This article is adapted from Elizabeth Berg's essay in Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother (Harper, 2009), edited by Grandparents.com columnist Barbara Graham.
I think I've been ready to be a grandmother since I knew what grandmothers were. I grew up with only one grandmother, and I liked everything about her. She had white porcelain poodles, all chained together. Once a week, her six daughters would gather in her kitchen to wash her very heavy, very long white hair, about which she was admittedly vain; and while it dried, she would read their fortunes in tea leaves. But mostly what I liked about my grandmother was that she was revered. Obviously, there was something to this grandmother business. So far as I could tell, it was like being queen of England.
After my older daughter, Julie, had been married a few years, I began to wonder if she'd decided not to have children. I didn’t want to pressure her, even though I'd been sorely tempted to inquire the day after the wedding if there was any news from the stork. But then one day she called and said she had something to tell me and I yelled, "Are you pregnant?" She laughed and said yes, and I screamed and then I cried. She told me it was early, so early, really too early to tell anyone; I must not tell anyone yet. But I told everyone and that is why Julie will never tell me secrets anymore. I was just too happy. Happiness was leaking out of me; it was causing chest pressure similar to a heart attack, and so what could I do? I had to tell my best friend(s). In the world we live in, any chance to share lovely news is irresistible.
Julie had asked me to be present during labor, to serve as a coach. Since I'm a former RN, she figured I'd be good to have around; also, I was cheaper than a doula. "But when it's time to push," she told me, "I'd like to be alone with Josh." I said of course. I would do whatever she wanted.
This Is It!
On the day the baby was due, there was no sign of labor. Julie, Josh, and I went out to dinner, and while Julie was eating she felt a pain. Hooray! we thought. This is it! We finished dinner, we went for a walk, and the pains went away.
The next day, while the doctor was giving Julie a treatment to soften her cervix, her water broke. She was told to move around a bit until the pain got more, uh, interesting, so we walked up and down the hall. She was happy that so far the pain wasn't too bad. And then it got bad.
She moved to the birthing room, and the nurse brought in a beach ball for her to sit and rock on. She sat, she rocked, she moaned, and after a while her eyes got the glazed, distant look that animals get when they’re in pain. In one small part of my brain, I was thinking, Well, this is it; this is good and natural and necessary; this is what she must go through to deliver. But mostly I was thinking, Stop it! Leave her alone! Don't hurt her so much! The contractions were intense and coming right on top of each other, and after a while Julie decided to get an epidural. And let me tell you, within minutes, she had left the medieval torture chamber and was bantering with the nurses, telling jokes, making delightful conversation with her husband. It was as if she were at an oddly intimate cocktail party where every now and then someone came and had a really good look up her dress.
Although the good part of an epidural is that it takes away the pain, the bad part is that it slows down labor. So I went back to Julie's house to sleep and to take care of their dog, Wrigley. In the spirit of celebration, I gave him extra food. Then I invited him to spend the night on the bed with me. I fell into uneasy sleep, hopeful that I wasn't going to miss anything.
| Were you in the delivery room when a grandchild was born? |
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No, but I wanted to be 20.0%
No, that's only for the new parents 19.0%
Yes, and it was wonderful 61.0%
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Early the next morning, I raced to the hospital and arrived just in time for Julie to push. She said, "Mom? I know I asked you to wait outside, but I'm kind of scared, so would you stay?" To say that I felt honored would be engaging in the fine art of extreme understatement.
A Profoundly Quiet Moment
So while Josh stood at Julie's knee, I stood at her head, watching her turn bright red every time she was told to push. Her face turned red and blue veins bulged at her temples, and Josh saw a bit more and then a little bit more of the baby's head. And then a blueish-white body came sliding into the world, facedown. I recall the moment as being profoundly quiet, though I know it was not. Then someone said, "Turn it over!" because we all — mother, father, grandmother, nurses, doctor — were anxious to see what sex it was. And when the baby was flipped, I saw Matthew Sumner Krintzman, another human thrust suddenly onto the planet where a moment before there had been so such being.
I saw my son-in-law's hands fall to his sides and his shoulders slump and his head drop and I saw him weep with the kind of joy that is so all-encompassing the body cannot contain it and, in fact, seems to break with it. I saw my daughter take her baby to her breast in a movement of glorious strength and beauty that announced, I am his mother, he is mine, and I am gong to take care of him every single second of my life. And again, I know there were sounds in the room, but my memory plays that scene back to me in absolute stillness, as though we were all underwater, yet with the sun shining through the high hospital windows. Absolute quiet, as though we were witnessing a living sacrament, which of course we were.
I had my moment of holding the baby, of staring down enraptured into that calm little face, into those shiny new eyes, so wise-seeming, and then I called everyone on my list. I tried to impart the wonder of all I saw, the privilege; but I'm afraid I'm not equipped to articulate such a thing. Who would be? I saw my daughter give birth to her son, and I was crowned.
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