Birth Story

As part of his journal at school -- which includes a portion for drawing pictures -- Marty apparently decided to tell the story of his birth...an interesting choice I thought since he doesn't remember it.

The thing is that, while I'm sure that we've told him the story before and he likes to make reference to the fact that he was born in Los Angeles, but we've never dwelt on it. That stands in stark contrast to my own mother who when I was a child repeatedly made sure that I understood that she was in labor for some ungodly amount of time, that the doctors were making jokes about my not wanting to come out due to the current racial unrest (I was born about 3 weeks after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed) and that at some point the doctors talked to my father about the fact that mother and child might not make it.

Here's my concern...I don't think that we've dwelt on it, but to be honest, Marty's birth was probably the most traumatic thing in my life. The labor was bad, there had been worries that he was running out of amniotic fluid, he got stuck, they had to cut my wife...and when he came out he didn't breath right away. Some swat team of doctors came running in to intubate him. That part was actually over in a matter of minutes, but it was the worst minutes of my life.

As it happens, my son's godmother -- and one of my best friends -- showed up at the hospital assuming that the birth had already taken place...only to find herself roped into actively participating in the birthing process. It is also one of the most traumatic experiences of her life.

So, I'm worried that maybe we actually have made a bigger deal out of all of this to Marty. I don't mind him knowing the story...the kid was born at Cedars Sinai in L.A., a hospital that actually gets mentioned with some frequency on T.V., so there are reasons for it to come up from time to time. I also usually tell the story of the following day, which happened to be Halloween, when I walked across the street to get some non-hospital food from Jerry's Famous Deli and in my sleep-deprived state got a little freaked out by the costumes...until the holiday dawned on me. But, I don't want it to seem like any of it was some huge deal (to him, anyway, since I still have nightmares and his godmother refuses to acknowledge that it even took place).

I do wonder what his teacher thought of his depiction, which was for the most part pretty accurate. My favorite part was his drawing of the intubation, which features a caption above the doctor's head that reads, "Jeez-O-Pete," and has horrified expressions on the drawings of me and his aunt.

Of course, his version, complete with a drawing, ends with him sleeping peacefully in a crib in a nursery...which is also how the real story ended. So, I guess all really is well that ends well.