Maternal Harbor

by Marie F. Martin

  Teagan pressed her palm against the glass separating her from Charlie for a moment, and then left Erica gazing at the babies.

  Twice, she glanced back.

  Erica listened for Teagan’s shuffle to fade. “They’re superb,” she whispered to her son. “An African-American, an Asian, and an Irishman, all chosen to be your perfect friends.”

  She caught a final glimpse of Teagan, disappearing into a room. The bitch wasn’t much. Nothing stood out as remarkable except she was sharper than expected and with more backbone. That was good. Charlie needed a clever, stubborn mother, not a wishy-washy beauty. She was probably attractive to men with all that red hair and high-placed breasts.

  Go figure, Erica thought. Well, Miss Teagan O’Riley would not ruin anything.

  The longer she stared at Teagan’s door, the more anxious she became. Her goals for Derek would not be changed. Granted, many years stretched ahead to make even better plans, but it’d be hard enough adjusting to infant care without worrying about meeting other mothers. Selection of proper companions must become second nature. She would learn for Derek, and he would learn the art from her. He needed skills to detect officers who were shirking their duty. Oh, they were good at covering up their lazy backsides and clever at cutting corners.

  Erica breathed deeply, holding back, not charging up the hallway.

  Doretta shuffled through her door in an impossibly loud wrap, crossed the hall and disappeared into Teagan’s room!

  They’re going to talk about me, she thought. Livid, she managed to hesitate until she calmed, and then stole up the hallway, stopped next to the doorway, and leaned casually against the wall.

  Teagan’s voice carried outside. “I don’t want to hurt Erica either. But when I found her staring at the babies, I felt like I was in an ocean fog – hard to catch your breath, yet the air is pure.”

  “That’s as clear as mud.” Doretta’s sarcasm also carried.

  Teagan now sounded impatient. “You know. Like something is there, but isn’t.”

  Well, I’m here. Erica moved inside the room.

  Doretta sat in a chair. She uncrossed her legs.

  Teagan rose instantly from the bed and faced Erica.

  Surprised, Erica hadn’t realized how tall Teagan was. Or did she stand straighter now that she was a mother? She seemed stronger, too. Forearms corded and hands used to hard work. The silk robe slipped from one square shoulder, showing the pale skin under a smattering of freckles. She didn’t move, but exuded instant defense.

  Erica let the silence stand between them as they searched each other’s eyes, then said, “I understand why you don’t have time to bring Charlie over, but he could come with Doretta. That would even help you out, wouldn’t it, Doretta?”

  Teagan spoke before Doretta had a chance to answer, “When I saw you watching the babies, I felt afraid. I don’t know why. Maybe it is new mother jitters, but Charlie will only be with me.”

  Before any more damage was done, Erica said calmly, “Fear is a harsh way to describe someone who cares about your son, but I understand that you are over protective now. We’ll discuss it again in a few weeks. I would give you a hug, but I’m not the hugging type.” She nodded to Doretta and left as quickly as she entered.

  Those boys would be Derek’s. He’d have something besides wet, dead kittens. Erica shied from the thought as her fingers again felt the tiny bones. But, oh, what perfect kittens they had been, as perfect as their mother, my beautiful Iska. What’s the matter with me? She pressed her cold fingertips against her temples and walked out of the hospital.

  Throughout the afternoon, Erica’s contractions strengthened until they progressed into an unrelenting pattern. She withstood the accelerating agony until it tore at her pelvic bones. Gritting her teeth, she drove herself to the hospital in the Mercedes, hoping the cushy seat would relieve the pain in her back. And she didn’t want to chance being seen in the Blazer yet. Stop it! Why are you so secretive?

  Because you always hide your treasures, makes them totally yours– yours–yours.

  Erica listened to the tranquil voice in her mind and grew calm. The labor pain in her back eased. Even as the cramp subsided, she wanted another to start. They would bring forth the son. A thrill chased through her.

  Home with Derek.

  Carrying her overnight bag, she entered the birthing center erect and girded for battle. Her son would be delivered safely. She registered at admitting, was told to wait in the lobby and that a nurse would come for her soon.

