15 Jan New Year’s Baby

It was a quiet New Year’s Eve. It had to be; baby Cain was already 5 days late and expectant Gigi Cain was too fat to feel like partying. So an early night, for New Year’s Eve that is, was called. Husband went peacefully to bed around 2 am. For Gigi there had been few peaceful nights after the beginning of the 7th month in mid-fall, and this was Jan 1, 1973.

Sometime after 5 am Gigi felt the sudden urge to urinate, in a massive way. Jumping out of bed heading to the bathroom, she didn’t make it. The contractions started immediately.

The Cains dutifully waited until 9:00 am when the contractions were 5 minutes apart before departing to the designated hospital in Neptune, New Jersey about 10 miles away. No traffic, it was still early for the New Year’s Eve revelers. The veteran doctor who had been seeing Gigi for months was at the hospital for the first examination, and pronounced that it might be a while even though the contractions were regularly 4-5 minutes apart, and especially acute in the back.

Husband Mike had a transistor radio to listen to the New Year’s Day football games and did his best to push on her lower back as each contraction started. Hours passed and the hospital was quiet. After many hours of not seeing the physician, Gigi asked if he could give an update as she felt she needed to start pushing. The nurse told her the doctor had gone home to have New Year’s Day dinner with his family. A big surprise, that was. Apparently, he had decided the baby would not come that soon; thoughts of “permission to push” vanished for the expectant mother.

After the doctor returned around 4-5pm, he shared that things were going slowly but normally. Gigi again brought up the desire to push. The contractions were now 2 minutes apart, and, alleluia, about 6 pm the doctor agreed that she could start pushing.

After 9 pm Gigi, abandoning the idea of a natural birth, asked for help. Desperately. The doctor said that in all his years he had never assisted in a natural birth and that he was on Team Cain to continue the effort. Besides, he said, it was now too late for any medication or other medical intervention. He made one final exam and assured everyone that if we could just go to the birthing room, he would get the baby on the next contraction with mid-forceps.

And he did. Papa Cain learned he had just become a father to a girl, and couldn’t decide how he felt about that. Those were the days of sudden surprises, and finding out at birth the gender was an awe-inspiring, unforgettable moment.

Little Kristen was compact, a beautifully shaped golden child. Momma Cain had a huge private room on a corner of this big hospital and because maternity care was humane, after finding out there was no help at home, they permitted her to stay for 6 days. Wonderful. She certainly needed the coaching after finding out that the golden child had neonatal jaundice (a high level of bilirubin), and that beginning breastfeeding was not as idyllic as portrayed in a Mary Cassatt work of art.

After the first few days of light therapy, Kristen tested normal on red blood count, her biliruben levels. She did however retain her golden appearance to this day. And she grew to be from the first day onwards the apple of her father’s eye. On her mother’s side, after two weeks of recovery from shoulder and neck strain from prematurely insisting on “pushing”, Gigi Cain began her cherished role of mother of a child, gifted from birth with a strong will, growing in wisdom.