GDTD.01 Excited, Terrified, Joyful, and Forlorn
The first in a series based on both great and terrible days, and the lessons I learned from them
This newsletter is about the inner conflict of a Gorilla struggling with Anxiety & Depression who desperately wants to walk The Path of the Every Day Santa. To paraphrase Dorothy, "Anxiety, Depression, and Joy! Oh my!" All will be discussed here.
Great Days, Terrible Days #01
The Day My Son Was Born
In March 2001, my wife and I lived in a small Onsen1 village in Western Japan. It was a beautiful and remote location frequented by the weekenders from Hiroshima who sought the “beautifying” local water. We were tucked in a narrow valley about a 20-minute drive from the Japan Sea but only a five-minute walk to the closest Onsen.
In early March, my wife woke me in the early hours of the morning. She was having contractions, and it was time to go to the hospital. It was about two or three in the morning, and we shuffled out to the car under a starlit sky.
Excitement
As we drove down the dark and winding mountain roads toward town, I asked her to call out her contractions so I could time them. I was more nervous than she was, and perhaps focusing on that kept me from being, or getting us into, a wreck.
Once we arrived at the hospital, the doctors agreed this was ‘not a drill,’ and the birth of our first child was imminent. She was brought directly to a room with a birthing table in preparation.
The birth was not easy. She was on the birthing table for approximately 17 hours. During that entire time, she was going through contractions, and the doctors agreed she would give birth shortly. They kept saying this for hours.
While I had arrived at the hospital hours before sunrise, fully feeling this was the most exciting day of my life, that feeling was slowly evaporating. As my wife reclined on the table, suffering contractions, my excitement waned and was replaced with unease. This was taking too long. Something must be wrong.
Unease
In the early evening, they finally called the doctor into the room. I stood by my wife’s side, holding her hand and offering encouragement as the nurses and doctor guided her.
This was taking too long. Something must be wrong.
“Push,” they said, and she did. This continued on and on. I had expected the birth to take about 30 minutes, but that soon became an hour, then 90 minutes. I wiped the sweat from my wife’s brow. She looked like a marathon runner facing yet another hill. At the two-hour mark, my wife was flagging, and my panic was rising.
The doctor and nurses continued to urge her, “Push, push,” and she did, but this battle seemed fruitless. With a tight throat, I struggled in my halting Japanese to ask what must have sounded like, “Vacuum! Baby vacuum machine! Use it!2 They just shook their heads to inform me it was not an option.
Terror
My wife had been pushing for over two and a half hours, and my son was not cooperating. My anxiety had become a full-on terror. My inner dialogue told me I was going home with only one person that day, and it would be my wife or son. I no longer saw a happy resolution as a possibility. However, I continued to wipe the sweat from my wife’s brow and cheer her on. I couldn’t allow her to see the fear in me.
Suddenly, just before the three-hour mark, a nurse said, “Push, he is crowning. We can see the head!” In utter exhaustion, my wife turned to me and asked, “Is it true? Can you see it?” I replied, “Not from here,” as I was on the wrong side of the curtain, “but this must be it. Push! You’re almost there.”
Of course, the nurses were lying, or perhaps just exaggerating, but about 15 minutes later, it was finally done. My son was born, and we heard his first cries. I was overwhelmed with relief, joy, love, and other emotions I may never understand. However, the leviathan of terror was lurking in the deep. I knew my wife could still bleed out, so this moment of overwhelming joy was tainted.
Tainted Joy
In this state of tainted joy, I found myself pushed into the hallway while the doctor and nurses took care of the follow-up. While I was no longer 100% in the ‘only two people are going home from this’ camp, one foot was still on that side of the fence.
It may have only been a few minutes between pushing me out the door and a nurse coming out and handing me my son, but it felt like hours. As the tightly wrapped baby burrito was handed to me, I asked the nurse, “My wife?” she replied, “She’s fine.”
