Friday, March 20, 2009
BUENA PARK The playbook put Dr. Alejandro Vázquez in a pivotal position.
As part of a 46-person delivery team, Vázquez – a fourth-year resident – was supposed to manually remove the mother's placenta after the birth of seven babies. The move, if executed properly, would make the uterus contract, ending a monumental delivery that had been rehearsed over and over and over.
Slowly, he placed his hand in the womb that had held the next installment of Nadya Suleman's not-so-tiny family.
"I felt a little fist with knuckles, and then I slowed down because it was all so surreal," said a relaxed Vázquez, 31, in a Buena Park coffee shop. "Then I felt a little head."
And that was not in the playbook.
Seven babies were expected; incredibly rare, but, in this case, planned for. But an eighth? That would be rarer still, rare enough to catapult this delivery into the land of tabloid bizzaro-ness.
Vázquez' knees started to shake. Everyone in the delivery room stopped. Then, in a blink, the commotion reignited, with nurses hustling to prepare an eighth baby warmer.
"I knew right then I was part of a much bigger story."
A MAN OF HAPPENSTANCE
Vázquez, in residency at Harbor General UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, knew part of his training would include 10 weeks at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower.
To get through the tough parts of that training, he often thought back to his first delivery, an event from his third year of medical school.
"My knees were shaking then," he said. "I put the baby on the mom's belly and ran down the hall to another delivery. I was so excited."
That same feeling enveloped the resident physician when Suleman was rolled into one of four delivery rooms at Kaiser. The place was already prepped for Suleman, who, it was known, would have multiple births. And, in fact, Vázquez had been part of the planning and replanning for how the delivery would go, practicing with a neonatal team that included three anesthesiologists, three obstetricians, seven pediatricians, therapists, nurses and several others.
Still, as a former guard for Buena Park High's basketball team, Vázquez knows practice isn't the same as the game. When Suleman was rolled in, he went over a potentially life or death mental checklist.
He said he was on call the day of the delivery, and worried the uterus would not contract or bleeding would occur when it came time to remove the placenta.
At 10:53 a.m. on Jan. 26, the Caesarean delivery began. Five minutes later, seven babies — A through G — were in their warmers.
He took a deep breath, reached inside, and felt another life.
"There's an H," he said.
THRUST INTO RECOGNITION
As the short, handsome doctor sips coffee shop orange juice, other diners look at him with a vague sense of recognition. Maybe they saw Vázquez on "Dateline NBC," when he recounted his role in what has become one of this year's most publicized weird news stories.
That doesn't end in the coffee shop. As he walks through the clinic, or down the hospital halls, Vázquez says more and more people smile at him in recognition.
He doesn't seem to mind (or crave) the attention.
But as the story has morphed from a one-day news bright into a tabloid staple (and, yes, seemingly non-stop coverage in this and other mainstream newspapers) he's become less thrilled to field questions about medical ethics. Yes, he delivered the eighth child. But, no, he didn't plan it, and he wasn't involved in its creation.
"This is a controversial story that will never end," Vázquez said.
"Specialists will have their opinions. And the general public will have other opinions," he added. "All I can do is speculate about the ethics.
"Remember, not one of us was there to know how it happened."
Less than one hour after news broke of the octuplet birth, Vázquez's sister left a phone message asking, "Are you involved by chance?"
At first, he didn't call back, hoping to maintain confidentiality. But, soon, his sister's query was echoed by TV news, Internet bloggers, U.S. print news, magazines, tabloids and – critically — the non-English speaking press.
"At Harbor General, 95 percent of the patients are Spanish speaking. So I was translating for Telemundo and Spanish radio stations," Vázquez said. "It was all so unexpected; I would witness something I'd never see in my life again."
DREAMS OF A MEDICAL CAREER
Vázquez, dressed impeccably in suit and tie, leaned forward in the restaurant booth to chronicle his move into the medical profession. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he spent many days in his early childhood visiting his father's medical office.
"Dad was so passionate about his profession," Vázquez said.
"I would sit in the waiting room, convinced Dad had magical powers. The patients looked so sad before they were called in. But when they came out from the exam, they were happy and so optimistic."
Alejandro Vázquez Sr., however, wanted more than a successful career. He wanted his family to have a future in America, so he left his profession behind and moved his wife and two children to Buena Park.
Seven-year-old Alex quickly adapted to academics and athletics. At 5'6," he played basketball all four years at Buena Park High.
After high school, Vázquez studied pre-med biology at UC San Diego and attended med school at USC. There, he met his wife, Ebonie. She is in her second year of a psychiatric residency.
Vázquez will complete his own residency in June, and he's interviewing for a position with a private practice.
His octuplet experience figures to spark some interesting conversations with interested employers.
Yet, in his quiet, modest way Vázquez may repeat what he's told so many other people.
"I don't feel like I did anything heroic. It was just a C-section."