Looking for Jane (27)
Evelyn can’t keep up. “What’s a—what you just said?”
“A cesarean section, a C-section. It’s when the doctor has to cut you open to get the baby out. But he’ll try not to do that, don’t worry.”
Evelyn’s panic tightens in her chest. “What do you mean, ‘cut—’?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to the desk. Get your gown on and get into bed. Good luck.”
She turns and leaves Evelyn alone in the room. Evelyn lays her travelling case down beside the narrow bed and peels off her wet stockings with difficulty, leaning over her enormous belly as the contractions squeeze and pulsate. She cries out once, but bites down on her bottom lip, pinching her eyes shut against the pain. A minute later when it finally subsides, Evelyn opens her eyes, breathes in deeply, then lets it out in a long exhale. As the nurse said, this could be a long night.
Down the corridor, a woman lets out a cry. She hears a man’s stern voice responding, then the ticking of the clock on the wall. It counts down the seconds for her—the time she has left before her baby is born, before she might be cut open by this faceless butcher-doctor.
Evelyn blinks back fresh tears and wrestles her body out of the rest of her clothes, folds them neatly, and sets them down on top of the small dresser. They’re still damp, and she wonders if someone will offer to hang them up to dry. She heaves herself into the bed and pulls the beige wool blanket up over her belly and breasts. She glances to her left. She’s become so used to Maggie’s presence in the bed right next to hers. She wishes they could go through this together, as they have every other stage of their pregnancies.
The clock ticks away another few minutes of silence before another contraction begins. Evelyn throws her arm out to the side, reaching instinctively for a hand to hold. She needs someone to help her through this, to brush her hair off her sweaty face, whisper that it’s going to be okay, that she’s brave and doing great. That her baby will be in her arms soon, a beautiful baby girl with eyes like a summer morning. But her hand closes on thin air, and in that moment she’s positive she has never in her life felt this utterly, profoundly alone.
* * *
Three hours and several painful contractions later, the doctor comes to her room. He introduces himself as Dr. Pritchard, then, without telling her what he’s doing, lifts the sheets and blankets and starts feeling around between her legs, pushes his fingers up inside. Evelyn gasps; she wants to weep with humiliation. He declares her only eight centimetres dilated, whatever that means, and tells her he’ll come back later. Evelyn stumbles out of bed, fills a glass of water, and flops right back down, exhausted.
She labours alone all night, listening to the crooning of the maternity ward nurses as they comfort the other women. She strains her ears, trying to catch any snippet of their conversation that might tell her what to expect as the contractions become more and more frequent. She wonders, while writhing on her hands and knees at one particularly low point in the night, whether she might be dead. What if no one is coming to check on her because she’s a ghost? Maybe she’s already given birth and died in the attempt and her poor lost soul is stuck in this hospital storeroom, labouring for eternity.
But when the contractions are nearly constant and Evelyn starts to feel an intense pressure between her legs, her only instinct is to start screaming for help, and—finally—it comes. Dr. Pritchard breezes into the room with one of the maternity nurses, and she pushes and cries through the searing pain until her baby enters the world in a bloody, slimy burst.
Evelyn hadn’t been prepared for any of it, but the sound of her baby’s first cry feels like Christmas morning. Like her heart has been split into two and is now part of this tiny person in the doctor’s hands. The doctor actually smiles at Evelyn over the top of the sheet.
“A baby girl. You’re going to make some nice couple very happy, Evelyn.”
Evelyn can barely register what he said, because here is her daughter. Purple and pruned, her face scrunched up tight in protest of the coldness of the room, spluttering as she takes her first breaths. But she’s the most beautiful thing Evelyn has ever seen. She’s shaking with relief and something more overwhelming and deeper than anything she’s ever felt before.
The doctor cuts the cord and hands the baby to the nurse, who walks her over to a counter beside the sink, and Evelyn watches her back as Dr. Pritchard snaps off his bloody gloves and hands her a clipboard and pen, pointing to a line at the bottom, marked with a red X. He tells her she has to sign it before she’s allowed to hold the baby. Evelyn signs the sloppiest signature she’s ever written. She isn’t even looking at the clipboard; she can’t take her eyes off the nurse.
“You sit tight now, and I’ll be back to finish off with the afterbirth and then stitch you up,” the doctor says, sweeping from the room.
Evelyn ignores him. She sees her baby’s little arm flailing over the crook of the nurse’s elbow until they’re bound tightly in a swaddling cloth. She’s crying, and it makes Evelyn’s heart ache with the most bittersweet mix of elation and anguish. She struggles to sit upright and feels a throb between her legs as something warm and wet trickles out. She doesn’t look down.
She reaches her arms out to the nurse, hands trembling. “Can I hold her? Please?”