Green Around the Gills

When Dr. Mary Winter looked around the labor suite and asked her next question, I knew my day had just taken a turn for the worse. “Where’s your husband?”

“He’s not here. He met his brother for dinner,” I muttered.

She shook her head. Same, sis, I thought. Same.

“Your blood pressure is climbing and the baby is showing signs of distress. We will be performing an emergency Caesarian section.”

My heart jumped in my chest and raced. “What do you mean? Everything has been going so smoothly. Is a c-section really necessary?”

Dr. Winter smiled sympathetically. “It’s scary, and I’m sorry that it’s necessary. We have a reputation at Womens and Childrens for safe surgical interventions. You and your baby will be in expert hands, and within an hour you will be cuddling your little boy.”

My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. It said 5:35 PM.

A memory of my sweet, anal-retentive coworker asking me when my baby would be born flashed into my mind. I had told him my due date, to which he said, “Okay, but when?”

“Ron, it’s a baby. He probably won’t even be born on his due date.”

“But if he is born on his due date, when would he be born?”

“I don’t know! Babies don’t read clocks.”

He smiled patiently at me, his finger hovering over his calendar to add an entry for my child’s birth. “If you could choose a time, what would you choose?”

I threw my hands up in surrender. “Fine, around 6:00 PM.”

With a satisfied smirk, he scheduled my baby to be born between 6:00 and 6:30.

Freaking Ron. It wasn’t enough that my baby was coming into the world on his due date after all. Oh, no; he was going to be born on Ron’s timeline.

“But my husband isn’t here. Can we wait until he gets back?” I asked. My breath was coming in quick gasps, and my skin felt cold. I didn’t want to have a C-section. They were riskier than natural childbirth, and we had never even discussed them. Why did he have to meet his brother right then? I needed him, and he was off at McDonald’s having a cheeseburger while I had an existential crisis.

She patted my hand sympathetically. “You’re going to be fine. We will begin in about thirty minutes. You have time to talk to him.” She exchanged a glance with her nurse, standing slightly behind her and to the right. I knew what that look meant. They didn’t think much of Carl’s plans either.

I drew in a shaky breath. In a weak, trembling voice, I said, “Okay, thank you.”

Dr. Winter and the nurse bustled out of the room. I snatched up my phone and called Carl. It rang three times, then went to voicemail.

The audacity! His pregnant wife was in labor and calling him, and he sent me to voicemail? A grating noise startled me, and I realized I was grinding my teeth. I sucked in a deep breath and relaxed my jaw. Tapping quickly, I sent a text message.

“Carl, I need you. They said I need a c-section in 30 minutes. Please come back.”

I waited. The text showed as delivered, but it didn’t update to show as read. Tears pricked my eyes. Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I scrolled through my contacts list until I found his brother.

He answered immediately.

I married the wrong brother.

“Hey, Missy. Is everything okay?”

“Allen, tell Carl they are doing an emergency c-section and if he doesn’t get his ass to this hospital right now, the gators are gonna be eating good.”

Silence greeted this pronouncement. In a sympathetic voice, he said, “That’s awful! I’m so sorry. We’ll be right there. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Less than ten minutes later, Allen was herding Carl into the birthing suite.

Carl was clutching a cheeseburger and glaring at me. “You just couldn’t stand that I could eat when you couldn’t. Would it have killed you to wait an hour so I could finish my dinner?”

Dr. Winter breezed in behind them, two orderlies trailing her. “Yes, it would have killed her and probably the baby.” With a dismissive roll of her eyes, she walked past him and to my bed.

“We are ready to get started. These two gentlemen are going to take you to the OR, and we’ll get your little boy safely into the world.”

She turned a glare on Carl. “Drop the cheap burger and get cleaned up if you want to be there for your son’s birth.”

Within minutes, I was in the OR surrounded by a beehive of medical professionals moving around, preparing for the surgery. Carl wore a yellow paper gown with a blue shower cap over his hair. He stood stiffly at my left, arms crossed and frowning. A doctor was standing behind my head, checking lines and charts while speaking quietly to an assistant.