  Erica eased into a padded chair and closed her eyes, wanting to stay alert and not give in to agony. She rode the next labor pain by concentrating on the remembered sound of the mother cat, her hearing tuned into the depth of the guttural humming. She had grown highly sensitive to sound. Riding the birth pangs with the same degree of alertness kept her keen and highly aware of the hospital waiting room. The odors were disgustingly sterilized, the lighting too bright, and the corners should be cleaner.

  “Are you all right?”

  Erica opened her eyes. “I am.”

  “I’m Florene,” said a plump black woman.

  “Doretta’s mom.”

  “My, it’s a small world. I bet you’re one of those gals from the clinic. Doretta told me you’re all friends now. Can you walk or do we need a wheelchair?”

  “I’m fine.” Erica walked beside the nurse down a hall to a labor room.

  “We’ll get you all tucked in,” Florene said and handed her a gown. “Do you need help undressing?”

  “No.” Erica gritted her teeth at the sweetness. She was here for one reason only – to birth a son. She didn’t want niceties, or to be expected to give them. And, at this minute, she wanted privacy to disrobe.

  “I’ll leave you then. Be sure to empty your bladder before getting into bed.” Florene hurried to the door.

  Another contraction tightened around Erica’s middle. She bent double and exhaled until she hung over her belly like a rag doll, waiting for the torment to pass. The cramp lasted longer than the last one, but finally eased. She undressed and put on the gown. Her water broke when she used the toilet. “Not long now,” she whispered to her unborn son and sunk her fingers deep into her flesh. She pressed, trying to identify his body under her skin. All she felt was a hard mound.

  Holding the back of the gown shut, she forced herself to stand erect and walk to the bed, concentrating on each sound that carried into the room. Footfalls, wheels of a cart, a baby cried somewhere.

  The nurse briskly reentered. “Not tucked in yet? Here, I’ll help you.”

  Ignoring Florene’s outstretched hand, Erica curled into a ball in the bed with her back to the nurse.

  “I’m sorry, but I need to examine you.”

  Erica groaned, but rolled onto her back and pulled the gown up.

  “Honey, you’ve already dilated to five centimeters. I better start your IV and attach the fetal heart monitor. That way we can to listen to your baby’s heartbeat, see how he’s handling the stress of labor.”

  Florene strapped a wide belt with an ultrasound transducer around Erica’s abdomen and attached the cord to a machine. Frowning, she checked to see if the monitor was plugged in. She jiggled the cord, undid the belt, and fiddled with the transducer. She re-tightened the belt and re-attached the cord.

  Erica watched intently. “What’s wrong?”

  “The monitor must be on the fritz. I’ll have to get another one, but first I’ll check the old fashion way.” She pulled a fetal stethoscope from a cabinet, placed the cold metal against Erica’s skin, and listened over all four quadrants of the bare abdomen. She repeated the rotation, concentrating even harder, lips silently counting a pulse.

  Erica moaned as another pain spread from her back; she withered, lost in agony. “I have to lie on my side.” She tried to curl as Florene pushed the call button on the bed.

  “Can I help you?” a scratchy voice asked from the small speaker.

  “Get Dr. Klassen STAT,”
Florene demanded.

  Erica grabbed the nurse’s forearm. “What’s wrong?”

  Florene placed her opposite hand over Erica’s taut fingers and patted. “Honey, the doctor needs to check you.” She met Erica’s stare. “I’ll start your IV while we wait.”

  The painful prick of the needle was lost as another contraction dug into Erica’s loins, and she steeled the core of her mind against the cramp. She rolled into a ball, trying to protect herself from the pushing, forcing, rendering. Concentrating against the onslaught of the pain, she grew sharper, so terribly in focus.

  Moments later, Dr. Klassen burst into the room. His eyes went immediately from Erica to Florene.

  Florene turned her back to Erica and whispered, “Heart rate is seventy.”

  Erica heard the words clearly. What did a rate of seventy mean?

  “Get the H-P ultrasound,” he grabbed the stethoscope as the nurse hurried from the room. “You have to lie on your back.” He helped her roll and straighten out. He repeated the listening pattern, then counted, watching the wall clock.

