Our doctor delivers at Women's Hospital (where I was born and probably many of you reading this). And I'll tell you what I was nervous about - our good family friend, Courtney Trackwell, is a labor and delivery nurse at Women's. I was nervous that if she was our nurse, I'd make a fool of myself in front of her - I could just see it, me yelling in pain, screaming for drugs, yelling at Courtney, etc - if she ended up being our nurse. I was also pretty nervous about the privacy aspect. Did I really want someone that I see for birthday dinners and family vacations to have seen THAT? No, no, I sure did not.
So there we were, June 10, scheduled for induction, and the hospital didn't have room for us until 3 am, so it was technically June 11. I was 41 weeks and one day. I texted Trackwell at some point after they got us set up in our room and it was normal daytime hours. I was so appreciative that she had been telling me for months she wanted to be there when Thomas was born. But, I did not want to ask her to come scrub in when it wasn't her assigned day to work. And again, I was nervous...was she really going to see everything!?! The gloves and the gel and the stirrups .... Oh, no. I couldn't think about it.
The day progressed, and then contractions started, and then they grew more intense, and things were getting real. Once I got the epidural, I floated back and forth between being at peace, reminding myself God designed us for this, and wigging out, thinking this was going to be so crazy and/or possibly take for. ev. er.
Our daytime nurse was wonderful, just truly wonderful in all ways you want a nurse to be. And then 7 pm approached and it was time for her to go. Things were taking their own sweet time. We had texted Trackwell, who said she wanted to come in when I was around 8 cm - meaning, close to "go time."
Our daytime nurse said "I'm going to pick out a great nurse from the night shift for y'all." Drew looked over at her from the chair next to my bed.
"Well, our friend Courtney actually already assigned us to one of her friends." Trackwell was taking good care of us and she wasn't even at the hospital yet!
I was glad too that Courtney was going to get to be a part of things, but wasn't having to pick up an entire extra 7 am - 7 pm shift just because of us. It looked like this was working out great.
Having Courtney Trackwell at the birth of our first child was INCREDIBLE. I will forever be thankful that she was willing to work overtime to be there for us, that she was actually excited about it. I will forever be grateful for her positive cheering throughout the hour and a half of "pushing." I will forever remember as they turned off my epidural, as my eyes searched the room for things to focus on, looking at Trackwell giving me the thumbs up, as Angela told me when to breathe, when to hold my breath, when to push with all I had.... I can still hear Courtney saying "You're doing SO GOOD Coco! GO GO GO GO GO COCO!!" With a huge smile on her face. At least someone was smiling!
It was very neat, to have known Courtney for oh, eight years, to see her get through nursing school and then graduating - to witness her in her role as a labor and delivery nurse, and get to see how good she is at her job. It seems like more than a job to Courtney, too - she seems to truly enjoy bringing babies into the world, the yelling and the gloves and the gel and the dilating- she handles it all like a champ.
I mentioned earlier that when it was just Angela and Drew and I in the room at the beginning of Angela's shift, she asked how we knew Courtney Trackwell.
Well, where shall I start?
Should I just say "I've known Courtney's fiance John since he was born, we go way back?"
Should I say that John's grandparents and my grandparents were the best of friends and took family vacations together? That Pat and Tommy, Dan and Elaine are the reason our families are so closely enter-twined? That since they became friends nearly fifty years ago there have been two more generations of great friends since, and that my dad really considered all three of the Chen boys, Scott and Jay and Lee, brothers?
Should I say that Courtney's mother-in-law read scripture alongside my mom at mine and Drew's wedding? That John's uncle Lee is the first babysitter I can remember?
That's probably information overload, right? So I should just keep it short and sweet and say "her father-in-law and my dad grew up together." Or should I just say "Courtney was in my house party and I'm in hers?" Or, should I say that our families spent dozens of spring breaks and New Years Eve's together, and then their dad died from effing cancer and we huddled together in our grief after? Should I mention that then my dad died suddenly in a plane crash and the Chenoweths are a big reason we survived the whole ordeal?
I guess you could easily get lost in the details of how Courtney Trackwell and I know each other... One of my first and most favorite memories of Courtney Trackwell (Treadmill as my dad liked to call her) was during the first ski trip she came on with our families. We were playing a big, loud, competitive game, and it was evident that Courtney does NOT like losing. Nor will she go down quietly.
Finally, at the end, she and her team won, and right in my dad's face she jumped and started yelling "YES! I'm a CHAMPION! YES! That's what my dad tells every morning when I wake up. YOU! ARE! A! CHAMPION!!!!!"
My dad had a huge grin watching her outburst, a fiercely competitive soul himself.
I know now that it was silly for me to be nervous about Courtney being in the room as we had Thomas. Who wouldn't want someone like her cheering for them, someone who isn't afraid to be loud, someone who is fiercely loyal, and won't give up? Sure, I'd rather not think about the things that Courtney has now seen. I'd like to shut my eyes and think those things can be unseen.
But I will always think about her when we tell Thomas about the day he was born, how special it was to have our lifelong friend Courtney Trackwell (a few days from being Courtney Chenoweth) there to tell me to breathe, to encourage me and Drew, and to witness the miraculous occasion of a child being born.
And I suppose, now when people ask me how I know Courtney Trackwell, things are even a bit more complicated to explain.
The fourth generation of Rochaskaweths have arrived, with the birth of Clare Robinson and Thomas Prochaska, and oh how we wish our dads were here to see it, and see how a Chen was the nurse for a Prochaska delivery...But I feel confident that Tom and Jay are smiling something huge in heaven.
Long live the Robchaskaweths!
and thank you, as always, for reading.
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