The Surrogate, page 11
“I’m Mindy,” she said, as she stood in front of the whiteboard on the wall that read, “Today is Friday, December 6, Walk 2X, All foods, Snow.” Mindy erased the other nurse’s name from the board and wrote hers in all caps, and she dotted the I with a smiley face.
“Hi, Mindy, I’m the intended mother, Ruth.”
Mindy nodded as she put the pulse machine on Cally’s finger. She squeezed the IV bag and looked at the monitor, then marked something on her clipboard. “How are you feeling?” she asked in her loud voice.
“Tired,” said Cally.
I rubbed the baby’s tiny little back and wondered if she’d burp.
“How about the stitches?” said the nurse. “Any pain in that area? We’ll check for bleeding in a sec.”
“I think it’s fine,” said Cally. She’d had a few tears during birth.
“That’s what we like to hear,” Mindy said as she wrapped Cally’s arm with the Velcro cuff and pumped the bulb till the cuff squeezed tightly. “One twenty-five over eighty-six,” she said, releasing the remaining air.
“Is that good?” Cally asked.
“Mm-hmm,” said the nurse, coiling up the tubes and placing them back in a cubby. “We’re checking for signs of postpartum preeclampsia, okay? Shall we go to the toilet?”
Cally nodded, and Mindy helped her rise from the bed and waddle into the adjoining bathroom. The baby started fussing and grunting, as if she, too, were annoyed with the nurse. “Uh-oh,” I said, repositioning the baby. She fussed more, so I stood up with her and bounced. “There, there . . .” When Cally emerged from the bathroom, the fussing turned to crying. “What should I do?” I said, still bouncing.
Cally walked over to us and stroked the baby’s head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Change her diaper?” The baby complained, as if frustrated with our incompetence.
“Want to try latching on?” the nurse asked Cally as she helped her back into the bed and straightened her sheets.
“Umm,” said Cally, “if you think I should?”
“Yeah, if you’re up to it, it’s a good idea to try,” said the nurse, not fazed by the crying. “If we can get some sucking motion, that tells the body it’s time to start the next phase, start moving on.”
“But she wasn’t planning to breastfeed,” I said, holding the baby out in front of me as if she, too, might weigh in on this question.
“At this point, it’s not about feeding her,” the nurse said. She took the baby from me and placed her in Cally’s lap, stacking pillows under the baby and helping Cally sit up. It was like I wasn’t in the room; the nurse spoke only to Cally. “You won’t produce milk tonight anyway. Only colostrum, which is, like, the thick cream at the top of the milk bottle, it kind of ‘uncorks’ the flow, that’ll come in a day or two. Maybe tonight.” The nurse helped Cally find the opening in the hospital gown, revealing the breast.
“We were going to use a bottle,” I said.
“Will you close the curtain?” the nurse asked me, ignoring my comment.
“Oh, sure.” I yanked on the curtain, pulling it shut.
The nurse positioned the baby’s face directly onto Cally’s nipple, and it looked like the poor child would suffocate. But she didn’t. She grabbed on to the breast, began to suckle, then fell off. The nurse helped reattach her.
“Should I go?” I asked. No one answered for a few seconds, and I thought about just leaving.
“You can stay,” said Cally.
“Okay.” I stood in front of the curtain and watched.
“Will you look at that?” Cally said, eyes wide like a child herself.
The baby latched on and repeatedly fell off the breast. “When she falls off, just put her back on,” said the nurse.
“It doesn’t feel like anything’s happening.”
“That’s okay,” said the nurse. “We’re learning.”
I wanted so badly to ask, What does it feel like? I held back because I’d been pestering Cally with that question all along. During the pregnancy, I’d constantly be asking questions. “How does your belly feel?” (Same, just bigger.) “What do kicks feel like?” (Kinda like stomach gurgles.) “What do labor pains feel like?” (Menstrual cramps but worse.) I was dying to know how breastfeeding felt, but I liked watching it, too. Besides, there was no good way to describe another woman’s feelings. I would have to fill in the blanks with my imagination. Fortunately, I had a very good imagination. It certainly had helped me to think of interview questions, develop story ideas, and pitch narratives to my editor. In my career, I had created a lot of what-ifs to pursue.
