“I need your help,” I say to the nurse who’s pushing me through the hospital corridors.
“Just breathe,” he tells me.
“It’s about my husband. He’s dangerous.” Another contraction pummels me. It seems impossible that they could get stronger. Somehow, there’s always more pain.
Inside, the attendant shouts to another nurse, who takes over. He doesn’t say goodbye, let alone respond to what I’ve told him. This nurse is female. She’ll be more likely to listen.
“Please, I need your help,” I pant.
“We’ll just get you into your room, okay?” She pushes me down the hall, motioning to another nurse, her focus everywhere but me.
“No, it isn’t about the baby. Something’s happened.”
In the hospital room, she clicks the brake on my wheelchair. “I know it’s scary. You’re in good hands.”
Two other nurses help me stand and change into a gown. I’m not sure I’ve managed to say anything beyond “Wait. Stop. Please.” One puts a blood pressure cuff on my arm while the other scans the back of my hand for a vein.
“I need your help,” I whisper right before she inserts a needle for the IV with no warning. It’s violent, like she’s trying to hurt me. I wince, and at last she makes eye contact.
“All done.” She smiles.
Before I can speak again, several more nurses come in and wheel me down another hall.
“Please,” I keep saying. “I need you to call the police.”
One nurse, a decade older than the rest, shouts orders to the others, outlining what to do when we get into the OR.
“Please,” I whimper. “Police.”
In the OR, the anesthesiologist introduces himself, asks me a few questions about my history with anesthesia. I manage to tell him I get nauseated and then say, “Please, I need you to stop for a moment. I’m in danger.”
“We’ll take care of you,” he reassures me.
“Police,” I say. He casts me a confused expression, then tells me to spread my arms on the rests they’ve positioned at a cross. A blue paper sheet hides everything below my belly button. Before I can say anything else, the cold rush of whatever he’s put into my IV courses through me. The nausea is instantaneous. I tell him I don’t feel so good. This he hears. He gives me something for it. Just as quickly I feel fine, then nothing at all.
The nurses work quickly. I can no longer speak. I’m in a haze from fear and the drugs and the fact that in a few minutes I’ll be a mother of two. As they prepare my body for the C-section, the nurses debate the length of my pubic hair, whether they need to shave me, which even in my current state is incredibly embarrassing. I’m positioned supine on a cross, sacrificial. They’re remarking on the doctor’s preferences when Gabe comes in wearing scrubs. He’s going to operate on me. I try to lug my limp body up.
“Keep your arms down,” the anesthesiologist says. Gabe sits on my side of the sheet. With Jasper, I was so scared, but we had this, me and Gabe, harbored from everything on the other side. This time, I’m farmore afraid of Gabe than anything going on behind the blue curtain. He’s stolen this moment from me. He’s already taken so much, and now he’s taking even more.
Two doctors come in and quickly introduce themselves, explaining that Dr. Avagyan is in surgery with another patient. Then they disappear behind the curtain. Gabe is saying all the right things, how I’m so strong and brave. The two doctors gossip. Through the anesthesia and adrenaline, I can’t make out their words. One is telling the other a story; the other is monosyllabically encouraging her. They occasionally stop chatting to tell me I’m going to experience some pressure before resuming their prattle. With time, everything becomes routine, even cutting women’s bodies open and removing their babies. Even implanting them with another woman’s egg.
The tugging is more uncomfortable than I remember. Last time, with Jasper, I was so nervous, I couldn’t feel anything.
Distantly, I hear that animalistic, newborn squawk.
“Here she is,” one of the doctors says. She lifts my baby over the sheet so I can see her. My lower body is numb, but a warmth spreads through me as I take in my daughter for the first time. I want to hold her, to forget everything outside this moment. Too quickly, she’s whisked away. Gabe is no longer next to me. He’s joking with the nurses. Then he brings our daughter over to me, leaning her head to mine so we’re nose to nose. Even though I can’t move, I try to nestle into her. Gabe pulls her away before I’m ready. He holds her to him, promising all the things I want a father to vow to his daughter in her first moments of life: how we’re so happy she’s here, how he’ll keep her safe.
The tugging becomes more intense, pulling my attention away from my daughter.
“Is there supposed to be so much pressure?” I don’t recognize my own voice. It’s reedy, uncomposed.
“We’re putting your uterus back,” the chattier of the two doctors says. She continues with her story to the other doctor, complaining about something. When I search for Gabe, my baby, they’re gone.
I flail desperately, but I’m only able to move my arms.
“We’re almost done,” the doctor says. “We need you to stay still a little longer.”
“My baby,” I scream. “My baby.”
