Twenty minutes later, I enter the OR to see Elizabeth draped and ready. The epidural has been administered. The instruments are all in place. A nurse is adjusting her nasal cannula.
I follow the nurse’s movements as she clips the pulse-ox sensor onto the finger of Elizabeth’s left hand. My eyes come to a stop when I see that Elizabeth’s chunky bracelet has been removed to reveal the tattoo that was underneath it.
As Dr. Redman talks to Elizabeth, I take the opportunity to get a closer look at the tattoo. On the inside of her left wrist, there are intertwining hearts with a name scripted over them.
Grant.
I’ve never despised a name so much.
Grant, her husband or boyfriend. Grant, the father of her child.
“Dr. Stone?” one of the nurses says, bringing my attention to the fact that I’m standing at the wrong end of our patient.
I look down at Elizabeth to see that she’s caught me staring at her wrist. But she’s too scared to care. I put a huge smile on my face as I look into her eyes. She can’t see it beneath my mask, but that’s okay, I tell her everything I need to tell her with my stare. I don’t care if the nurses see it. I don’t even care if Dr. Redman does. In this moment, I need to reassure Elizabeth that everything will be okay.
I take my position opposite Dr. Redman and watch her slice into the woman I love.
Less than two minutes later, Dr. Redman instructs me to reach in and pull out the baby. I tell Elizabeth that she will feel some tugging and pulling. I put my hand under the baby, forming a cradle for her head so I can pull her out as the nurse pushes down on Elizabeth’s abdomen. The tiny body that emerges is gooey and messy and . . . absolutely perfect.
“Elizabeth, you have a daughter,” I tell her, my voice cracking with emotion.
I can’t begin to describe how I feel being the one to bring her baby into this world. To be the first one to hold her. See her. To instantly fall in love with her perfect little face, her tiny button nose, and her matted head of dark hair.
“It’s a girl?” she asks excitedly from behind the drape.
“It’s a girl.” I suction her mouth and hand her off to the nurse. “Give us a minute and we’ll bring her over.”
The baby takes her first breath and starts crying to the smiles of everyone in the room. Elizabeth cries out in happiness when she hears her daughter’s first sounds.
I lean over the drape to look at Elizabeth. “You did great, Mom.”
“Dr. Stone, when I’m done stitching up the uterus, would you care to close?” Dr. Redman asks me.
“Absolutely.”
I’m glad she asked. If I’m great at anything, I’m great at suturing. And I’m going to make sure I do my very best work.
After the nurse finishes the first APGAR test on the baby, she puts a tiny pink hat on her head and swaddles her tightly in a blanket. She walks the baby over to Elizabeth, holding her close to Elizabeth’s face so she can see, smell and kiss her new daughter.
It kills me that I can’t be on the other side of the drape to see every nuance of Elizabeth’s face as she sees her daughter for the very first time. I want to kiss her. Cry with her. Laugh with her. Celebrate with her. I’ve never wanted anything so badly before.
I can’t see her, but I can hear her.
“Oh, my gosh. Hi, baby girl,” she says. “You’re so beautiful.”
She cries and mumbles words of love to her daughter.
After a minute, the nurse tries to take the baby away.
“Wait!” Elizabeth says, prompting the nurse to put the baby next to her head again. “I swear I will always protect you.”
Those seven words resonate in my head. Protect her from what? From the world in general? Or protect her from someone in particular? Protect her from Grant.
My blood boils. Maybe she wasn’t kicked out or left by the baby’s father after all. Maybe she’s running from him.
Fuck.
I have so many questions I want to ask her. But she’s lying on the operating table, literally exposed to me right now. And she just had a baby. I need to give her time. She’ll be emotional. She’ll need to bond with the baby.
But then—then I’m going to get answers.
“We’ll wash her up and have our pediatric resident check her out,” the nurse tells her. “By the time you are back in your room, we’ll probably have her all ready for you.”