Finally, the nurse said, “That was a good start. We can try again later.”
“Later?” I said. “Tomorrow is our transfer ceremony. Cally won’t be nursing; we’ll be using a bottle.”
The nurse looked at me with politeness and a tinge of pity. “Breastfeeding helps the mother’s body,” she said softly. “The sucking triggers the uterus to shrink back.”
Cally smiled and closed her gown. The baby was asleep, nestled in next to her on the bed. I wanted to pick her up again and hold her some more, but it didn’t seem right. I wished Hal were here. After all, this was his daughter, too.
“I’ll let you rest,” I said as I backed out of the room. I went to the family lounge, where there was a story about a press conference given by Ari Fleischer. Something about Kissinger. I felt a twinge of sadness about being behind on the news. Hal was at work, but this was my first day of leave.
Alone in a generic waiting room, in the recovery wing with nothing to recover from.
Hal had said he’d try to swing by over the lunch hour but not to stress if he didn’t make it. All the clocks on the maternity floor showed slightly different times, but the one in the family lounge said 12:07. I thought about going to the cafeteria for a bite to eat, but I didn’t want to miss Hal in case he arrived. I stepped into the hallway, and there he was! My heart raced when I recognized the outline of his frame, as well as his casual gait. I’d recognize him anywhere, the way he strode along without a care in the world. “Hal!” I called, walking as quickly as I could toward him.
“No running,” said one of the nurses, maybe as a joke.
I fell into Hal’s arms, not realizing how much I needed him. Not knowing how important it had been to me that he would appear. This was our child. This was our miracle. We needed to be together. I caught one of the nurses watching us, watching Hal. I was used to Hal catching the attention of women. He was immune to it.
“Let’s go see our daughter,” I said.
“Lead the way,” he said, and I pulled him by the hand back to Cally’s room.
“Shh,” I said, “she’s asleep.”
“Cally or the baby?” Hal whispered.
“Cally,” I whispered back, smiling.
I led him to the bassinet, and he reached down to pick up our girl. “Come on,” he said, like a pro.
“You’re good with her,” I said.
“Had some experience,” he said as he positioned the bundle of joy into the crook of his arm and wiped something off her face. “Aren’t you a beauty?” The monitor beeped, and there were no nurses in sight. It was absolute bliss.
“Look,” I said, quietly pointing to the end of the bassinet.
“‘Baby Girl Olson,’” Hal read the sign taped there. “It’s got a ring to it.”
“Ha-ha, but honey, seriously, we need to decide on a name.”
“Not really. We have thirty days by state law.”
“Always the lawyer’s point of view.”
“Let’s take her for a walk,” said Hal, motioning toward the door
We’d been talking in hushed voices so as not to disturb Cally. It hadn’t occurred to me to take the baby out of the room. “Can we?” I whispered back.
“Why not?” He shrugged and walked out of the room into the hall, holding the baby.
I walked next to him and tucked my hand under his arm. We strolled into the lounge, but there was another family there with toddlers, and I didn’t want any of their germs. “Let’s go down there,” I said, pointing to our second-favorite lounge on the other end of the hall.
A nurse approached us. “Excuse me, may I please see your wristband?” she asked me. “Just a formality.”
“Uh, I don’t have one,” I said. The nurses had put matching ID bracelets on Cally, Hal, and the baby.
“I’m the father,” said Hal, showing his bracelet.
“And I’m Ruth Olson, and this is Baby Girl Olson,” I explained. I tried to pull out the baby’s wristband, but it was tucked deeply inside a well-folded wrap. “Can you help?”
I held the baby while the nurse unwrapped the tight blankets to free the baby’s wrist. She found the bracelet and matched it with Hal’s.
“So you’re the Olsons,” said the nurse, apparently recognizing that we were the intended parents. “Can I ask you to bring her back into the bassinet? It’s okay if you move around, but we like you to have the bassinet with you.”