  Florene rushed back into the room, wheeling a cart with a monitor to the bedside. She squeezed a tube of cold, clear jelly on Erica’s distended abdomen and handed the transducer to Dr. Klassen. Immediately, he placed it onto Erica’s exposed skin and pushed down, slowly drawing it across the whole mound.

  “What’s going on?” Erica tried to raise−to see for herself.

  “Be still. I’m searching for any sign of the baby’s movement. When was the last time you felt kicking?”

  “I don’t know. This morning. Maybe yesterday.” Erica tried to relax but another pain arched her back. She focused on the doctor’s face. Why was he asking stupid questions?

  Dr. Klassen searched her eyes. “Your baby’s heart rate is too slow. We have to do a C-section right away.”

  Erica clutched her stomach. “My Derek is fine. He’d slow his heart for the birth. I knew he would do it right. We want only a natural birth.”

  The doctor turned to Florene and spoke softly. “Tell delivery to prep for a stat C-section.” He walked swiftly through the door without a backward glance.

  “I won’t be asleep when my son is born,” Erica yelled.

  “Shush now,” Florene said. “We need you calm. Pant with your pains and they’ll ease. We can’t give you any Demerol. It might hurt the baby.”

  Erica hated the patronizing words. She wasn’t an infant, couldn’t be controlled with a shush.

  Florene handed her a clipboard. “Sign here.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s a consent form.”

  “I should sign for a procedure I don’t think is necessary?”

  “If you want your baby healthy, you better sign. The longer you delay the worse it is for him.”

  A groan escaped Erica. She cut off her sharp retort and signed her named with slashes of the pen. She had to push. Hard.

  “Pant,” Florene ordered. ‘Now! those pains have to slow down.”

  Erica panted in blind obedience. Anything to help her son. She counted silently, concentrating on each number, trying to blend into a trance as Florene and an aide pushed the bed from the room and down the hall.

  Double doors of a delivery room swung open, and they rolled through. Hands lifted her onto a table and rolled her into a fetal position. The anesthesiologist spoke from behind her, “We’re doing an epidural.” A burning stung her lower back. An oxygen mask was placed over her face as her legs grew heavy. She tried unsuccessfully to wiggle her toes. Only her head and hands moved.

  They controlled her! The scream died in her throat. She controlled that.

  Erica tried to make sense of where she was, but only caught sensations of bright lights shining off stainless steel, hushed voices, the beeps of monitors, and the blurred motion of nurses.

  Suddenly an alarm shrilled.

  “We lost the fetal heart rate!”

  “OK people, we need to cut – NOW,” Dr. Klassen declared. “Where the hell is the neonatologist? I asked for one ten minutes ago!”

  Erica watched as a brown liquid was squirted on her bulging abdomen. Then green sheets blocked her view. “What’s happening? Is something wrong?”

  Dr. Klassen’s authoritative voice carried to her. “Erica, I just made an incision in your abdomen and have opened your uterus. There, the placenta is cut and your baby is exposed. He is out!”

  His words stopped.

  Then Dr. Klassen said, “I’ve severed the umbilical cord.”

  Erica strained to see.

  Another doctor rushed into the room, disappeared behind the concealing sheet, and reappeared, carrying the blood-smeared, motionless, blue baby.

  Was that Derek?

  “Can’t be,” Erica moaned. “Can’t be.”

  The neonatologist suctioned the tiny mouth and inserted an airway as a nurse started gentle rapid chest compressions. A second nurse squeezed a plastic bag forcing oxygen into the baby’s lungs as the doctor inserted a small tube into a vessel in the umbilical cord and injected drugs.

  Something was missing. “Why isn’t Derek crying?” Erica thrashed her head, trying to get to him, but her damned legs wouldn’t budge.

  “I have to sew you up,” Dr. Klassen said softly from somewhere beyond the disgusting green sheet.

  “Answer me!”

  “Calm down and let me finish,” Dr. Klassen said firmly. “We’ll talk when I’m done.” He turned to the anesthesiologist, “How about some Versed.”