Overwhelming Joy and Relief
Suddenly, I felt like I could breathe again, but it was not a priority. The only priority in my life now was in my arms. It was the happiest moment of my life; without a doubt, I had never been so joyful and relieved at once. This was why I could look down at my son's sleeping face, whose face was so swollen he looked like he just finished eight rounds with Mike Tyson, and wholeheartedly believed he was the most beautiful baby in the world.3
Feeling Forlorn
I have occasionally mused that the day my son was born was both “the happiest and saddest day of my life,” as after the honeymoon phase of clutching the baby burrito to my chest passed, I looked around and realized I was completely and utterly alone. No family. No friends. It was just me and my newborn son in an empty hospital hallway. My brother, sister, and parents were halfway across the globe in the USA. My wife’s family was all in Tokyo.
The friends came in the following days, but for the moment, it was just me. Then, a young Filipina woman walked up to me like a single firefly in the dusk. “Is that your new baby?” she asked me in English. “Yes,” I replied, feeling rescued from isolation. If it was a complete stranger who would rescue me from this moment, I would take it. She was giving birth to a daughter at that moment, and she was there to support her. In the coming days, I would see her again many times, as her friend and my wife shared a room in the hospital.
My First Days as a Father
We named our son Taiga. Rather foolishly, I thought the name would be easy for my New England family to pronounce, as it is similar to saying ‘Tiger’ with a Boston accent. While William Blake wrote:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
My family would read that as,
Tygah, Tygah, burning bright,
At least, in theory. In practice, their response was, “Oh, like Tiger Woods,” and somehow a hard “r” was added to his name due to the convenience of ‘tagging’ his name to a previously known name rather than learning a new one. It happens.
To our Japanese friends, we always have to teach them the proper kanji for his name, which is a common struggle in Japan. The most common kanji for the name Taiga is 大河, which translates as ‘big river.’ However, as my son was the largest baby ever born at the local hospital4, which was the reason my five-foot tall wife struggled so much, we chose 大芽, which translates as ‘big bud,’ as the magnolia trees were displaying beautiful large buds around when he was born.
What Did This Teach Me?
While there are times in one’s life when one is firmly in control, there are others when one is not. Knowing the difference can empower you to alleviate panic by understanding that someone else, who is most likely competent, is in control.
In the case shared above, the doctor and nurses were in control. While my wife may have been feeling like she would die from exhaustion, and I feared for the life of both her and my son, it was probably just another day at the office for the hospital staff.
A corollary to the above would be that beyond competence, there is also the matter of statistics. While I would never be daring enough to bungee jump or skydive if I ever do, I know exactly how I would do it. I would tell myself, “Statistically, you are more likely to die in a car than doing this. Just do it.” Sometimes, you can trust the system even when you do not have control, such as when jumping from a plane. The pilot is experienced, the instructor is well-trained, and the parachute was packed by experts. The system works.
Do systems fail sometimes? Sure, but statistics are mostly on your side.
The day my son was born was an emotional roller coaster. At the time, I did not realize I had signed up for a roller coaster. I handed over my ticket and expected a Merry-go-round but ended up on a roller coaster without a safety bar.
Imagine riding this without a safety bar to hold you in place!
The Takeaway
Sometimes, when life is happening, the best you can do is to hold on and trust in the system. The roller coaster always comes to an end, and often the terror in the moment becomes a fond memory.
I would never willingly go on a roller coaster alone at this point of my life, but I loved going on them at Disney with my son. In fact, we split off from my wife and daughter while there to go on one multiple times. He is my roller coaster guide. He came into this life as a roller coaster, so somehow, I feel safe getting on one with him.
Have you ever had a similar experience, going through such a vast array of emotions in one day? How did it happen to you?
Onsen is Japanese for “hot spring.” They are a huge tourism pull in rural areas nationwide, as the Japanese love these communal baths, and each town celebrates the unique qualities of their own water. Our village, Mimata, had very ‘silky’ water, which they now use to make skin cream.
While unfamiliar with the machines and devices involved in childbirth, I was aware that ‘vacuum assisted birth’ was an option. However, I assumed the vacuum was a machine, rather than a glorified suction cup on a string. I wonder if those nurses still joke about the strange foreigner ranting about the “baby vacuum”…
The birth was as difficult on my son as on my wife. He was born with fluid in his lungs and facial swelling due to the difficult birth. He spent the first week of his life in a box recovering.
He was a bit over 3.9 kg (about 8 lbs. 10 ounces for the Americans)