February 27 is birthday birthday birthday

Luciana's water broke at 4 am this morning. That was Baby A's little water bag - Jessie. Labor contractions started right away. Luciana called me at 4.30 to tell me in detail all the things I ought to do at this point. Because I was pretty sure I could handle my end, I hung the phone up and started getting ready. So she called me back to go over some fine points:

• put clothing on
• dress for winter
• back out of the driveway and look both ways
• drive safely and responsibly
• bring a cell phone

Since this was all very good advice I did what any husband and father-to-be would do. I reassured her that this was all very helpful to me, and I hung up.

I got to Tufts Medical Center at 5.17 am. I have to say, the traffic at 5 am is mild compared to 8 am. Fortunately, having my wife in the hospital for three weeks and visiting her a lot, I have had practice at several things. I knew the route and could drive without thinking, which was good, because I was not. I knew where to park and all that. I knew how to find the Labor and Delivery unit. (Follow the signs to Labor and Delivery, that always works.)

I was very excited and pretty scared too.

Luciana was on her side on a stretcher in a room in the Labor and Delivery Unit, and she was crying and groaning because she was in the middle of a contraction. The crying and groaning happened every two minutes for the next hour and a half. But the time seemed to go by quickly because I was busy holding her hand and wishing I had a cup of coffee. Also, I was reassuring her that the staff was not working some conspiracy to avoid delivering her babies until the day crew arrived. I was pretty impressed with the attending physician, a tall and very fit man wearing a military style hair cut and dressed in scrubs. He listened to Luciana explain her predicament and then told her there are risks to premature delivery for the babies, water breaking and contractions do not constitute labor without signs of cervical changes and so no one was doing anything for now. Then Luciana would repeat her position again - her cervix never opens, she went through 18 hours of labor before and it never opened - and then he would repeat his position again. These people were not really communicating.

So after he left the room, Luciana was left with her Brazilian Conspiracy Theory: everyone is always trying to avoid taking responsibility and avoid doing work. "We're in America now," I said somewhat sotto-voce because I knew that she wasn't paying attention to my thought process anymore anyway.

Then one of the residents did an exam and decided her cervix was indeed opening up. Now everything was different. Five minutes later she was in the OR getting her spinal and I was putting on a paper space suit and booties. I put it on and I did look ridiculous. But that is how I was supposed to look.

The delivery was wonderful and scary and intense and I enjoyed the hell out of it. The anesthesiologist, Geoffrey Wilson MD, sat with us and explained everything. He was sort of the Virgil to our Dante. He was also making sure that Luciana didn't feel any pain and he did an excellent job there too. I was afraid to look over the sheet at first because I was sure I would freak out, but I made myself look.

It was totally fascinating. These people I have met over the past weeks all were very focused, and they had their hands inside my wife's body, up to the write and more. Dr. Wasserman reached way in and pulled out a baby! Baby A (Jessie) was flailing around and started crying in a cranky way right off the bat. She looked like she was smeared with zinc oxide and blood. I saw Dr. Wasserman cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors like she was cutting a piece of tape. There were four people waiting to take Baby A away and they did.

Dr. Wasserman reached way back inside. Dr. Wilson said, "You're going to feel a strong push now." Throughout all of this Luciana was lying on her back with her head near mine, smiling and feeling now pain, while her body got pushed one way and another. You just got to love anasthesia! I looked up and saw Dr. Wasserman pull another baby out. Baby B! (Formerly Baby C). Again, flailing and yucking and crying, and they took Baby B over to a table nearby.

Dr. Wasserman went back in once more and came out with Baby C, Evelyn, who was clearly smaller than the other two. She cried a lot!

I cried a lot too. I wasn't crying about anything in particular, I was crying about everything in particular. I looked at Luciana's face and I cried. I looked at Dr. Wasserman getting instructions from the attending to reach in and pull hard, and I cried. I saw another baby come flying out into the cold world and I cried. If someone had showed me a picture of one of the policemen in Bermuda with the short pants and the tall socks I would have cried. It just seemed like the appropriate response to everything.

Luciana kept saying "What are you crying about?" and "Tell me what you are crying about." But I was in the zone beyond words, sort of enjoying it, like an astronaut on a long tether free of the capsule for the first time weeks. So I was happy just to be overjoyed and overscared and overrelieved and overloaded. As they say at AA meetings, It's all good.

Someone brought the littlest girl over for us to touch and hold for a few seconds. So tiny! Well, she's the one who looks like me, poor girl. She'll need special help dealing with that.

Very soon, all three girls went out to the NICU to be "settled down" -- a euphemism for assessed, stabilized, treated, etc. The surgical team went about their business of sewing Luciana up. I took a few looks. Surgical openings in the body cavity really scream "Reality!" at you in a big way, especially when it's your wife and this is not on video. I was glad when that was finished.

Everyone was thrilled with how Luciana did. She carried three babies beautifully for 32 weeks and 5 days, and she handled labor and delivery with tremendous spirit and joy. She was obviously thrilled to see her babies and I suppose everyone could see that she and I are deeply in love with each other. What other kind of nuts jump off the cliff of middle-age back into the canyon of parenting?

Marina and Eliani arrived soon after and were thrilled to see Luciana and hear about the babies. We were able to go to the NICU to see the girls for the first time. The two bigger girls were on CPAP masks to help support their breathing. Naturally, the little one was breathing on her own, crying and reacting to us (affect: annoyed).

A clerk came to the nurse to get the forms filled out. So this is what I heard:
"Diagnosis?" "Prematurity."
"Condition?" "Fair."

Can't ask for more than that.

It took Luciana a few hours to get out of recovery. During that time I went over to the NICU and sat with the meninhas, got to know the wonderful nurses in the NICU (really, this kind of work attracts some very nice people). I went back to Luciana and helped the Labor nurse to wheel her over to meet her babies. Oh, it was very nice to see them together. Then Luciana got back to her room in the Maternal-Infant Unit ("Your family starts here!") By then I was exhausted and had a stabbing headache so it was time for me to go home, walk the dog, and sleep.

I'm sure there has been ongoing drama in my absence but I will have to check back into that later.