“Sure,” said Hal.
“No problem,” I said, although it was a big problem, and I didn’t like it at all.
The nurse helped me wrap up the baby again. Tucking her wrist back in, she said, “And be sure to remove the baby’s bracelet before you take her home. It has a chip in there that’ll set off the door alarms if it’s not deactivated.”
“Who deactivates it?” I asked.
“The staff,” said the nurse nonchalantly. “When they give the discharge papers. But every once in a while, someone will forget and—” The nurse made a gesture indicating alarms going off.
“Sheesh,” I said, imagining that.
“Come on, honey,” Hal said, shepherding me away.
“I hate this place,” I said under my breath.
When we got back to the room, Hal put the baby down on the visitor bed on the other side of the curtain. This was a double, but Cally was the only occupant, so the extra bed had been made but stayed dark and empty. I pulled the curtain around to give us our own space with the baby. Hal unfurled the blankets and peeled off the newborn T-shirt, which was only a wraparound, with no snaps, no ties. We gazed at the beautiful body of our tiny wriggling wonder. Hal touched the bottoms of her wrinkled little feet and examined her toes. He traced her chunky arms and studied her long delicate fingers, like matchsticks, and her miniature fingernails.
Hal slid the pink hat off her head and stroked her matted black hair. Something about her hair struck me as odd, like a kitten that had fallen in the toilet.
“Look at her ears,” I said, and I untucked the tiny flaps of skin that had been pressed down against her head. “Like little buds of tulip petals.”
“Have you changed her diaper yet?”
“No! Should I?”
“Sure, why not?” said Hal.
I searched around for the stash of newborn diapers. “Look at this little thing!” Hal lifted the baby’s legs and I slid the clean diaper under, just like I’d learned at the Lamaze classes. We wrapped the flaps around and stuck the tape on the sides. “Lemme try the blanket thing,” I said, laying out the square flannel blanket and giving myself audible instructions, from our training. “Fold this part over here, then this over here, and tuck this under, and . . .”
“Voilà!” said Hal, helping me with the final tuck-in.
“Good job,” I said, and we high-fived.
“Uh-oh,” said Hal, noticing my tears.
“Yeah,” I said, wiping my cheeks.
“Come here,” said Hal, and he pulled me toward him.
I kept one hand on the baby, who was bundled up on the empty bed. “Hang on, I want to get her,” I said, and I picked her up.
“You make a beautiful mother,” he said.
“Oh, Hal,” I said, and the tears came again.
“It’s all right,” he said, putting his arms around me and our daughter.
“Hello?” said a voice from the other side of the room. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Hal opened the curtain, and we saw Cally sitting up in her bed. “How long have you been awake?” I asked.
She pulled on her sheet and straightened the blanket. “Where’s the baby?”
“With us,” I said, holding her out for Cally to see.
“Why is she over there? What are you guys doing?” said Cally, making both Hal and me bristle.
“We just wanted to see her,” said Hal, as if it were obvious.
“Yeah, and we changed her diaper,” I said, cradling the baby.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.”
“No problem,” I said, a bit irked, because we weren’t doing Cally any favors. This was our child. “We have to get used to doing that.”
“Yeah, I guess you do.”
I put her back down on the empty bed and unwrapped her. I slipped her into the pink sleeper I’d brought from Baby Gap. “Look!” I said when I’d finished. “So cute!”
“Yeah,” said Cally. “It’s a little big for her, but . . .”
“Yeah, but it’s better to be too big than too small, right?”
“I guess,” said Cally.
“Well, ladies,” said Hal. “Lordy, I’m outnumbered here, aren’t I?”
We smiled.
“I should go,” said Hal.
“Oh, but you just got here,” I said.
“Yes, and it’s a workday. And I have to get back to work,” he said. “I will see you at home.”