Another nurse puts an ID tag on Elizabeth’s wrist. “The baby has one just like it on her ankle. It’s to make sure we know who she belongs to.”
“Okay,” she says, kissing the baby’s head before the nurse takes her away.
Then Elizabeth falls asleep. It’s not unusual for that to happen. After the excitement, the epidural, the emotional drain of meeting your child for the first time. Dr. Redman finishes her job, and then I finish mine, taking extra time to make every stitch perfect.
But then my job is done. It’s not my job to take her back to her room. It’s not my job to be there when they bring her the baby. I’ve got other patients. Lots of other patients, thanks to Dr. Redman’s renewed confidence in my abilities.
And when I scrub out, all I can think about is how I’m going to get through the next few hours without seeing her. Seeing them.
~ ~ ~
The past four hours have felt like some of the longest of my life. Seconds were like minutes. Minutes like hours. Every hour felt like an eternity.
When I finally get a break from my other patients, I make my way to her room. I stand in the doorway, mesmerized by what I see.
Elizabeth has the baby propped up on a pillow on her lap. She unwraps her daughter’s blanket and silently counts every toe. She wraps her back up and then moves to her fingers. I smile, wondering how many times over the past hours she’s done the same thing.
She lovingly strokes the baby’s cheek, lulling her back to sleep.
Tears roll down Elizabeth’s face as she admires her daughter.
I have to swallow my emotions as I watch the love emanating from her.
I wondered. For weeks now, it has seemed like Elizabeth was in denial. She never wanted to talk about the baby. Never wanted to plan for it. Sometimes I wondered if she really even wanted it. But now that I see them together, I wonder if she was just scared to become a mom. A single mom, no less.
My pager beeps, alerting Elizabeth to my presence in her doorway. I make sure the page is not emergent before going in.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
“That you were having a girl?” I say, walking to her bedside.
She shakes her head, more tears spilling from her eyes. “That I would fall in love with her,” she says. “Why did I ever think I didn’t want this?” She brushes her thumb across the soft skin of her daughter’s cheek. “I was made to be her mom.”
I smile down at the gorgeous sleeping baby. The baby I helped bring into this world. I can’t help wanting to hold her. Claim her as mine. Just like I want to claim her mother.
I see Elizabeth’s eyes start to close with exhaustion.
“You need your rest,” I say. “You should sleep whenever she does.”
Her eyes pop open. “But all I want to do is look at her.”
I pull the bassinet around next to Elizabeth’s bed. “We’ll put her right here. You can stare at her all you want.”
She nods, refusing to take her eyes off her daughter. But then she looks up at me. “Do you . . . want to hold her?”
“More than you can imagine,” I say, my voice strained with need.
She smiles brightly as she gathers up the baby to hand over to me.
I situate her in my arms and then lean down to smell her, closing my eyes as I take in the unmistakable scent of baby.
“You know, I was the first one to ever hold her,” I say. “I was the one who pulled her out of you.”
Elizabeth’s eyes shoot to mine. “Really? They let you do the C-Section?” She looks embarrassed. “You had your hands inside me? Oh, my God. That’s incredible. Sometimes I forget you’re a real doctor.”
I laugh quietly. “Dr. Redman made the incision. But I delivered her. And I got to sew your skin up after.”
“I hope you did a good job,” she jokes. “You never know who might be seeing it.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “Not too many people, I hope. Actually, not any people,” I say. “Well, except one person.” I stare at her, letting her know I want to be that person.
She nods weakly at me before her eyes can’t stay open any longer.
I watch Elizabeth drift off to sleep. I watch her baby’s little lip quiver in her own slumber. I look up to see my reflection in the dark window of night. The reflection of a man with a family. A family he never knew he wanted. A family that didn’t exist mere weeks ago.
I walk over and carefully put the baby in her bassinet.
Then I head to my locker to get the bottle of champagne so I can chill it.
Dr. Williston was right when he said I’d know for sure when it was time to celebrate that one great thing.