Page 54 of Wounded Dance
“You had to know we weren’t going to keep it,” she said.
I looked at the doctor, who had passed the baby on to a team who was wiping her down on a little table beneath a bright light.
“I want to know,” I said. “Boy or girl?”
“Initial here that you acknowledged our consultation and chose not to follow our instructions.” The woman stepped forward with the folder and a pen.
“Is this really the best way to go about it?” the doctor asked. “The poor girl has just had a baby!”
One of the nurses touched his arm. “It’s how some of them do it,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not on any of the deliveries I’ve done.” He turned back to me. “Nurse, delivery of the placenta,” he said.
I felt another push and a gush down below. I looked over at the table. The baby was crying, her face red. I could see she was a girl as they cleaned her. I sat back.
The doctor lowered my legs from the metal holders. “Time of birth, 8:52 p.m. Healthy babygirl.” He glared up at the woman as he said it and stood up.
“Apgar is 6,” one of the nurses with the baby said.
The doctor patted my leg. “You did all right.”
“The couple is waiting downstairs,” the tall woman said, still holding out her folder. “They wanted to be here for the birth. We just need the signatures so we can transfer parental rights.”
I ignored her, looking over at the baby. They were wrapping her in a striped blanket. One of the nurses placed a small stretchy cap on her head.
“I want to hold her,” I said. “I get to do that, right?”
The nurses looked at each other, frowning.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” the woman said.
I pushed myself higher on the bed. “I want to hold her,” I insisted.
One of the nurse aides, a short one with dark curly hair, brought her over to me. “Here you go,” she said.
The moment I felt the featherlight weight of her, I was filled with wonder.
I couldn’t see much of her, just her little face. She yawned sleepily, and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. How did she know how to yawn?
Her cheeks were pinker than her forehead and her chin. She had short stubby lashes and almond-shaped eyes. I could have stared at her forever.
I looked up at Mom, to see if she felt the same awe, but she was sitting in the corner, focused on the parking lot outside the window instead.
I gazed back down. Her eyes were slate blue. I thought I could see his nose on her, but it was so small and round.
I couldn’t hold her hands or see her feet in her burrito bundle, but it was enough to look at her face. A string on her little hat had unraveled, and I smoothed it down.
Such tiny ears. Little wisps of dark hair.
“We need to take her to be assessed,” a nurse said. “Weighed and measured and a more thorough cleaning.” She held out her arms.
I didn’t want to let her go. I looked at her again. What if this was it? The only time I would see her? I desperately wished for a camera, a cell phone, anything that would capture this moment. But I had nothing, and no one in the room would do it for me. Not under these circumstances.
My throat tightened so hard that I could barely breathe. They couldn’t take her. They just couldn’t!
The woman with the folder cleared her throat. A stern-faced nurse, the one who told the doctor that this was all normal, forcibly took the baby from me. I wanted to hold on and tensed my arms, but she warned, “The baby is fragile.”
So I let go.
