“Are you the father?” the nurse inquired. “Who?” I asked, looking around trying to figure out if she was talking to me. “The father,” she repeated. “Are you Dawn’s husband?” “Uh”, I answered, as this howl that held a slight hint of my beloved’s voice filled the air. I froze, uncertain if perhaps werewolves had somehow taken over the pediatrics unit of Pawating General Hospital. As I had neither wolfs-bane nor silver bullets, I quickly began to contemplate my retreat. My first thought was that if attacked, I should be sure to keep my mother-in-law between these beastly pursuers from hell and myself.
My wife, who was several weeks overdue with our first child, had agreed to allow our doctor to induce labor. With Christmas only a few weeks away, they had decided that if the blessed event were to occur on December 22nd we would then be able to bring both mother and child home for the holidays. “What a country,” I marveled when given this logic. Medicine had certainly come a long way.
We arrived bright and early that morning, unsure of the details but confident in the knowledge that doctor and staff seemed perfectly practiced in what they were doing. After a quick preliminary exam, we were assured that my wife was who she said she was, and that she was indeed pregnant. A nurse then returned and gave her a simple shot. This was it, we were told. Now all we had to do was wait, and wait…and wait. Several hours later my wife, my mother-in-law, and I all sat sleepily in a cramped, ill-smelling room - still nothing as a visitor after visitor assured us that everything was going according to plan.
My mother-in-law, whose judgment I have since learned to question then innocently suggested that given the lack of progress, she and I might slip off for some quick breakfast. After even more assurances that we would have “plenty of time”, I gently kissed my wife who was half-asleep from boredom by then and dutifully followed my mother-in-law to the cafeteria. After enjoying a delicious meal of cardboard and Styrofoam, we casually strolled back to the pediatrics wing of the hospital where the above scene continued.
“Are you Micheal?” she finally asked directly. I nodded timidly, startled by the urgency in her voice. “Let’s go,” she barked. “It is time.” As she finished saying this, she shoved me into a broom closet with an armful of garments. I hastily donned a pair of none-too-flattering paper pants, a shirt, and some thin paper booties and exited just as the medics were rushing past with what had once been my sweet, slumbering bride. But that had now been replaced by a howling, teeth-gnashing, she-wolf that pawed out and latched onto my arm with the strength of ten men. Away we went! Down what seemed like a funhouse of twisting turning halls and doors. Finally, we arrived at what I assumed to be their lair. I was ordered to stay at the head of the bed, to help “her” breathe…Br-e-a-t-h-e. As this frothing terror went on to huskily inform me of flaws and faults, I was pretty sure, it had no way of even knowing about.
So there I was in a room full of lycanthropes, as some Doctor of the Moon positioned himself as if he were a catcher for the Detroit Tigers. All these years later I still struggle to remember the details, but at the time, I could have sworn that as he crouched into position, he had given the sign for a low inside fastball. To which the beast, who again, had once been my lovely wife dejectedly snarled that it was done. “Done!” it had howled, “that’s IT!” When informed by the catcher-wolf person that quitting was no longer an option, she then launched into an unintelligible horrifying invective that I instinctively understood to be werewolf-ees for, “eat-him-now”.
The Alpha Male then reached down and picked up a scalpel! While I am not sure exactly what he did with it, as I was turning to run for my life. If only I could break that satanic grip! Within seconds, the grip loosened. Turning to ensure that this was indeed my opportunity to flee, I was startled by the sight of a purplish-red, slimy ball being hoisted from nether regions. Surely, this was one of theirs...it did not appear to be human. Its colors were not of this world. Moreover, it was not moving. As I watched frozen by fear, unable to make the connection between mind and feet they placed this pint-sized baby beast upside down. Gently removing the slime from its tiny little wolf jaws, and then, it let out not a howl…but a whimper, then a cry. A human cry? As my flight instinct receded, I was amazed as some semblance of humanity flushed into its noticeably “hairless” limbs. This was not a pup at all. It was an infant. A child. My first child!
In the end, while I am undyingly grateful to have witnessed the miracle of birth, despite the frightening duties that accompanied it. It was with minimal resistance that I soon after, surrendered my job as a birthing assistant, to my oft-mentioned mother-in-law. And I instead assumed a less harrowing role: sitting patiently in the maternity ward waiting rooms for the births of her sibling. Far away from the chaos and inner workings of the pack, grateful for the blessings and even the curses of fatherhood, if just a tad nervous, every full moon. But then again what do I know I’m just a smuck.
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