THE ROOM FOR MOTHERS WITHOUT CHILDREN

Except from Novel “I am Enough”

Sunday, January 10 2010. Morning.

I’m waking up…two men in white coats move me from one bed to another, I can’t feel my legs, nor move them, they feel as heavy as a mountain. I’m speaking but not a word comes out of my mouth… Panic…what happened?!? NOBODY PREPARED ME FOR THIS, nobody told me what to expect. I always watched on TV, that when a woman gives birth, they would always place the baby on her chest, there are lots of tears of joy, laughter, happy fathers with cameras in their hands… why is this not the case with me? Why am I ALONE? ...

With my eyes, I try asking the nurse where you are, how are you, where am I. They don’t look at me, they just talk to each other… Finally a young nurse comes in and tells me I’m in the shock room, I cannot move because I’m still under the impact of anesthesia. You are in an incubator. I have to wait until tomorrow to see you.

You are alive! That’s all that matters.

After a few hours, they take me in to a room with ten other women. Most of them have a baby in their arms, or in a crib beside them. I DON’T. The wound bellow my stomach hurts too much. I’m trying to get up, I go pale from the pain and I stay nailed to the bed.

The girl on the other bed turns to me and says: “I had a C section too. First they make an incision on the skin, then on the body fat and the muscles, and then on the uterus, to take the baby out. At the end they sew you up. I know this, my aunt works here. Get some rest for a few days and than you can start getting out of the bed. I’ve been here for a week now and I still haven’t gotten up. They bring me the baby whenever I ask, I only ride up when I need to nurse it.” For a moment, I enjoy the thought that they will bring you too, finally I will see you…but…you’re in an incubator, and I don’t have and aunt who works here…I will have to get up by myself if I want to see to you.

The nurse comes in and I beg her to help me get up and to accompany me to the bathroom, so I can wash out, and then to show me where you are. She says: “it’s too early, what’s the hurry, nobody has ever gotten up the first day. And also, I can’t, I am too busy now, I will come again tonight.” I don’t look away from the door, not even for a second… Finally I see her coming in with a wheelchair. “I will take you to the door” she says, “and then you have to go in alone, they won’t let us inside with the wheelchair.” It felt like it took me a century to get up and and sit in the wheelchair with her help…

The bathroom is narrow and dirty. She sets the shower and starts the water. Lumps of blood go down my legs and into the drain. My knees are shaking, they won’t endure me… she notices and gives me a hand to help me get out. “You asked for it, I told you not to hurry”, she says. The floor is flooded, her shoe slips and instinctively, she holds on to me now. That shakes me up, but also gives me strength.

I managed to stay on my feet…I CAN DO IT, tonight I am going to walk to you by myself!

The room is bright and spacious. Rows of incubators… I’m searching for you, WHERE ARE YOU? I almost fainted when I laid my eyes on you. You’re so tiny, barely 40 centimeters… a huge needle connected with a tube is attached to the front of your little head, and two more needles with tubes in each of your tiny arms… I ask if you’re going to be fine, she says it’s too early to tell me anything. She says: ”Until your wound heals, you can stay in the hospital and visit her once a day, around midday, if she doesn’t get better enough by then to leave with you, you will go home, and she will stay, and then the visits are once a week.” My time is up, I have to leave. I caress the glass of the incubator, they wouldn’t let me touch you. I’m going towards my room… Once a day… Once a week… To go home… To leave you here…?!? What did she say to me?... The words echoed in my head.

I’m going back. “On which side was she, the left or the right side of the room?’ the girl from the bed next to me asks. “On the right side”, I say slowly…”Why?”. “The ones on the right side are those which the main doctor is not sure will succeed, she tells the nurses to place them that way so she can have it clear, on the left are the ones that have a better chance.” It was as if she had ripped my heart out… I wanted her to shut up, I didn’t want to listen anymore. I put the blanket over my head.

Five long days have passed… the women and the babies in the room keep changing, some go, new come. I get out of the bed more easily every day…”Give me water”, “Close the door”, “Open the window”, they ask from me. They can’t do it, they are busy with their little ones…I accept everything silently. Then it goes on... “Make my pillow”, “Call the nurse from the end of the hallway”, “Help me pump my milk”…and finally “Nurse my baby, I don’t have any milk, and you don’t need yours anyway”…this sentence was too much, I had it enough, I couldn’t believe what I had heard.

I run out of the room without saying a word, I beg them to let me see you again. They didn’t approve it, I had already used my daily visit. I’m unaware of how long I am pacing through the hallways, but I am meeting less and less people. It is already dark outside. Suddenly, I BREAK DOWN, I roll on the floor and I start crying, with my hands over my face, for the first time since you were born I cry out loud, I start screaming from the pain and can’t recuperate myself.

After a while SHE comes in… a young woman whose baby is also in an incubator. She tells me she’s in a separate room, in “a room for women whose babies are in incubators”. I found out later it was called, ROOM FOR MOTHERS WITHOUT CHILDREN. But why am I not in that room, why do I not know that a room like that even exists. She tells me she is a medical professional too and knows the nurses of this department, a bed has just gotten free in that room and if I want, she will ask them to transfer me there. “I want to, of course I do”, I shout out. She holds my hand and we go to the nurses, she gives me a glass of water and a pill to calm down. They talk for a short time and I’m already on the way to the new room.

Morning again. Seven or eight new faces… no sound of crying babies. For the first time since I came here, I feel happy that there are no babies crying. Warm tears roll down my cheeks.

For the first time, I feel that I AM NOT ALONE.

Excerpt from Novel “I am Enough”. Promotion date: May 10, 2015.

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