  Forty-five minutes later the labor room hung with a quietness felt only by the death of a newborn. No matter how many infants slipped away without living, they left their mark in sadness. Dr. Klassen finished suturing Erica and nodded to the nurse that he was done. The nurse lowered Erica’s legs from the stirrups and covered her. The doctor by the bassinet finally shook his head and disconnected the breathing tube from the bag. Another nurse gently cleaned the baby with a damp washcloth and covered him with a blue blanket.

  “Where’s my baby?” Erica mumbled, coming out of the anesthetic. “I want to see Derek!” No one answered. She tried to see the nurses, but everything was different. She lay in a hospital room, in bed, and covered with warmed blankets.

  Florene silently pumped the blood pressure cuff.

  Erica wanted to kick her for not answering, but her legs still wouldn’t budge. She struggled to move.

  Florene stroked Erica’s dead leg. “Dr. Klassen is on his way.”

  “No one in this damned hospital knows how to answer a simple question.” Erica turned her head and stared at the door.

  Dr. Klassen entered and leaned down so he was speaking near Erica’s ear. “Erica, I’m terribly sorry. Your baby couldn’t breathe on his own.”

  “No!” Erica pushed at him, clawed at him.

  “Ten milligrams of Valium,” Dr. Klassen said to the nurse and then grabbed Erica’s shoulders, shaking them slightly. “You must comprehend. Remember when we talked about your elevated gonadotropin?”

  “You told me the risk level was very low.” Her words spat vehemence.

  “Less than two out of a thousand have problems.”

  “You should’ve done something!” A double thought flickered for an instant. Missed doctor appointments and Mrs. Green’s dry cleaners. It was almost like something spoke to her. Erica struggled to breathe.

  “Unfortunately, there’s no medical evidence that treatment to lower the hormone level will prevent stillbirth. I’m truly sorry.”

  Erica gasped and filled her lungs. “No! No! No!”

  Florene injected a hypodermic needle into the IV tubing.

  “No! I won’t sleep! Derek needs me.” She struggled, fought to be free from the hands. “He needs me even more than mother did!”

  “Ten more milligrams of Valium.”

  Chapter 7

  Late the same afternoon, Teagan carried Charlie in his infant seat from the taxi to the front entrance of her condo building. She couldn’t feel the warmth of
the fresh new body that comprised her son. Instead, the plastic handles of the carrier gouged her left-hand fingers; her right shoulder sagged under the weight of her purse, diaper bag and overnight case.

  Rain drizzled. Teagan welcomed the familiar cloud cover and enjoyed the mist, damp and refreshing. Good to be out of the hospital. Charlie stirred, mewling infant sounds. Happy he was awake; she set the diaper bag and case on the wet cement and uncovered his face, letting a few drops baptize his sweet features. He squirmed, wrinkling his already wrinkled face in an expression of pure disgust. She laughed. “I’m sorry, wee boy, but you are now a real Seattleite, and that’s a good thing to be.” The hilly, moist land next door to a harbor and an ocean provided a good place to grow into manhood.

  She lugged him and the bags inside to the elevator, thanking the powers that she had defeated a silly fear of elevators. The progress over her phobia proved slow, but after learning of her pregnancy, she worked daily on it. “I’ve done a lot of changing for you, Charlie.”

  He slit opened one eye, almost like he understood, and then closed it as if to say, so what.

  Ungrateful little piece of humanity, but oh so cute, she thought as she pushed the diaper bag out of the elevator with her foot and stepped safely off. So far so good. She and Charlie had managed to arrive home all by themselves. The solid wood door of her condo loomed before them. Once she crossed the threshold and closed it, she’d be alone – her baby’s sole care giver.

  This time Charlie opened his eyes and stared directly at her. They clearly implied, Well?

  “You’re right. I can’t stand here like a scared ninny.” She unlocked the door and kicked the bag inside.

  In the silence of the chilled, empty room, Teagan met the full weight of her responsibility. And she knew that no matter how much it cost in time or energy, her little boy would never be alone−never like she’d been.

  She crossed to the heat register and turned it to 70 degrees like the baby book recommended for newborn infants. Glancing around for the nearest place, she hurried to the coffee table, set the infant seat down and uncurled her tingly fingers. She gathered his warm little body into her arms, and the tiny lump of humanity reassured her.