On the evening of September 22nd four years ago, I had just gotten into a taxi with Chip so that we could go to Bulovka Hospital in Prague.
We had been watching the second season of 24 and eating chicken chili when my water broke. After some panicked running about, we managed to collect the things we needed--wits perhaps excepted--and gather enough towels to convince the driver to let us into his cab. Luckily we got a nice guy who took his job seriously: I don't think I'd ever made it to Bulovka quite that fast before.
It had been a crappy day up to that point. I had gone in for my weekly checkup at the hospital and met a new doctor, one who immediately looked at me and decided that a planned C-section was the way to go. When I called my own doctor, incensed at his cheek, she agreed with him. I remember walking away from the hospital to the tram stop sobbing at the thought of checking in to the hospital in three days for an operation instead of labor. I went home and fell asleep on the couch, crying--though not until I had managed to cause a series of pissed-off phone calls from Chip to my doctor. The poor woman was probably at that very moment vowing never to take on another crazy American patient.
By the time Chip got home from work, I had calmed down enough to see that how the baby arrived was less important than he or she arriving overall. We cooked dinner and settled in for the night, content to see what Jack Bauer would get himself up to this time. Imagine our surprise to discover that the baby had his own plans, none of which included our seeing the thrilling conclusion of the episode.
We called my doctor, and she told us to give her an update when we arrived. We were told at that point that things were not progressing rapidly, so we called Dr. B. back and told her to go to bed. We'd call her in the morning. But again the baby-to-be had his own ideas, and by midnight, I was in pretty serious labor. Oh, and Mr. Stubborn had no intention of coming out headfirst. Breech all the way!
I honestly don't remember much more than flashes and waves of the night. There was some walking, some crying, lots and lots of screaming, a fuck of a lot of pushing--to the point that I seriously considered strangling the doctor, who kept saying things in Czech like "Just one more push!" and then continuing to say that for several hours on end--the dreaded episiotomy, and finally a baby boy. The time was 6:50 a.m., and I was the last women to give birth on the night shift. Lucky for me, it was shift change time, and so there were approximately 2,309 people watching me give birth by the end. I'm pretty sure they put out a call over the intercom: "Attention, medical personnel. If you would like to see the loudest American woman ever give birth to a breech baby with no pain medication, please come to the OB Department immediately." They came in droves, and I didn't care at all.
That day, September 23, 2003, our lives changed forever. Happy fourth, Connery man.
