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Mixed Blessings by Tiffany Fitch
Socks pulled tight against swollen feet, hospital gown gaping open in the back, not made for a belly bulging at the seams. Cold sheets gathered around my legs as I counted the minutes and listened to the sounds of new life outside my door.
Grunts of pain.
"I can't"
"I quit"
"Just one more, honey!!"
Laughter, hushed voices, tears of joy and sadness.
Mindless television an unnoticed background noise as I awaited my turn. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sounding like Heaven as the minutes turned into hours.
"We have you scheduled for 8 a.m. Be there at 6 for prep and don't eat for 12 hours prior."
13, 14, 18 hours later. Pushed back, begging for "just a sip of water". Nerves out of control when they finally brought in the anesthesiologist, who looked as young as me.
"Push out your back and hold REALLY STILL. I don't want to miss."
The nurse held my head against her shoulder griping both my arms with her hands. The thought of the needle missing causing my legs to quake against the metal underneath the bed as I fought to keep them still.
"More," he told me, voice aggravated. "You must stick out your spine and you CAN'T MOVE."
I hadn’t tied my own shoes in months, resorting to flip flops in the dead of winter and he wanted me to become a contortionist.
Tears fell through the gown and onto my thighs as he thumped along my spine with his fingers, looking for the hollow space between my vertebrae. A sharp sting and I felt warmth spread down my back and through my legs.
Things moved quickly from there, doctors and nurses entering the room. Stomach painted Halloween pumpkin orange, wrists strapped to the table, laid out in all my glory like a trussed up Thanksgiving turkey.
Until she came, everything else forgotten. Dark curls covering her tiny head, eyes squinched up, howling.
The nurse held her cheek against mine, Bill calling out a play by play of my internal organs.
"There's your uterus honey!" He cried, snapping pictures for the scrapbook.
Midnight, sound asleep, dreaming of baby powder and tiny, pink dresses in a Demerol induced haze, the nurse arrived flipping on the light. She barked like a drill sergeant, waking the baby, who startles and howls.
"Time for you to walk!"
I managed to sit up 10 minutes later, baby still screaming as the nurse bathed her. I hobbled to the bathroom, praying my insides would not come tumbling out, stooped over so far the evil epidural youngster would have been proud. Tucked back into clean sheets, an hour and a half later.
“Have a walk,” Nurse number 2 suggested the next morning, pushing the baby filled bassinet over to the bed. “You can lean on this.”
It was easier than I expected and I picked up speed as we had our first stroll together past doors decorated in pink and blue. Except for one beside the nursery, stark, blank and free of the overpowering scent of carnations.
A lone-robed woman stood outside, looking in at pink, blue and yellow capped heads.
"Which one is yours?" I asked, adjusting the quilt from Grandma Sue around the sleeping form of my own Princess.
“None,” she said, so soft I wondered if I’d heard her, as she turned to walk back, a cluster of family surrounding her as she entered the barren room.
They moved her by the Hysterectomies before our afternoon walk, away from the beaming happiness, bubblegum cigars and mums of joy.
And here, 9 years later, on the eve of my daughter’s birthday, my belly flat and marked with honor, I wonder and remember. I mourn her child as I celebrate mine.
Tiffany Fitch was dragged kicking and screaming to small town Mississippi from Dallas, TX in 2001. When not chasing her four wild munchkins through the house, or caring for the stable of animals her husband has rescued, she writes about the state she has come to love. Her essays can be heard on Mississippi Public Broadcasting www.mpbonline.org/radio/programs/commentaries-contribute/index.htm or read on her blog www.xanga.com/neuroticfitchmom.
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