Zoey Alexandra
by Sara KnollEighteen years of life is not a very long time, but it is a long enough time to witness a few great things. It is a long enough amount of time to meet Carrot Top in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a long enough time to see the ocean and squish the sand between your toes. In eighteen years, you can watch several sunsets and sunrises, snow showers and thunderstorms. With so many wonderful things to see, it surprised me that something so small would be the most exciting thing I’ve seen yet.
I remember the day that Zoey was born. Barbara, one of my distant cousins on my dad’s side, sent me a text message and told me that she was in the hospital. My mom and I were flying home from Texas. Our flight had a layover in New Mexico, so we were eating terrible and expensive granola bars and reading a magazine together. I told my mom, “She’s gonna have the baby today, and we’re gonna get to hold her!” (Mom has had two children and knows a lot about babies.) She said, at the time, that it would be neat but probably wouldn’t happen. She now says, “I felt sad because I didn’t think you would really be there for it, but surprise, surprise!”
We drove out to my grandma’s house where we picked up my grandma, Barbara’s great-aunt. Her sister, Ethel, is Barbara’s grandma, and she was already at the hospital waiting. Grandma and Ethel both have several grown children, so they were excited to get to be around a baby again.When we got to the hospital, Barbara was not supposed to be eating or drinking anything. But, since she was starving, Ethel kept giving her miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Barbara was having very intense contractions, but she has a high pain tolerance and kept laughing, smiling, joking, and eating those Reese’s.
I recently asked her what was going through her mind when she realized she was going to have the baby right then and there, and she said, “Honestly I was so scared. I kept thinking This is it... No turning back now... Am I going to be the type of mom this little baby needs when he/she enters the world?”
George, Barbara’s boyfriend, was dropping his daughter Lizzie off at his cousin’s house, and Grandma and Ethel were worried he wouldn’t be back in time to see the baby born. But Barbara wasn’t worried at all. The nurse told Barbara she was dilated to eight centimeters. (According to what I have read, the baby is born after a woman is dilated to ten centimeters.)
When George got to the hospital, they finally broke Barbara’s water. Now I knew we were going to get to see the baby! When her doctor arrived, I was confident that she would tell us that it would just be another hour or so, but what she actually said was that the nurses were wrong. The doctor told us that Barbara was only dilated to five centimeters. Grandma and Ethel went downstairs to get some food, and my mom followed shortly after. I stayed upstairs just in case Barbara or George needed anything.
Mom found Grandma and Ethel who said they didn’t think any of the hospital food looked good and that they were going to go somewhere else to eat. My mom told them they wouldn’t have time. She used to work as a certified nurse’s assistant at the hospital, and she told them, “I would believe the nurses over the doctors because the nurses are the ones who actually take care of the patients, not the doctors. That many nurses could not have been wrong.”She was right. About two minutes after they all went downstairs, they gave Barbara some medicine for the back pain she was having. About two minutes after that, Barbara started yelling, “Baby’s coming, baby’s coming!” One of the nurses just smiled and said, “It sure is! Probably by tonight!” Barbara shook her head and said, “NO, baby’s coming!” Less than ten minutes later, Barbara was holding a beautiful baby girl on her chest. Barbara had never had a baby before, but she still knew that she was coming. “I believed the nurses hands down,” she said afterwards.
In all honesty, I had not wanted to be there for that part. Barbara even told me, quite some time before Zoey was born, that I could be there at the birth. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I told her that I would, but I was scared. I didn’t think I could actually see it and still come out okay. Seeing a live birth would make me afraid to have children of my own someday, right? I was very wrong.
My initial plan was to make up an excuse to leave the room right before she was born. I was sure I would be able to tell when labor got really intense. I’d just skip on out of the room and miss all of the gross stuff, and come back in time to find out if it was a boy or a girl, hold it, and leave. As rotten as it might sound, I didn’t think anyone would really want to be a part of the actual birthing process but Barbara and George.
The second I saw her head, I couldn’t leave the room. This was the real deal. There was going to be a new life here on this earth that wasn’t there the day before. I sent a quick text message to my mom: “You guys better get back up here. She’s having the baby right now.” Grandma and Ethel were back upstairs and in the room less than a minute later.
Barbara was in a lot of pain and crying, and George held her hand through it all. Seeing the way he took such good care of her, and the way no amount of pain could make her scream at him like what is portrayed in the scenes in the movies made me cry. I realized that I wanted that, too. Definitely not right now, and maybe not even for a few more years, but I want that. I want to bring a beautiful new life into this world, and I want the man I love to be there with me, helping me through it all.
Seeing this showed me that Barbara and George could really make it through anything now. I know a lot of people don’t believe in young love, and some people think “us kids” don’t even know how to love, but seeing the two of them together reminded me that it is possible. Barbara was crying and whatever she was saying was inaudible to me--maybe because of the exhilaration of the moment, maybe because she was crying so hard. Then, all of the sudden, above every other sound in the room, I heard her stop crying with pain and start crying with joy. She looked at George and told him, “My baby’s coming! Our baby’s coming!” I have never cried harder in my life. I especially haven’t ever cried that hard with happy tears.
Barbara got to pull Zoey out herself. When she laid Zoey on her chest, Barbara and George held each other’s hands, as well as their baby’s, and even if it was only for a few minutes, life really made sense. The nurses in that room had delivered and seen hundreds of babies in their careers, but they all looked just as touched as I felt. Barbara has since told me: “I have to say for sure pulling Zoey completely out was the greatest thing not only that day, but for the rest of my life. It was the first time I got to see or touch her and it still brings me to tears thinking about it.”Anyone who knows me won’t recognize me without a camera. I always have one with me. So, I whipped it out and took photograph after photograph. Barbara’s sister, Stephanie, recently revealed: “The first picture I saw was the one of Barbara holding Zoey, looking down at her. George was holding onto Barbara looking down at the two of them. It was the sweetest picture.”
After I took pictures of them weighing and measuring Zoey, and cleaning her up a little bit, they put her in a hat and diaper and wrapped her in a blanket, so I handed Barbara my digital camera and let her look at all of the pictures I had taken so far.
She called Texas and told her parents that they were grandparents and her sister that she was an aunt. She called other family and friends, and George called the family on his side, as well as a few other friends. Stephanie remembers when Barbara called her that day: “The first thing she said to me on the phone right after Zoey was born was gibberish....’You’re a new aunt.’ She later told me that the drugs hadn’t worn off yet. I thought it was funny.”I cannot think of a single word in the English language to describe everything I learned and felt that day except for the word “love.” The love between Barbara and George, and then Zoey, was something amazing enough. I never expected to know how to love someone I had just met. Barbara, herself, later said, “If there was a word stronger to describe how I feel about my Zoey I would use it, but so far all I have is love.”
I don’t think I will ever forget this day. I may forget a few details, and I may already have, but as Barbara says, “There is no way I will ever forget her coming into this world. It’s hands down the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and I am so thankful that I have her!”
Mom later said, “I thought it was awesome that you got to witness a live birth, but I was terrified it would leave you traumatized and you would never give me grandchildren!” I was definitely afraid of that, too, but I learned so much from that experience. Just seeing Zoey born has made me try a little harder to bring some good to this world she’ll grow up to live in. Even if I am only one person, maybe one person really can change the world, slowly but surely.
Notes:
Dodson, Barbara. E-mail interview. 1 Dec. 2007.
Dodson, Stephanie. E-mail interview. 2 Dec. 2007.
Knoll, Cindy. Personal interview. 30 Nov. 2007.