A Moment To Cherish
By Brian McElroy
(previously posted to Medium.com Sept 8, 2023)
The thin gauze suit I had donned not fifteen minutes earlier had twisted around my leg and one of the shoe booties had ripped along the stretchy edge showing the dirty worn out shoestrings beneath.
Sitting in one of the two dark orange hospital chairs I stare at the shiny floors, the streaks from the mops strands clearly evident in the swirls of wax. The shine of the floors was contrasted by the chipped counter edges of the nurse’s station, the cheap multi-colored particle board showing through. I wondered at the cleanliness of the floors while the counters looked so worn down and damaged by countless hospital beds careening around the tight corners of the labor and delivery ward.
A nurse smiles a knowing smile at me as she passes by and enters a room to my right. I expect it’s a lounge since I had already seen many nurses go in but it was quiet there. No sounds coming out. I glimpse equipment and a shelf or two with various bagged items. Maybe it’s a supply room.
Further down the hall are two doors with small windows through which I can see nurses and doctors preparing for surgery. Blue garbed medical professionals move back and forth from the small rooms near the OR carrying assortments of supplies and metal trays covered by blue cloths. I take a deep breath as the man I recognize as the doctor who will be performing my wife’s C-Section. His face is masked, hands held high after what I hope to be a thorough scrubbing with strong antibacterial soap like you see on TV.
A sharp cry comes from the room full of nurses and equipment. A delivery room! I hear a baby crying loudly as the nurses cheer.
“It’s a boy!” Someone exclaims.
“We thought you were a girl!” From whom I could only assume as the tired mother. Laughter echoes into the hallway, loud and clear despite the closed door. I smile. I understand.
I see the doors again. My vision contracts as I see a nurse heading toward me. I take a deep breath and stand as she opens the door and beckons me towards her, “It’s time.” She says. I fumble with my mask, the strings getting tied up in the loose folds of the hairnet. Pausing outside the final door into the OR, I retie the knot of my mask triumphantly in the last moments and walk into the bustling operating room.
I see the lower half of my wife’s body covered in what looks like a thin orange paint, disinfecting the area from where our child will enter the world. I try to ignore the swollen belly, legs spread wide and the assortment of tubes and wires strung across her.
I rounded the tall blue curtain to see my wife looking up at me. Her teeth are clicking together as her jaw shakes from nervousness and adrenaline. Grabbing her hand, I squeeze it as the anesthesiologist guides me towards a stool near her head, telling me to watch the cords and hoses on the ground and not to touch anything blue. I’m not disinfected or even wearing gloves. I try to do as he asks.
My wife and I talk. She says she’s not in pain but her nerves and the drugs are causing her jaw and arms to shake. The anesthesiologist leans down to her face and tells her she’s doing great. He makes small talk to distract her. He explains things in a soothing voice. I like him. He’s doing for my wife what I don’t have the presence of mind to do on my own.
I lay my hand on her head and stroke her hair. She squints at me, my glasses shining brightly at her in the glare of this glowing room. My mask puffs up and falls again with each of my hurried breaths. My heart is pounding and if she would have been lacking in distractions she would have noticed how bad my hand was shaking as she held it.
“I can’t feel my legs. It’s weird that I can’t feel anything. It’s not like when you lay on your arm when sleeping. That feels tingly. My legs just feel like bricks.” She tilts her chin up at me as she talks. I tell her that’s a good thing.
My ears are listening to the doctors on the other side of the curtain as my wife and I exchange small talk of no real import. We are working the forms of conversations to distract each other.
“You are going to feel some pressure.” The message comes over the curtain like a prerecorded message. The bored and monotone voice changes to a conversational tone. He talks shop to his fellow doctor as they do their work.
“Did I tell you about the vasectomy I did last week?”
“No. What of it?”
“The guy went horseback riding the same night. They were the size of cantaloupes when he came back in, complaining about some pain…” The chuckle in his voice was twisted by the strain of him struggling with his task. The image popped into my head of a mechanic under a car straining on a stripped bolt he’s trying to pop.
A few chuckles and gasps of amazement came from the staff. My wife hadn’t heard. Her eyes were closed, a finger was clenched between her teeth to try and stop the chattering. I filed this story away for processing later, my mind focused on my wife.
The anesthesiologist suddenly says, “Stand up Dad.”
Stand up? Oh no. I wasn’t asked about this. I was expressly told NOT to look behind the curtain. I thought it was forbidden to look behind the curtain. Oz was not to be viewed and the mystery should remain a mystery. I felt my legs push my body up off the stool against my better judgment. To this day, I swear I could hear the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, what I now know as Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, playing as time began to slow and my field of view slowly rose above the partition.
As my vision crested the blue curtain, I could see my wife’s swollen belly with a small grayish white head poking out. Time seemed to stop. The doctors removed our baby, (Our baby!) and I stared at her little body, curled up and bloody, beginning to take her first breaths whose cries I marveled at.
The loud cries echoed through the room as I looked at my wife. I tell her I saw her being born. I told her it was fine. It was good. Our girl was beautiful. A nurse quickly tried to give my wife a view but the blue curtain flashed in front of her and she didn’t get to see. I stumble over in a daze, unzipping my gauze suit and fishing out my cellphone to take pictures. I grab a quick few as the nurses clear her airway and give her a quick wiping down. I return to her and show her pictures. She cries. We laugh and smile. I go back for more pictures. We know the measurements. 6 lbs. 14 oz, 20 inches long. A girl. Our girl.
The baby is brought over and I hold her. She is now swaddled properly and wearing a knit cap with a bow. I cuddle her up to Momma and we take more pictures. We smile and laugh some more. We cry happy tears.
I lean back and hold my daughter. She doesn’t cry. She just looks around with squinted eyes. We stare at her. The doctors are repairing the work they just did. My wife still shivers and tears fall from her cheeks. Her hand slides along our daughter’s cheek. I do the same. I never knew anything in this world could be so soft. Her skin was flawless and smooth. Beautiful.
The little one does let out a few cries now. Her world is very different suddenly. So big and full of odd noises and bright lights.
I’m asked to carry her to the recovery room as they finish up with Momma. I stand carefully, carrying this tiny bundle along the hose and cord strewn route. I exit the OR and move into the recovery room. There is a single sliding rocker in there. I sit with her bundled up to my chest.
The world is suddenly very quiet for me. Her eyes are open and she looks at me. My eyes begin to mist over. Her eyes tilt up and look at the lights. They close again. Her lower lip shoots out in a tremor before her mouth opens and a wail rockets around the room. I coo at her. I blow a gentle bit of cool air at her face and the sensation calms her briefly. We do this maneuver a few times while we sit. She finally calms and closes her eyes.
I slide one of my fingers into her tiny hand. I’m lost in the belief that fingers and fingernails can be so tiny. She squeezes my finger and hangs on. I try to hang on too.