Peace

For about ten years, I made my living video taping depositions for attorneys. I was lucky enough to be involved in some of the most interesting cases in the Midwest. One of which was the Times Beach/Russell Bliss fiasco.

As a consequence, I taped everything in my spare time. My camera was there for the birth of both of my kids. I remember proudly showing the birth of my daughter to all my friends. My wife said, “I better not be in those shots!” “Of course not,” I replied. I had such tunnel vision about my daughter, I hadn’t noticed that every bit of Kim was in the shot.

I was so bad that, when the doctor handed me scissors to cut her umbilical cord, I did it through the view finder.

The birth of my son was my single biggest life changing event. There’s nothing like being responsible for the survival and development of a human being to give you perspective.

He made me proud even before he was born. They took an ultrasound to see how he was doing in the womb. He was kicking back with his legs crossed when he flashed the most spectacular peace sign. Luckily, they let me put a video tape in, and I got it.

By the time Kim was pregnant with Chloe, the insurance companies wouldn’t let us get it on video tape. Apparently if anything went wrong, you might see it on tape and use it in a law suit. All we got was a photo.

Dylan was born at Barnes Hospital. When Kim went into labor, it was extremely painful and took forever. It turned out Dylan was lodged sideways in the birth canal and he wasn’t coming out.

I almost fainted when I saw the extremely long epidural needle sticking out of Kim’s spine.

The doctor’s called in a specialist. They all gathered in the corner of the room, and I overheard one of them say, “It’s going to have to be one or the other.”

I thought they meant only Kim or the baby would survive, but not both. What they really meant was they’d have to use forceps or a suction machine.

They wheeled a huge suction machine in, but they couldn’t get it to work. A frustrated young intern kicked it, and it started. I couldn’t believe I was in one of the world’s great hospitals.

Dylan finally came out, and I told Kim that, except for six toes on one foot, he was perfect. She began to cry. “I’m just kidding,” I said. “Don’t mess with my head!” she said.

The whole thing seems like a dream. I remember they threw the afterbirth in a bowl and it sat there for hours.

I wrote a guitar piece called Baby’s Baby to celebrate the event. I’ll post it one of these days.

I think I’ve posted all this before, but I can’t find it. I’m bringing it all up now because I just got the hardware to digitize my tapes. I’ll probably be posting a lot of links to YouTube.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video-----

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gLRfmMbnxk

Pics are: Chloe's birthday and Dylan in the womb flashing his Peace sign.