A child is born

This weekend on vacation, I finally started to delete some of the photos from my camera's memory card. I have them saved elsewhere, of course, but I kept them all on the camera as well, some kind of talisman. But this weekend, I think I finally started to let go a little. Of course, the problem with doing this blog chronologically is that I cannot really diverge with the here and now. But I have to do this chronologically, to force myself to tell it at all.

As I said, I don't remember the flood of visits before the operation, but I do remember the anesthesiologists' visit after all, mostly because I've been thinking about this post and remembered the role they play in what's coming. I remember them explaining how the epidural would progress, and about the nature of pain control. The main guy was an oddball, with his multi-colored hat. But mostly it's just that he was ... odd. Off, somehow, like crazy but not in an insane OR fun way.

So finally the time came, somewhere around 7, and they hefted me onto a stretcher and away to the OR. When I got in there, several people already were bustling about. Computers, monitors, lights, sounds, sensations filled the space, and I was hefted again onto the actual operating table.

More bustling followed, along with draping, organizing, talking. The above-mentioned anesthesiologists arrived to administer the epidural, which I'd fretted over, but which went completely smoothly. An anesthesiologist-in-training actually did it, and despite the long, thin needle being inserted incorrectly into the spaces in my spinal cord a couple of times, there was really very little pain or discomfort. I suppose it was the shock of it all numbing me in other ways.

Lying me down, draping me, swabbing me, talking, talking. In the background, a rock station playing. Nurses and medical folks talking, me trying to talk to them, unsuccessfully. The sweet nurse from the NICU there, at least for a little while before being called away. Me begging repeatedly for them to get my sister.

Images flashing, snippets of sounds, portions of sensations, smells, understandings.

My sister arriving, decked out head to toe in scrubs and their accouterments. Talking to me, holding one of my hands.

My arms perpendicular to my body, resting on flying supports, making me into a T with a head. Physical numbness spreading through me, without the loss of control sending me into the panic I had expected. Feeling in my arms but deadness in my chest.

Learning to breathe with a new kind of oxygen mask on.

The doctors arriving. The drape in front of my eyes, rising like a blue-weave wall.

Smells.

Sounds.

Preparations, doctors talking.

Numbness.

Low conversation. The announcement that the first cut was being made.

The first cut.

More.

Somewhere, physical pain ebbing upward.

Tears, constant.

Distant understanding.

More pain, beyond the warned-about tugging and odd sensations.

The repeated words to the doctors "Thank you for saving my baby's life and my life," words translated by my sister above my whispery rasp into audible understanding, words that silence the low murmurs from the doctors.

The weird anesthesiologist whispering to the one in training but not whispering silently enough: "Now is the time you comfort the patient. You comfort the patient by saying, 'It's OK. It's OK' and rubbing their arms."

And the anesthesiologist comforting the patient by saying, "It's OK. It's OK" and rubbing my arms.

The overwhelming but somehow suppressed desire to scream at the anesthesiologist in training.

And then more pain. Intense, wracking.

Screaming "It hurts! It hurts!" only to understand I wasn't screaming at all, but muttering. Translation by my sister resulting in boosted doses of pain medication, cold ice flowing oddly upward through my spine.

And still more pain. And more screaming, screaming, screaming. Silently.

The quiet words from a doctor about some organ or flesh inside me being "tough" as the pain intensified.

Begging for my sister's hand to hold, after she had stepped aside, overwhelmed by smell and sound.

Tearing, tearing, searing, ripping. Ripping. Ripping. The baby torn from my womb as the words, at last:

"It's a girl!"

A little girl.

But no sounds from her. And no vision of her, only the sight of the blue-weave blockade inches from my face.

The sewing closed of my ripped-apart womb and body. More pain. The stench of my flesh being burned closed, in layers. Repeatedly.

90 minutes.

No baby. No sounds. No image.

And finally, a rushed glimpse as she is quickly rolled in an incubator briefly into my line of vision, a startling flash of pink flesh, and then she is gone.

There will be no cutting of the umbilical cord by my sister. My son will not tell my daughter her name in a lovingly expressed whisper into her ear.

I will not kiss her welcome into this world. I will not rejoice her first few moments with love and joy.

I will not make her promises, ancient fierce powerful vows of protection and devotion and possibility.

I will not touch her, I will not feel her skin, I will not touch her hair.

I will not smell her.

But I will say her name, as if to make it real. To make her real.

Ella.