Nausea swamped me, and I groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

The doctor at my head started, his eyes widening in alarm. He barked an order to the nurse beside him, then focused on me. “I’m Dr. Thomas. I’m your anesthesiologist today. We’ll get you something to help in just a minute,” he said.

“Hurry,” I answered, my voice weak. I turned my head to the left, reaching my hand out towards Carl. He might be a thoughtless jerk, but I needed comfort. Except he was watching the two doctors on either side of my body, preparing to perform the surgery. My stomach lurched again. Maybe the vomit would hit him.

“Hurry!” I said again just as he was injecting a new medicine into the IV line. Fortunately, as the bile rose to my throat, a kidney-shaped bowl appeared under my face. It wasn’t big enough, and it overflowed. Into my hair. God, could the day get any worse?

“I’m so sorry!” the anesthesiologist said, snatching the bowl away and patting my hair with a towel. “Poor thing. I’ll just get this cleaned up for you.”

Using a towel and a suction tool that reminded me uncomfortably of a dental visit, he cleaned the mess out of my hair. Once the worst was out, he shook a floral dry shampoo into my hair and combed it through. I could swear he was crooning to me as he cleaned my hair, apologizing for not catching the nausea faster. Feeling comforted by the kind stranger, I looked around.

Dr. Winter and the surgeon were working on me by that time, and Carl was watching with an avid expression. There was a barrier erected in front of my abdomen to block my view. However, Carl was standing and looking down at my belly over it. Disgust roiled through me. They were cutting me open like a fish. He could see inside me, and the last time he had looked at me like that, we were making the baby being cut out of my body at that moment.

Suddenly, I understood in a deep, visceral part of my soul why some women said a man made them dry as the Sahara. Carl watching them filet me with such enjoyment did something even his ill-judged dinner trip hadn’t. I half expected a puff of hot, dusty air to poof up out of my opened uterus.

Enjoy the view, Carl. That will be the last time you’ll see me naked, sir.

I rolled my eyes in disgust and switched my gaze to the doctors, just in time to hear the male doctor on my right say, “Well, someone mowed the lawn before coming in today.”

I blinked, my mind fumbling over what he meant. Dr. Winter said, “She’s good about that.” A cartoon popped into my mind’s eye of a stick-figure man pushing a tiny lawnmower over green shoots of grass when it finally connected in my mind what they were saying.

Were they talking about my body hair? Oh, my god! They were talking about my grooming habits.

My mind screamed, “I can hear you! I’m right here!” My mouth remained closed. I was mortified. Heat rushed to my face. I was pathetically grateful I had shaved down there three weeks before when I realized my belly was about to be too large for me to get down there.

Other women have clean, natural births with supportive husbands helping them breathe properly. I got to puke in my hair, watch my husband get a chubby at the sight of my guts, and two doctors talking about my body hair like I wasn’t in the room. When my baby boy was pulled loose and his first tiny wails broke through the room, I wasn’t just a proud momma aching to see her sweet newborn. I was grateful that the most humiliating moment of my life was almost over.

Almost, because when they announced to me that my little munchkin was six pounds and eight ounces, I asked why he was so small. The entire room stopped to look at me. I think perhaps even my baby’s eyes might have squinted at me, wondering what he did to deserve such a stupid mother.

Dr. Winter broke the silence.

She said, “That’s not small. He’s an average size. And he’s doing well. You did good.”

Somehow, I shrank. “Oh, okay. Can I hold him?” I asked.

The nurse holding him smiled with her eyes and walked towards me. Carl stepped forward as if to intercept her. At just that moment, Dr. Thomas’s hand swept grandly out from my hair, struck the kidney bowl, and sent it sailing into Carl’s behind.

“Oh, no!” he said dramatically. “I’m so clumsy!”

Carl jumped, cursed, and started trying to strip off the yellow gown. Dr. Thomas and a nurse rushed forward, pushing him out the door first, chastising him all the way about the need to keep the operating room sterile. I made a mental note to send Dr. Thomas a thank you card. He went above and beyond. Meanwhile, my sweet baby was laid on my chest. I looked down into his perfect little eyes.

“Welcome to the circus, little man.”