I put the baby in the bassinet and followed Hal out to the hall, kissed him goodbye, and watched him stroll away, waving his hand up in the air the same way he’d done on the night we met. I stopped at the drinking fountain and filled a paper cup with water. I stood and sipped it as I examined one of the bulletin boards hanging on the wall. It had been decorated with the nurses’ photos and “fun facts” about their personal lives. Jenna had a dog named Barky. Bill had a degree in computer science. Kate liked fencing and also studied tae kwon do. The photos were glued onto squares of faded construction paper cut with zigzag scissors. This was a low-budget display.
The clock in the hallway said 1:55 p.m., but I wondered what time it was in Cally’s room. I headed back over and saw new people there. Someone was clearing her lunch tray. Another worker was changing the blue pads under her bottom. I waited outside for a moment before deciding to get some lunch downstairs in the cafeteria.
A couple slices of warmed-up, soggy pepperoni pizza, and I was back in Cally’s room. She had clean sheets, a clean room, and the baby had had a bath. Someone had taken the pink Baby Gap sleeper off and left it in a heap on the shelf under the bassinet.
“Who took off her sleeper?” I asked.
“I dunno,” said Cally, and I knew she must have done it. “Well, they gave her a bath.”
“Oh, shoot. I would have liked to see that.”
“Yeah, it was pretty cute.”
Later that afternoon, a nurse came in the room and announced, “Cally, I have a phone call for you at the nurses’ desk. Did you want me to patch that through for you?”
“Oh,” said Cally. “Sure, I guess.”
“Okay,” said the nurse. “Just answer when it rings, and that’ll be him.”
Him?
The nurse carried the landline phone over to Cally from the small side table near the empty bed.
“I guess I should get going,” I said, noting it was close to five o’clock. “I have a few errands, and I’ll try to come back tonight.”
Cally’s eyebrows fluttered up and down, but she may have had something in her eye. “Okay,” she said, phone in her lap, waiting.
Then to the baby, I said in my involuntary baby voice, “Bye, little girl!” As I left the room, I heard the phone ring twice before Cally answered. I lingered a bit outside the room, to eavesdrop. Someone—a him—was calling her. I was curious who would be calling her in the hospital.
The nurses saw me standing there. One of them said, “Can we help you?”
“No thanks, I’m just leaving,” I said, pulling my purse up to my shoulder.
“Do you need us to call you a taxi?” she asked.
“No, I have a car,” I said, and suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. In the parking ramp, I decided to take care of my last remaining errands. The first order of business was finishing the assembly of that car seat I’d left sitting loose in the backseat of my Jetta and buckling it in for good. After I tackled that monster, I hopped behind the wheel and raced to the grocery store to pick up a few days’ worth of food, some ready-to-eat meals for the fridge and a few for the freezer. People had assured me that friends would bring us casseroles after the baby arrived, because everyone knows new parents don’t have time to cook. But I wanted to stock up just in case. After I’d unpacked the groceries, I assembled the hanging mobile and searched the junk drawer for the hardware to install it.
Hal came home around seven-thirty, jolly and tired, and immediately ate one of the meals I had just purchased.
“Hal, come look what I’ve done,” I called out proudly, waiting for him in the nursery.
I heard the squeak of Hal’s recliner, and soon he was trudging over to join me.
“Look,” I said pointing at the crib.
“It’s wonderful, Poppy, but I don’t see any difference.”
“Look at the mobile.” I gave it a spin.
Hal smiled.
“We’re ready,” I said, hugging Hal’s midsection.
“As ready as we can be,” he said.
“Should we go back over there tonight?” I looked up at his face, wondering if the baby’s nose resembled his.
“The hospital? It’s after eight.”
“Is it too late?”
“Well, yeah, I think so. Don’t you?”
“I guess.”
“We’ll be there first thing in the morning. Let’s get some sleep. We’re going to need it, Pop.”
We walked arm in arm back to the living room, where I had a pile of to-do lists, people to call for the transfer ceremony, the minister, the social worker, and things to bring, the baby book for the footprints, the video camera, and the tiny gold cross from my mother’s christening, which she’d given to me at mine.
“Did you remind the boys?”
“Yeah, but it’s only Caleb, remember. Jake has his tournament.”
