Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.
-- from Amy Bloom, "Away"
Friday, August 8, 2008
How strange
I work in a major urban emergency room. As I was walking in to work today, I was nearly run over by a cluster of people pushing a stretcher, and on the stretcher was a woman screaming. Also on the stretcher with his umbilical cord still attached was a crying newborn baby. And as I stopped to let them go by, the first thought that passed through my mind was "how strange." I was not thinking "how strange that this woman seems to have delivered her son moments ago in the parking lot" (it happens fairly often). I was thinking "how strange that the whole business should be so loud."
Professionally I know better of course. I have been at other births and they are often very loud - mother screams, father screams, baby cries, staff yells. I, however, have only given birth once, and one of the few things I can bear to remember about that time is how very quiet it was. The nurse was very quiet when she told me when to push. The on-call obstetrician barely spoke. My husband quietly told me I was pushing well. I had an epidural, so no need to scream. And my son, of course, my son was quietest of all of us. It was almost as if because he made no sound as he passed into the world, no one else could either.
After they rolled by, I went on to work, but I've been thinking about the scene all day. It's the first birth (or aftermath) I've seen since Oliver died. How odd that this women could lay down in a parking lot and birth a perfectly healthy boy, and with all the support I had I could not get my son here safely.
Professionally I know better of course. I have been at other births and they are often very loud - mother screams, father screams, baby cries, staff yells. I, however, have only given birth once, and one of the few things I can bear to remember about that time is how very quiet it was. The nurse was very quiet when she told me when to push. The on-call obstetrician barely spoke. My husband quietly told me I was pushing well. I had an epidural, so no need to scream. And my son, of course, my son was quietest of all of us. It was almost as if because he made no sound as he passed into the world, no one else could either.
After they rolled by, I went on to work, but I've been thinking about the scene all day. It's the first birth (or aftermath) I've seen since Oliver died. How odd that this women could lay down in a parking lot and birth a perfectly healthy boy, and with all the support I had I could not get my son here safely.
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