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“What do you advise?”
“There are two things. Either a high forceps delivery which can tear and be quite dangerous besides being possibly bad for the child, and a Caesarean.”
“What is the danger of a Caesarean?” What if she should die!
“It should be no greater than the danger of an ordinary delivery.”
“Would you do it yourself?”
“Yes. I would need possibly an hour to get things ready and to get the people I would need. Perhaps a little less.”
“What do you think?”
“I would advise a Caesarean operation. If it were my wife I would do a Caesarean.”
“What are the after effects?”
“There are none. There is only the scar.”
“What about infection?”
“The danger is not so great as in a high forceps delivery.”
“What if you just went on and did nothing?”
“You would have to do something eventually. Mrs. Henry is already losing much of her strength. The sooner we operate now the safer.”
“Operate as soon as you can,” I said.
“I will go and give the instructions.”
I went into the delivery room. The nurse was with Catherine who lay on the table, big under the sheet, looking very pale and tired.
“Did you tell him he could do it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that grand. Now it will be all over in an hour. I’m almost done, darling. I’m going all to pieces. Please give me that. It doesn’t work. Oh, it doesn’t work!”
“Breathe deeply.”
“I am. Oh, it doesn’t work any more. It doesn’t work!”
“Get another cylinder,” I said to the nurse.
“That is a new cylinder.”
“I’m just a fool, darling,” Catherine said. “But it doesn’t work any more.” She began to cry. “Oh, I wanted so to have this baby and not make trouble, and now I’m all done and all gone to pieces and it doesn’t work. Oh, darling, it doesn’t work at all. I don’t care if I die if it will only stop. Oh, please, darling, please make it stop. There it comes. Oh Oh Oh!” She breathed sobbingly in the mask.
“It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Don’t mind me, darling. Please don’t cry. Don’t mind me. I’m just gone all to pieces. You poor sweet. I love you so and I’ll be good again. I’ll be good this time. Can’t they give me something? If they could only give me something.”
“I’ll make it work. I’ll turn it all the way.”
“Give it to me now.”
I turned the dial all the way and as she breathed hard and deep her hand relaxed on the mask. I shut off the gas and lifted the mask. She came back from a long way away.
“That was lovely, darling. Oh, you’re so good to me.”
“You be brave, because I can’t do that all the time. It might kill you.”
“I’m not brave any more, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me. I know it now.”
“Everybody is that way.”
“But it’s awful. They just keep it up till they break you.”
“In an hour it will be over.”
“Isn’t that lovely? Darling, I won’t die, will I?”
“No. I promise you won’t.”
“Because I don’t want to die and leave you, but I get so tired of it and I feel I’m going to die.”
“Nonsense. Everybody feels that.”
“Sometimes I know I’m going to die.”
“You won’t. You can’t.”
“But what if I should?”
“I won’t let you.”
“Give it to me quick. Give it to me!”
Then afterward, “I won’t die. I won’t let myself die.”
“Of course you won’t.”
“You’ll stay with me?”
“Not to watch it.”
“No, just to be there.”
“Sure. I’ll be there all the time.”
“You’re so good to me. There, give it to me. Give me some more. It’s not working!”
I turned the dial to three and then four. I wished the doctor would come back. I was afraid of the numbers above two.
Finally a new doctor came in with two nurses and they lifted Catherine onto a wheeled stretcher and we started down the hall. The stretcher went rapidly dOwn the hall and into the elevator where every one had to crowd against the wall to make room; then up, then an open door and out of the elevator and down the hall on rubber wheels to the operating room. I did not recognize the doctor with his cap and mask on. There was another doctor and more nurses.
“They’ve got to give me something,” Catherine said. “They’ve got to give me something. Oh please, doctor, give me enough to do some good!”
One of the doctors put a mask over her face and I looked through the door and saw the bright small amphitheatre of the operating room.
“You can go in the other door and sit up there,” a nurse said to me. There were benches behind a rail that looked down on the white table and the lights. I looked at Catherine. The mask was over her face and she was quiet now. They wheeled the stretcher forward. I turned away and walked down the hall. Two nurses were hurrying toward the entrance to the gallery.
“It’s a Caesarean,” one said. “They’re going to do a Caesarean.”
The other one laughed, “We’re just in time. Aren’t we lucky?” They went in the door that led to the gallery.
Another nurse came along. She was hurrying too.
“You go right in there. Go right in,” she said.
“I’m staying outside.”
She hurried in. I walked up and down the hall. I was afraid to go in. I looked out the window. It was dark but in the light from the window I could see it was raining. I went into a room at the far end of the hall and looked at the labels on bottles in a glass case. Then I came out and stood in the empty hall and watched the door of the operating room.
A doctor came out followed by a nurse. He held something in his two hands that looked like a freshly ski
“Is he all right?”
“He’s magnificent. He’ll weigh five kilos.”
I had no feeling for him. He did not seem to have anything to do with me. I felt no feeling of fatherhood.
“Aren’t you proud of your son?” the nurse asked. They were washing him and wrapping him in something. I saw the little dark face and dark hand, but I did not see him move or hear him cry. The doctor was doing something to him again. He looked upset.
“No,” I said. “He nearly killed his mother.”
“It isn’t the little darling’s fault. Didn’t you want a boy?”
“No,” I said. The doctor was busy with him. He held him up by the feet and slapped him. I did not wait to see it. I went out in the hail. I could go in now and see. I went in the door and a little way down the gallery. The nurses who were sitting at the rail motioned for me to come down where they were. I shook my head. I could see enough where I was.
I thought Catherine was dead. She looked dead. Her face was gray, the part of it that I could see. Down below, under the light, the doctor was sewing up the great long, forcep-spread, thickedged, wound. Another doctor in a mask gave the anaesthetic. Two nurses in masks handed things. It looked like a drawing of the Inquisition. I knew as I watched I could have watched it all, but I was glad I hadn’t. I do not think I could have watched them cut, but I watched the wound closed into a high welted ridge with quick skilful-looking stitches like a cobbler’s, and was glad. When the wound was closed I went out into the hall and walked up and down again. After a while the doctor came out.
“How is she?”
“She is all right. Did you watch?”
He looked tired.
“I saw you sew up. The incision looked very long.”
“You thought so?”
“Yes. Will that scar flatten out?”
“Oh, yes.”
After a while they brought out the wheeled stretcher and took it very rapidly down the hallway to the elevator. I went along beside it. Catherine was moaning. Downstairs they put her in the bed in her room. I sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. There was a nurse in the room. I got up and stood by the bed. It was dark in the room. Catherine put out her hand. “Hello, darling,” she said. Her voice was very weak and tired.