Post #19: Baby Cooper's Worldly Arrival
- Nana Beryl Jupiter
- Sep 30, 2019
- 11 min read
Updated: May 24, 2020
Dear regular FinallyNana blog readers:
Please be advised that this has turned out to be my longest post. Although I do not want to overly impose upon your time, I figured we are all ready to welcome baby Cooper into the world by now, so here’s how it all went down.
Monday, August 15, 2016
Ring!!! Ring!!! Was something ringing in my dream? No, that wasn’t it. I awoke in some confusion out of a fairly sound sleep state, but what was ringing? Oh, I finally realized, the rings seemed to be coming from the new mobile phone I had just acquired in Australia. I hardly knew what its ring sounded like, or even how to answer it. But I finally connected to the caller in my still woozy mind state.
“Nana, your grandson is born,” excited new dad Jason cheerfully announced to me.
“Really? Already?” I said, in semi-shock, noticing my phone clock was reading around 5:30 am. “So how is everyone doing?”
“Great!” Jason told me. “You can hear everything from Stacy, who is still holding Cooper,” and he handed his phone off to her.
“Wow, I am so happy for you,” I said, “but that was fast!”
Then I got most of the full report from Stacy of how the night had gone. Essentially, neither of them had gone to sleep all night. After giving Stacy the hormone-inducing suppository in the pre-delivery room about 9 pm on Sunday, the nurse encouraged both of them get some sleep as labor might take hours to get going. Fairly exhausted anyway, Stacy dozed off quite quickly but was rudely awakened only 15 minutes later as intense labor began and did not subside. Her labor pains were excruciating with little time between them. Having read in a childbirth book that it was perfectly fine to yell out during labor, Stacy allowed herself to noisily erupt through the pains. Eventually, she was given epidural anesthesia. But labor was still intense and uncomfortable. As seen on the monitor, the baby was in a transverse position and not moving his head down to properly transcend the birth canal. When the monitor showed the baby’s heart rate drop precipitously, evidencing fetal distress, a quick decision was made to deliver by Caesarean section and Stacy was moved rapidly to the delivery room. After a harrowing and exhausting night, the incision was made and the baby was extracted from Stacy about 4:50 am. Despite his complicated birth, baby Cooper was otherwise perfectly formed, weighing metrically 3.3 kilograms and measuring 52.5 centimeters in length. That converts to our American measurements as 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 20.7 inches long.
What a story! Stacy had previously told me that there was a large incidence of Caesarean births in Australia but I had hoped she would not be one of those statistics.
“I am so glad the baby is okay, but how are you feeling?” I asked.
“I feel okay now,” replied Stacy, “but I probably still have a lot of drugs in me.” That made sense.
“So when should I come to the hospital?” I asked, admittedly still shocked and also sleep-deprived in my own way.
“As soon as you can,” answered Stacy, which kind of threw me, as I knew it would take me some amount of time to shower and pull my still somewhat jet-lagged self together for my first visit to the new parents and my grandson. And hanging up from Stacy, I had another important call to make, to Jesse.
“Congratulations, Grandpa,” I announced, and relayed Stacy’s delivery saga to Jesse.
After pulling me and all my stuff together for the hospital visit of indeterminate length, I walked briskly to the Wesley Hospital, glad that I had made a prior excursion with Stacy so I generally knew where I was going. On the way to the maternity ward, I passed the florist shop and made an obligatory purchase of a cheerful arrangement. At Stacy’s private room on the maternity floor, the door was slightly ajar. Knock, knock, “It’s Nana,” I called in, using my new moniker. “Come on in,” jointly replied Stacy & Jason. Stacy was in the bed, and tiny baby Cooper was cozily nestled in the bedside bassinet. Proud daddy Jason was buzzing between the two of them, attending to each one’s potential needs.
I first had to gaze at the new arrival, who looked absolutely adorable, what I could see of him, all bundled up in his swaddling cloth.
“So how’s everyone doing?” I inquired.
“Pretty well,” the weary new parents told me.
“The nurses have been checking on us,” Stacy said. “They got Cooper to latch onto my breasts.”
“Already?” I remarked, “That’s great. I spoke to Dad and gave him the news.”
“We know. He called my phone,” said Stacy, “And we spoke with him.”
“So how are you feeling after all this?”
“I’m not in any pain, but when I move around I get nauseous,” Stacy answered. “I already threw up.”
“Well, I guess you’re still numb from the anesthesia,” I observed, “but that’s also what could be making you nauseous.”
“I think they’re going to get me some medication for the nausea,” said Stacy, “as they don’t want me to keep vomiting.”
