever AFB, where my ex-husband was stationed. We'd been living in an apartment before--during that first pregnancy.
I was always exhausted and threw up daily until my seventh month. The midwife began refusing nausea medication halfway into the second trimester, citing the cost to the US military. Idk how pregnant women work because I don't think I could have. With my second son, I woke up feeling like a train had hit me, just completely drained of energy, and knew I either had mastitis again or a bun in the oven.
I went into labor around midnight. My ex went to bed, figuring at least one of us should sleep. I passed the night chatting with childhood friends on mIRC, including Dustin, who stayed up with me until nearly dawn and remained one of my closest friends until he passed in 2022. I should've asked him to be Corbin's godfather.
Ten or twelve hours later, we went to the hospital. They didn't have any beds so we had to wait. The fire alarm went off. My well-rested ex insisted that we evacuate with everyone else and made me walk down 2-3 flights of stairs in active labor. When we got downstairs, the drill was over, and I now had to go all the way back up while having contractions every few minutes and already exhausted.
I started ugly crying on the lobby floor, and a black doctor knelt by me to ask what was wrong and listened while I sobbed. She said laboring women don't evacuate for drills, calmed me down by reminding me that we can take the elevator back up, and marched straight into L&D to give those nurses a piece of her mind!
They got me into a bed straightaway after making a bunch of excuses for how they acted before. One nurse fiddled with my arm for an ungodly amount of time installing an IV that hurt for the entire hospital stay and then announced gleefully, "I just did my first IV!" Wtf? Shouldn't you have learned to do that already? Why are you practicing on a laboring woman? I was afraid to complain though.
After that, it was a lot of moaning, crying, asking for pain relief, being told the anesthesiologist was busy, trying in vain to sleep despite the pain, screaming, being shamed for being too loud, etc. Finally, they gave me Nubain, which relieved the pain and let me sleep for a while, and when I woke up, I got my epidural.
It was smooth sailing for a bit after that, but then my labor stalled, which I now know was likely due to the epidural. They gave me pitocin, which causes unnaturally strong contractions, and broke my bag of waters.
Before long, I'm screaming like a banshee again because that epidural does NOTHING for the intense pressure in your pelvis and abdomen during the biggest poop of your life. That's exactly what birth feels like, if you've never done it.
I pushed for five minutes. I have asthma so I get breathless. I was doing what felt natural to me while trying to obey their shouted commands about how to breathe, how long to push, and what to do with my face (apparently facial expressions were not allowed). Suddenly a blonde nurse's face was inches from mine yelling, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. DO YOU WANT TO HAVE A C-SECTION?
I shook my head no, speechless, and doubled my efforts. Another five minutes later, a baby boy popped out. The pushing phase took all of ten minutes. My ex watched from the foot of the bed, interested but uninvolved.
The doctor who caught him was a man I'd never met and never saw again. He sat there looking bored and then took a very long time to unwrap the cord from the baby's neck before handing him off to the nurses.
The room was silent and still. He came out utterly quiet. This became as characteristic of him as infodumping about Star Wars and politics.
There was no need to worry. His first APGAR was 9, and after a minute or two, he cried. His second APGAR was 10. He was 6lbs, 6oz, 19", 19cm head. His first word was juice, but his favorite word was Cars. His name for himself too.
I had second degree tears. The doctor began stitching. I asked for more pain relief. He said that would just delay my getting to go to my private recovery room. So during my first moments of meeting and bonding with my baby, I felt a stranger's fingers on my vagina and the pain of a needle in my tender flesh. I don't know if my tears were from joy, pain, or the strain of trying not to wince.
I had daydreamed of what I would say to him. I was a writer, a poet. But I had no words.
His eyes were gray-blue like a stormy sea, perfect, and fixed on mine with a quiet intensity.
One thought formed slowly in my mind, "He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
And all I could say was, "Hello, Corbin."