And they did. And it appeared that the nausea meds combined with the sleepless night and lingering anesthesia pretty much knocked Stacy out most of the day. Generally, all three of them were exhausted, Jason as well from the sleepless night, and Cooper from his difficult struggle to evacuate from his comfortable womb.
But periodically, Cooper fussed and Jason did his best to comfort, change, and re-swaddle him. When a nurse attempted to arouse Stacy to put Cooper to her breast, Stacy groggily and uncharacteristicly said, “Just let me sleep another half hour.” Jason fussed more with Cooper as Stacy was unavailable. Ordered food came and went as Stacy was more sleepy than hungry or attentive.
I wondered whether they could just give baby Cooper some water until Stacy could attend to breastfeeding. I remembered a photo of Jesse feeding baby Stacy a small water bottle in the hospital shortly after her birth.
I inquired of a nurse who informed me that supplementing with water was not done anymore so the maternity ward did not even carry any sterile water bottles for newborns. It seemed so worrisome to both Jason and me that baby Cooper was crying but Stacy was unavailable to attend to his needs. Yet attentive on-duty nurses visited regularly to check on both mommy and baby, and did not seem overtly concerned about the situation. I greatly desired to hold baby Cooper but every time he fussed, Jason picked him up and didn’t request my help or offer me the chance to do so. With Stacy unaware most of the time, I was reticent to ask Jason about my holding their baby.
Yet as Jason was getting fairly frazzled from lack of sleep and infant care while Stacy was crashing from her long child birthing night, I tried to engage him in hopefully pleasant conversation to keep his mind off worrying. I asked him what he enjoyed doing in his youth. Jason started by telling me how he liked to run and was involved in track and field at school. But eventually due to unfortunate family circumstances, he had to quit school at only 15 years old to find work to support himself. But that was how he became a chef, Jason told me. Sensibly, he thought it would be good to work in a restaurant so his work would come with meals. One of many applicants for work in a French restaurant in Sydney, Jason interviewed with the chef who sympathized with his story and took a chance on him. I appreciated learning more about Jason while we were both very concerned about barely conscious Stacy and newborn suckling Cooper on that very long day. But my original intention had been to foster a pleasant conversational diversion, rather than evoke some difficult memories from Jason’s youth.
By mid-afternoon when both mommy and child were temporarily calm, I persuaded exhausted Jason, whose frayed nerves were certainly showing, to take a nap on the extra dad mattress provided in the room. With everyone out for the count, I escaped to the cafeteria for some alimentary sustenance.
At least Jason caught a few winks, but less than an hour before a staff member knocked to attend to some monitoring. I was getting fairly tired myself from the stress of the day and leftover jet lag, so by early evening I bid my adieu to both of them. Hoping their night would go well with Jason intending to overnight there and knowing the nursing care seemed very attentive, I admittedly looked forward to the apartment’s calm solace.
Besides worrying how everyone would be overnight in the maternity ward, my second major concern was the absence of wine in the apartment. It was almost 7 o’clock but I decided to walk a couple additional blocks to the liquor store. To my relief it was still open so I was able to supply more wine to chill out from Nana life, day one.
By the time I returned to our apartment, it was late at night on the east coast of the United States. But I was pretty sure I could find my night owl cousin Claudia awake, and she would be delighted to hear from me. So we were able to FaceTime as I recounted the events of the past 24 hours. And Claudia could certainly commiserate with the new family scene, as she had gone through an even much more trying scenario at the premature birth of her grandson Patrick the year before.
Cooper, day two: given the unpredictable and wearying events of day one, I hardly knew what to expect when I made my way back to the Wesley Hospital maternity ward the next morning. Much to my surprise, all was well with the world in their cozy room. I was greeted by two cheerful, rested, smiling faces, whose night had gone fairly well. What a difference a day makes! Stacy was awake, aware and back to her normal self. Once I had arrived, Jason left to return to the apartment to shower, change clothes, etc. Stacy encouraged me to hold Cooper. I was in grandma heaven.
Stacy quickly discovered the usefulness of the ergonomically designed Boppy nursing pillow, highly recommended by cousin Becca for Stacy’s baby registry list. Stacy encouraged me to also employ Boppy to support Cooper while holding him, as I found that lengthily holding even a tiny newborn in a maintained position can be muscle wearying. At one point when Cooper was resting peacefully on Boppy on my lap, I was holding a tea cup with my left hand just as baby Cooper, with surprising strength, lurched upward and almost flipped over. With immediate heart pounding fear, I caught Cooper with my right arm but was shocked at how close I had come to letting him flip off my lap. I apologized profusely to Stacy, and was relieved that Jason had not been in the room to witness that potentially devastating acrobatic maneuver. Nana lesson 101: keep two hands on the baby at all times to be fully prepared for any unexpected wriggling.
Wesley Hospital staff were cheerful, plentiful, attentive and helpful throughout Stacy and Cooper’s five-day stay. There was no major impetus to rush them out of the hospital which seems to be the case more often on U.S. soil these days. Stacy’s having delivered by Caesarean section also contributed to her length of time in the hospital. Jason spent every night with his family, bedding down on the floor on the hospital-provided narrow daddy mattress.
I happened to be at the hospital when Stacy’s young (to me) female obstetrician Dr. Wai made a post-natal visit. She seemed to apologize for the birth turning into a Caesarean delivery, but reviewed how the baby was in distress after the long labor and not turning properly to enter the birth canal. Dr. Wai emphasized, however, that Stacy had very strong abdominal muscles which should heal well and offer the future opportunity for a vaginal delivery. Stacy and Jason both nodded approvingly, giving me the first glimpse into their possibly wanting more than one child. I was hoping that might be the case but felt it was premature to have that discussion with Stacy while she was still reeling from her first pregnancy and early mothering.
I also met her elderly male hospital pediatrician when he visited her room, giving a generally positive report on the baby’s health except for some minor jaundice from elevated bilirubin, a fairly common occurrence in newborns. In fact, I had experienced the same report on newborn Stacy at the Boston Women’s Hospital in 1975, with the additional admonishment that my baby might not be ready to accompany me home if the jaundice did not diminish sufficiently by my discharge. That was very upsetting news to me. But fortunately, baby Stacy improved with some treatment under the bilirubin lights and we went home together. Cooper too improved during their longer stay. My three nights in the maternity ward had been commonplace for a normal 1970’s delivery but is considered a long hospital stay by today’s US standards for a normal birth. Personally, I was in no hurry to rush out of the hospital as I was getting a lot of “on-the-job” training from the capable hospital nurses.
While the Wesley Hospital staff attending to Stacy were exceptional, the hospital food was no better than most institutional catering, and decidedly inferior to Jason’s gourmet cooking. One evening when I suggested take-out, Stacy requested sushi, which I located in Toowong’s commercial district, and added some celebratory champagne. Of course being a nursing mom, Stacy kept her alcohol intake to a minimum, but was glad to imbibe a bit, having been off alcoholic beverages throughout her pregnancy.
During the hospital stay, Stacy was healing well from her Caesarean incision and the new parents were getting into the routine of caring for baby Cooper. Jason wanted to be completely involved, and was often holding, soothing, swaddling and changing diapers. Of course, nursing was Stacy’s solo domain, but Jason may have been slightly jealous that he could not participate in that too. However, feeding did become a joint effort soon after they left the hospital when they added supplemental formula to satisfy hungry baby Cooper’s appetite. He did not seem to be fulfilled by nursing alone regardless of frequency.
Each morning I inquired how the night had gone. Mostly well, I was told, but admittedly sometimes baby Cooper was inconsolable, crying with screwed up face and flailing tiny arms and legs.
“That’s the ‘kraken’ coming out in him,” Stacy said.
“What does that mean?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term “kraken.”
“It’s a sea monster, with thrashing arms and legs, kind of like a giant squid or octopus,” Stacy explained. So anytime their newborn was at his worst, he was viewed as the kraken in contrast to adorable baby Cooper, something like an infant Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
But on a more pleasant connection to the sea, Stacy and Jason re-enacted the Fijian custom of bogi va, which translates to night four. Waisea, one of Stacy's Fiji work staff, had described this customary practice, especially among chiefly families, that takes place on the fourth night after babies are born. The general idea, as Stacy explained to me, is that “the ladies gather small fish and marine creatures from the sea and put them in a bath with the baby so the baby will always have a strong connection to and be safe in the ocean.” That certainly appealed to my marine biologist daughter, and now mother herself. So when the new parents gave baby Cooper his bath on day four while still in the hospital, Stacy added plastic sea creatures to embrace their Fiji life through the bogi va custom.
Meanwhile, as they were all living at the hospital, I spoke with Jesse regularly from the Inn on the park residence. Having heard my description of the current communal living situation into which he would be coming on the weekend, Jesse suggested that I check whether the two of us could move to a separate apartment in the building during his stay to allow them more privacy and not be on top of each other. My original thinking had been to be available to Stacy as needed and especially in the night, but Jesse’s point was well taken. And originally we had not known the length and timing of Jason’s stay in Brisbane, which had turned out to be extensive. So I made the inquiry about a separate one-bedroom apartment to the residence manager, and fortunately there was one available to rent. Hopefully, we would find the optimal balance of togetherness and privacy.
Comments